Search results for 'tag:Noun phrases tag:Tenses' matching tags 'Noun phrases' and 'Tenses'

Re: Lack of emphasis on NPs in ESL

Kooyeen — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:38:55 GMT

I obviously agree with Forbes: it depends on your first language. I have never had any problems with passive sentences, subjects and objects, the difference between countable and uncountable, etc. because those are all features I have in Italian too. It is not difficult at all for me to use conditional structures (= modal verbs) in polite requests, like in "Could you lend me 1,000 dollars?", because very similar structures are used the same way in Italian too. On the other hand, I know some Asian languages don't even have past or future tenses, so it's easy to imagine how much more difficult it must be for them to learn English.

So instead of focusing on noun phrases, shouldn't we rather focus on the real difficulties, which happen to vary from learner to learner according to their native language and past experience with languages in general?

Anonymous

How about this student?

<<I assume many of you have watched the cartoon "Totally spies", right?
I just wonder why it is "Totally" here. "totally" is always an adverb, so what do they imply when using "totally" here? How can it go with the noun "spies"?>>>

Heh, good question! I don't know! Could somebody tell me more about that, as a side note here without going completely off topic? Otherwise I will open another thread. I would say "Total spies", but if I suspect that "totally" in "Totally spies" is used informally in some dialects to mean "definitely", like in, like " Are you, like, coming to my awesome party tonight? - Oh, yeah, totally!"
If that is the case, then I don't think that "totally" has anything to do with proving learners have trouble with noun phrases. It would suggest learners have trouble with informal English, and if you ask me, that's true.

Re: 1)I sat on the terrace, drinking coffee.

Belly — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:39:50 GMT

Hoa Thai wrote:
Belly wrote:

Ok I understood that drinking implies a continuous activity, but it may violate with the parallelsim, may not it?

Not really! This sentence contains the vilolation: "He sat at the terrace and was drinking coffee." One clause uses the simple past tense and the other uses the past progressive tense. In your previous sentence, 'drinking' is a gerund (a noun form of a verb). 'Drinking coffee' is noun phrase acts as an adjectival component.

Belly wrote:

According to my grammar book, could isn't used in context like this. Could is used when we generally referring to the past.

I don't know what you mean. Please quote your book.

Belly wrote:

I'm with you in the last question, Hoa Thai, I don't know why my teacher corrected so. Notwithstanding, you can see my original work at http://www.englishforums.com/English/CorrectEssay/zwlkz/Post.htm. It's my orginal work befored it was modified by my teacher.

Could you show what I shared with you to your teacher and ask for his opinion?

My take:

1. 'go to (vocational) school' represents a task students do.
2. 'go to a (vocational) school' represents an undefinitive selection.
3. I am troubled by 'go to (vocational) schools' and would like to hear others' opinions.

Take care,
Hoa Thai
EDIT NOTE: I will look at your other post and share with you my opinion later.
EDIT NOTE #2: I saw 'school' instead of 'schools' in your other post!

I haven't seen that we can use past and past continuous in like that. I sat there drinking coffee. What is an adjectival component? I sat there drinking coffee, which occurs first? which later?

Yes, the original was school, but my teacher corrected it into schools

Re: 1)I sat on the terrace, drinking coffee.

Hoa Thai — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:51:07 GMT

Belly wrote:
Ok I understood that drinking implies a continuous activity, but it may violate with the parallelsim, may not it?

Not really! This sentence contains the vilolation: "He sat at the terrace and was drinking coffee." One clause uses the simple past tense and the other uses the past progressive tense. In your previous sentence, 'drinking' is a gerund (a noun form of a verb). 'Drinking coffee' is noun phrase acts as an adjectival component.

Belly wrote:
According to my grammar book, could isn't used in context like this. Could is used when we generally referring to the past.

I don't know what you mean. Please quote your book.

Belly wrote:

I'm with you in the last question, Hoa Thai, I don't know why my teacher corrected so. Notwithstanding, you can see my original work at http://www.englishforums.com/English/CorrectEssay/zwlkz/Post.htm. It's my orginal work befored it was modified by my teacher.

