Search results for 'tag:Possessives tag:Indefinite articles' matching tags 'Possessives' and 'Indefinite articles'

Re: suicide

yizhivika — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:11:38 GMT

Only a couple:

1. On yesterday's morning -

'Yesterday' doesn't take the possessive form when used with 'morning'; you can say 'yesterday's news' or 'yesterday's newspapers' for example, but here you would say 'Yesterday morning' (and without the 'On'. You would use 'On' with a specific day of the week, e.g. 'On Sunday morning', but not with 'yesterday' or 'tomorrow').

2. It was not an usual suicide.

Because 'usual' begins with the sound 'yoo', you would use 'a' as the indefinite article, rather than 'an'. Confusingly, if you were to say 'It was an unusual suicide', you would be correct! Once again, it's because of the initial sound of the 'u' in the word.

As a minor point, I might also mention the unfortunate mother's use of 'husband and kid ' (I think 'kid' is too slang for this particular suicide note; since she's used the standard English word 'husband', I think she would be more likely to use 'child', or 'boy', or 'girl', rather than 'kid' here).

Otherwise, the English is generally excellent! :)

Re: a girl/girls

Kooyeen — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:58:34 GMT

LOL, GG, and that seems simple to you?

Grammar Geek wrote:
Anyway, you need to let logic (is there logic in English?), the requirement to avoid ambiguity (is English not ambiguous?), the desire to avoid sounding silly (how do I know what sounds silly?), and lastly, what genuinely sounds right (yeah, lol, everything sounds right to me...) guide your decision.

For example if "They should bring a pencil in case the teacher decides to give a test" is ok and logic tells you that each person brings a pencil, why on earth does "All of the student raised their hand" sound silly, considering that logic tells you even more clearly that they don't share a giant hand?

I think we would need to use the singular or plural at arndom in those cases...
But I thought of a new "theory" because I wanted to solve this problem, I'd like to show it to you all and hear what you think:

I think it all depends on "specificity" and "generality". Specificity suggests the plural, generality suggests the singular.
Specificity depends on the use of definite articles and possessive pronouns or on whether we are describing something specific or not.
Generality depends on the use of indefinite artcles, on whether we are talking in general, etc.

They all raised their hands. (plural, specificity because of "their")
They all raised a hand. (singular, generality because of the article "a")
They all brought a pencil and a piece of paper for the test. (singular, generality because of the indefinite article "a")
They all brought the application forms to apply for the job. (plural, specificity because of the definite article "the")

...ok, I'm stuck. My theory sucks, I think this stuff is too complicated...
"Elephants have long trunks", why not "Elephants have a long trunk", since it's a general statement?
"All people who live in Beverly Hills have small swimming pools in their back yards"... how about the singular? Using the plural, it sounds like they each have more than one swimming pool...

I think I'll never understand. Maybe there's only one way to understand, but I'll tell you later.

Re: Posessive or not?

davkett — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:45:06 GMT

I agree with pieanne on the hyphen.

The possessive in the second one is awfully strange to me. Where did you come across (not 'come over') that?

As for omitting the indefinite article: offer an example where you think it might be unnecessary.

Re: Reported speech - a question

Mister Micawber — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 05:15:55 GMT

I presume you mean no indefinite article 'a' either, Elviajero? That leaves us with:

(1) unspecified plurals: 'I love cats';
(2) nouns modified by a possessive, demonstrative, quantifier, etc: 'some/my/this/those cat/cats.

They are likely to be some other cases that I have forgotten.

Re: Sentence analyze

hela — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:30:50 GMT

Hello everyone,

I like to do sentence analyses, so if you could sometimes send us some exercises on the matter they will be very welcome.

A/ Here is MY analysis:

1) She is so pretty a girl.

a) parts of speech:

she = nominative personal pronoun
is = fintie verb
so = adverb of intensity
pretty = predicative adjective
a = indefinite article
girl = noun

b) function:

she = subject (NP)
is = copular verb (VP)
so pretty a girl = subject-complement (?) (NP?)

2) He is too bright a student to study with me.

a) parts of speech:

he = nominative personal pronoun
is = finite verb
too = adverb of intensity
bright = predicative adjective
a = indefinite article
student = noun
to study = non-finite verb
with = preposition
me = accusative personal pronoun

b) function:

he = subject
is = copular verb
too bright a student = subject-complement (NP?)
to study with me = adverbial of purpose ??? (PP ?)

