Search results for 'tag:Nouns tag:Grammar' matching tags 'Nouns' and 'Grammar'

A ,an, and the usage

sunsail — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:53:40 GMT

Hi,
I know that "a" and "an" are used for countable nouns to tell one piece of item."the" is used for to tell one particular item.I wonder whether I have to use "a" or "an"?
for instance,

I started working at telecom company
I started working at a telecom company

which one is correct or in the meaning what makes difference?

Thanks

Re: Present Participle and Past Participle Tenses....

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:55:53 GMT

Present participles is just the ing form of the ver. And participles are part of verbals. In the english Language there are three verbals. The gerunds, the infinitives and the PARTICIPLES.

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF PARTICIPLES
1. PAST PARTICIPLES AND
2. PRESENT PARTISIPLES

THE PAST PARTICIPLE ENDS IN D, ED, N,EN AND T

AND the Present perticiples end in ing

Participles modify nouns and pronouns which means that they are describing nouns and pronouns and in grammar, participles function as an adjective and not a verb. Most of the adjectives we use in the english language are mostly PARTICIPLES.

example. The crying baby had a wet diaper.

In this example that i gave.. the word crying is not a verb but a present participle. WHY? because it modifies or in simple terms it describes the word baby which is anoun. ALso it ends in ing which is a rule in identifying present participle.

I hope that i was able to help you on this regard. Have a great day

Best regards,

Princess Mabs

lovingthepinksky@yahoo.com

Re: "about", "at the thought of" or nothing?

MarvinTheMartian — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:35:43 GMT

Thomas Tompion

Hello Marvin,

Do you recognize that there is a problem, that the singular/plural clash is disconcerting? For me your original sentence cuts it less than I feel rather cheap buying ephemeral things like flowers. I probably didn't suggest anything because I couldn't see an easy way out and I prefer a personal sentence, like yours, to any impersonal alternative to get round the problem.

Would you reject two sentences? Flowers are so emphemeral. I feel cheap buying them. I prefer that to your original.

Put that way, I suppose it is a bit disconcerting. Nevertheless, grammatical or not, I could swear I've encountered the form "something as [insert adjective here] as" followed by a plural noun at least a thousand times in books, magazines, newspapers, etc. Oh well, since you insist it's wrong, I guess I'll have to take your word for it. Still, it's depressing to realize how limited and inflexible the English language - or any language for that matter - really is. It's times like this I wish man had the ability to communicate telepathically. Everything I say - every sentence - feels like a compromise. It makes me wonder - was grammar invented to prevent people from accurately expressing their thoughts and feelings?

Re: What are the two 1st immediate constituents of the sentences bellow? Help please!

suggestibility — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:47:49 GMT

Immediate constituent analysis (ICA) is a theory of grammar that use sentences as made up of layers of constituents.

Example: He put the book on the table.

First two immediate constituents are (He = Noun phrase) and (put the book on the table = Verb Phrase)

Re: Sentence question. Please help.

CalifJim — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:46:14 GMT

Let me approach this in another way as well, starting from the grammar of and.

and has to connect things that serve the same function -- two nouns, two adjectives, two prepositional phrases, two verbs, and so on.

In this example: It is succinct and thus (is) very effective. and joins two adjectives (succinct and effective).

But in this one: *It adds variation and thus effective. and joins a noun with an adjective (variation and effective). This can't be done. But you could write: It adds variation and thus charm. (Two nouns: variation and charm)

Re: can the word 'happy' be a noun?

Mister Micawber — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:29:40 GMT

.
Both you and your father need to brush up your grammar.

I feel happy.

Feel is a copular verb here (like 'be') and takes an adjective complement ('happy'). Other copulars:

This soup tastes good.
You look great!
That song sounds sad.
.

Re: One of many problems faced by English learners is their own misconceptions.

AlpheccaStars — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:57:01 GMT

Jackson6612
Avangi
either "learners of the English language," or "English language learners."

Why is article the essential here? There is only one English language. e.g. I'm learning Chinese language these days. Is there any need to specify Chinese language using the? The use of the is justified in sentences as in ''I'm learning the Southern American English dialect nowadays.

Avangi, Jackson:

The rule is that articles (definite, indefinite) are omitted in the case of mass nouns (non-count), and required for count nouns.

"Language" is a count noun. Thus, I can say: I speak two languages - Spanish and Greek.

I am studying the language of the tribal peoples of Tanzania.

When English, Chinese, Polish, Russian, etc. are adjectives modifying "language", you say:

I am studying the Russian language.

In contrast, English (as well as Polish, Russian, Chinese) is a mass (non-count ) noun.

So then you can omit the definite article (the):

I am studying English, Chinese and Russian.

I am a native speaker of English.

There are exceptions: Fowler wrote a book on grammar titled: The King's English

But this is distinguishing the King's English from other Englishes (American, the Queen's, Old English, Middle English etc.)

Re: Pronoun Case. Please Help.