Could you show what I shared with you to your teacher and ask for his opinion?

My take:

1. 'go to (vocational) school' represents a task students do.
2. 'go to a (vocational) school' represents an undefinitive selection.
3. I am troubled by 'go to (vocational) schools' and would like to hear others' opinions.

Take care,
Hoa Thai
EDIT NOTE: I will look at your other post and share with you my opinion later.
EDIT NOTE #2: I saw 'school' instead of 'schools' in your other post!

Re: CPE sentence transformation

Hoa Thai — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 01:16:36 GMT

Hi,

1. Attentively, he looks at each picture in the huge photo album to search for a familiar face that he can vaguely remember.
2. Attentively, he looks at each picture in the huge photo album searching for a familiar face that he can vaguely remember.

You wrote, âI wouldn't disagree with your suggestion that the second example here is better than the first. To me, 'searching' suggests a single activity that continues while perhaps hundreds of photos are looked at. On the other hand, 'to search' suggests a series of discrete activities that start/stop as each photo is looked at. The 'searching' activity with a long and single duration is obviously more intense.â That is also an instruction that we received from our teacher. Stretch was his keyword.

Now, regarding the two sentences you asked me to give some thought:

He ran as fast as he could, to try to win a gold medal.
He ran as fast as he could, trying to win a gold medal.

First, I think the comma weakens the entire sentence too drastically. We should remove the comma. Even without the comma, I still think the first one is better because the emotion is not strong in the main clause. Rule #1, âTo unleash the power of verb chose infinitive over gerund and noun phrases,â should be applied to add weight to the entire sentence.

However, letâs use âto try to winâ and âtrying to winâ in the two following sentences:

With the loving fatherâs image in his heart, John relentlessly pushes his body to the limit to try to win a gold medal.
With the loving fatherâs image in his heart, John relentlessly pushes his body to the limit trying to win a gold medal.

What do you think? To me, the second sentence is better using rule #2, âsoften the verb by using gerund to stretch a longing / yearning emotion.â In fact, the first one does not even flow well; somehow, its rhythm changes too sharply and abruptly when âto try to winâ arrives.

That said, I think you are right to suggest that we should use the word guideline instead of rule - a guideline with a merit though.

Thank you very much for spending your time discussing this with me. For me, it has been a good educational exercise and a great pleasure!

Hoa Thai

Re: I need clarification on this

Buddhaheart — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:06:47 GMT

1. We really appreciate your giving us your opinion regarding this issue. OK

2. We really appreciate you giving us your opinion regarding this issue. Not OK

What comes after the main verb âappreciateâ is a noun phrase âyour giving â¦â. âGivingâ is a gerund acting as a noun. What precedes a noun must be a determiner and in this case âyourâ. âYouâ is a pronoun and therefore is incorrect.

You could turn these sentences into a complex one thus âWe really appreciate the fact that you considered our opinion regarding this issue.â

3. We are looking forward to your giving us your feedback. OK

âToâ here functions as a preposition and NOT as a marker of infinitive. Therefore âyour giving â¦â is noun phrase and the above reasoning also governs.

4. If it wasn't for my healing, he'd still be half dead. OK

Type II Conditional expressing unreal condition. He wasnât half dead because of me.

5. It was my talking that convinced him into believing us.

âConvincedâ means âcaused to believeâ. Consider revising the sentence thus: âIt was my sweet talking that convinced him.â or âI persuaded him to believe in us.â & etc.

6. It was my healing them that made them (to) win *won the fight.

The verb after âmadeâ is an infinitive without the marker âtoâ. A simple infinitive canât be in the past tense. For example, make me (to) cry (*cried); make me go (*went) away & so on

Help to change in phrase

Ben9108 — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:09:19 GMT

I would be grateful if someone could help me to resolve the following issues.

1. Which tense is correct for the following sentence?

Clogged drain pipe has been cleaned and resumed in normal.
Clogged drain pipe had been cleaned and resumed in normal.