3) How smart a student he is.

a) parts of speech:

how = adverb ??
smart = attributive adjective
a = ind. art.
student = noun
he = nominative pers. pron.
is = verb

b) function:

How smart a student = subject-complement ? (NP ?)
he = subject ?
is = copula

4) In spite of his hangover, he got up at seven.

a) parts of speech:

in spite of = subordinating conjunction
his = possessive adjective
hangover = noun
he = nominative pers. pron.
got = finite verb
up = proposition
at = preposition
seven = numeral / cardinal number ?

b) function:

he = subject (NP)
got up = intransitive verb (VP)
at seven = adverbial of time (PP)
in spite of his hangover = ??

B/ What do you think of the following ?

5) She bought herself five pounds of chocolate for her birthday.

a) parts of speech:

she = subject / nominative personal pronoun
bought = ditransitive verb
herself = reflexive pronoun
five = determinative adjective / cardinal number ?
pounds = noun
of = preposition
chocolate = noun
for = preposition
her = possessive adjective
birthday = noun

b)sentence pattern:

She = subject
Bought = verb
Herself = indirect object
Five pounds of chocolate = direct object
For her birthday = adverbial of time OR adverbial of purpose ?

Thank you very much in advance for your correction.
All the best,
Hela

Re: One dictionary says...

MrPedantic — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:33:24 GMT

These are my thoughts on the structure...Please feel free to comment adversely.

The underlying structure of the 'normal' form is:

[article/demonstrative/possessive pronoun] [noun] [copular verb] too [adj] to [verb]

e.g.

1. 'The question is too difficult to answer.'
2. 'The goalkeeper is too easy to beat.'
3. 'That knot looks too hard to untie.'
4. 'My painting seems too good to sell.'

The underlying structure of the 'emphatic' form is:

[pronoun/demonstrative/poss. pronoun] [copular] too [adj] [indefinite noun] to [verb]

e.g.

1a. 'It is too difficult a question to answer.'
2a. 'He is too easy a goalkeeper to beat.'
3a. 'That looks too hard a knot to untie.'
4a. 'Mine seems too good a painting to sell.'

In moving from the normal to the emphatic, we make the following transpositions:

i) 'the + noun' > a pronoun
ii) 'demonstrative adj. + noun' > demonstrative pronoun
iii) 'possessive pronoun (first form) + noun' > poss. pronoun (second form) â e.g.

'The painting' > 'It'
'The goalkeeper' > 'He'
'That knot' > 'That'
'My painting' > 'Mine'

The noun itself, meanwhile, becomes 'indefinite' â in effect, a representative of a kind, e.g. 'a question', 'a painting'. You could say the 'emphatic' versions are implicitly as follows:

1b. 'It is too difficult a [type of] question to answer.'
2b. 'He is too easy a [type of] goalkeeper to beat.'
3b. 'That looks too hard a [type of] knot to untie.'
4b. 'Mine seems too good a [type of] painting to sell.'

Thus plurals and uncountables (which can't take an indefinite article, or act as representatives of a kind) behave oddly in this structure:

5. 'The shoes are too difficult to keep clean.'
6. 'Water seems too ordinary to sell.'
7. 'Drugs are too easy to hide.'

Making the transpositions:

5a. 'They are too difficult a shoe to keep clean' â ?'they' vs 'a'
6a. 'It seems too ordinary a water to sell' â ?'a water'
7a. 'They are too easy a drug to hide' â ?'they' vs 'a'; meaning changes

(Surprisingly, googling on versions of this transposed form is unsuccessful, which suggests there's remarkable resistance to it from native and non-native speakers.)

Note that if we try omitting the indefinite article, the emphatic version no longer refers to a representative of a kind, but to a specific case:

5b. 'They are too difficult shoes to keep clean.'
6a. 'It seems too ordinary water to sell.'
7a. 'They are too easy drugs to hide.'

Interestingly, there are also 'emphatic' forms with no reasonable 'normal' form:

8a. 'You are too good a cook to sack.'
8. ?'The cook (who is you) is too good to sack'/'You as a cook are too good to sack'.

MrP