Avangi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:57:34 GMT

Hi, Eddie, thanks for catching my "it's." I make that error about 60% of the time and catch it on re-read about 90% of the time.

I think A. Stars answered you well on "That is he." There are two issues: the grammar issue, and the usage issue.

Re the grammar, there are various transformations possible, but to keep it simple, the subject usually comes first, followed by the verb. Here's a compound sentence: Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am. "I think" is an action verb. "I am" is a being verb. It just means "I exist." But the being verb (simple predicate) is more often followed by a predicate nominative OR a predicate adjective. I am an actor. That is I (in the picture). That was I (on the phone). (Do you know who the guy is who/that broke my window?) I am he. Both the subject and the complement are nominative, but most people use an objective case complement, "That was me." Most people would even say, "It was me who broke your window." (Predicate adjectives would be, "I am drunk;" "I am late.")
What I started out to say when I wandered, is that in your example, "That must be he on the plane," in terms of subjects and objects this is the same as "That is he on the plane," or "He is he on the plane." The being verb acts like an equal sign. "He is John." "He = John." But, just because "He" is the subject of the sentence and "He" = "John" doesn't mean that "John" is really the subject of the sentence, in terms of the syntax !
Personally, I get a strong sense of equality from the being verb, which is why I personally prefer to use the nominative case complement.
But to say the complement equals the subject is not the same as to say that it is the subject. The first is contextual; the second is syntactical.
Anyway, "That's him on the plane," is as correct as any other substitution of objective in place of nominative case pronouns.

Re: Pronoun Case. Please Help.

AlpheccaStars — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:15:10 GMT

I have always heard in conversation - that must be him / her on the phone.

Of course we say:He is on the phone now.

Grammatically, "that must be him" it is not strictly correct, since the case of a pronoun after "be" is nominative.

However, in this case (must be ***), we make an exception to this rule in all but very formal writing

Here is some insight from the site: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cases.htm

In formal or academic text, we need the nominative or subject form of the pronoun after a linking verb: "It was he who represented the United Nations during the 1960s," "That must be she on the dock over there." In casual speech and writing, however, that sounds awfully stuffy. Imagine the detective who's been looking for the victim's body for days. He jimmies open the trunk of an abandoned car and exclaims, "It's she!" No self-respecting detective since Sherlock Holmes would say such a thing.

Eddie88
However, this raises another problem for me. When there is a preposition, the pronoun is meant to be in the objective case. Is this only true when the preposition PRECEEDS the pronoun? Because in this case, ON follows the pronoun, so I wasn't sure if the rule applied.

The preposition always precedes its object, except when the preposition is at the end of a sentence or clause:

Example:

The man we bought the gift for is on the train now.

Example:

In the sentence, "that must be him on the phone", phone is the object of the proposition "on".

In the sentence, "The elephant sat on him.", him is the object of the proposition "on". .

Eddie88
2) Could you please tell me the rules for the usage of were and was? For example, in line 4 of this writing piece is it 'if I were to say...' or 'if I was to say... ' WHY?

The above is the subjunctive mood. Example:

If I were rich, I would not be living in this dump.

If I were you, I would not put any money on that nag.

Eddie88
3) Finally, in academic prose one is not to use the word that too often, if at all. Once again in line 4, the word that is used here. It sounds correct to use that rather than which. Should I use which to be more formal, even though it sounds weird?

"That" is an essential word in English and is used in formal and informal writing. Choosing which word to use is a tricky subject, and the link below has good guidance. It goes into the details on restrictive and non-restrictive clauses and when this rule is likely to be violated.

Restrictive clauses are introduced by that and are not separated from the rest of the sentence by commas.
Non-restrictive clauses are introduced by which and must be separated by commas from the rest of the sentence to indicate parenthesis.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/which.htm

Re: What does hided words context means?

AlpheccaStars — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:25:27 GMT

Hi A:

I've had a hard decision on this too. Many grammar references I have read insist that present and past participles can only work as adjectives, for example

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/phrases.htm#participle

Present participles, verbals ending in -ing, and past participles, verbals that end in -ed (for regular verbs) or other forms (for irregular verbs), are combined with complements and modifiers and become part of important phrasal structures. Participial phrases always act as adjectives.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/627/02/

participle is a verbal that is used as an adjective and most often ends in -ing or -ed. The term verbal indicates that a participle, like the other two kinds of verbals, is based on a verb and therefore expresses action or a state of being. However, since they function as adjectives, participles modify nouns or pronouns. There are two types of participles: present participles and past participles. Present participles end in -ing. Past participles end in -ed, -en, -d, -t, or -n, as in the words asked, eaten, saved, dealt, and seen.

Even though this is the case, writers often misuse participles, so they come out mangled in a syntax analysis. There is an excellent treatment on the subject by Fowler ("The King's English") Bartleby's is a great site with many reference works you can access on-line.

http://www.bartleby.com/116/211.html