2. As the limitation of typing space in a special software to describe the issues, would anyone teach me how to change complete sentence in phrases such as

(noun phrase, participle phrase or Infinitive phrase....etc) (give some example...thanks)

Re: "and" and comma

Lovek323 — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 12:06:34 GMT

Question 1
Although the question has already been answered, I should like to comment on why arise is the correct choice. The subject of the clause should any difference arise is difference, which is singular and third person. One of the fundamental principles of English grammar is that the subject and verb must agree in number and person. Thus, as the subject is third person singular, the verb must also be third person singular. (A more thorough explanation would discuss number and person.)

For all verbs except to be, number and person only affect the present tense. The -s ending is used for the third person singular and the uninflected (unchanged) form is used for the rest:

My neighbours annoy me.
My dog annoys me.

The uninflected form annoy is used when the subject is a plural noun phrase ("my neighbours" above) or one of the pronouns I, we, you (sg. or pl.), or they. The -s ending is appended when the subject is a singular noun phrase or one of the third person singular personal pronouns (he, she, or it).

Question 2
As has already been pointed out, neither of the proposed sentences was correct. A sufficient response has been given as to the reason behind the choice of a semi colon, even if it was unnecessarily cerebral (just kidding).

Re: linking verbs and stative verbs

Fleder_m@u_S — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:38:35 GMT

Hi,
They're not really the same, and no one really includes the other.
I think linking verbs and stative verbs are 2 separate categories, but they're also 2 similar groups.
They're different according to their definitions:
- A linking verb is a verb link the relationship between subject and subject complement. (It's followed by a noun phrase, an adjective, or a prepositional phrase.)
- A stative verb is a verb that expresses a state rather than action ( Differ from dynamic verbs which refer to actions).

I believe they're similar since most of linking verbs are stative verbs.
Linking verbs can be either verbs of sense ( feel, look, smell, sound, taste, ect.) or existense ( be, become, appear, seem, remain, turn, ect.)
Stative verbs include verbs of sense and feeling ( look, hear, see, sound, taste, like, prefer, surprise, ect.), existence (eg. be, have), perception (eg. think, believe,...) and relation (resemble, include, belong to, contain, consist of, ect.) ..

If you're confused, there's a small test to make sure if a verb is a linking verb or a stative verb, that is if the verb can only be followed by one of these: a noun phrase, an adjective, or a prepositional phrase, and not the others, then it's not a linking verb.

Re: eating oranges

Philip — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:31:20 GMT

User_gary wrote:
Philip wrote:
User_gary wrote:

I am eating oranges everyday in the morning.

Here `eating' is adjective (i.e. past participle) or noun (i.e. Gerund)?

What you have is the present continuous tense.....and it really should be "I eat oranges every day....."

OK, Thank you.

Let consider this,

I like eating oranges.

I think here eating is present participle. But can we say it is an `adjetive'

Here it is the gerund form of the verb, used as a noun. "Eating oranges" is a noun phrase serving as the direct object of the verb 'like'.

Re: Grammar -I

Seloc@n — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:13:55 GMT

Turkgokhan40 wrote:

............... many countries start paying more attention to the role of sports in life,many generations of youth will have grown up unaware of the uses of working up their bodies.

A) While

B) Before

C) By the time

D) During

E) After

I don't find an exact answer.Could you help me?

............... many countries start paying more attention to the role of sports in life,many generations of youth will have grown up unaware of the uses of working up their bodies.

A) While ( it is of continuous event ) in that sense while present simple , future perfect . that choice doesn't sound to me fine.

B) Before ( before present simple , future perfect . that choice doesn't sound to me fine. )

C) By the time by the time present simple , future perfect tense that choice sounds to me fine. in this subordinate clause simple present tense means an action in future .

D) During noun or noun phrase : as seen in example there is no need to use during here.

E) After ( before present simple , future perfect . that choice doesn't sound to me fine. ) it is wrong