Search results for 'tag:Possessives tag:Modals' matching tags 'Possessives' and 'Modals'

Re: Has or Have

Goodman — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:53:54 GMT

I have two cars -in this context, "have" is a verb which means to be in possession of .
I have known John for 10 years. -"have" is a a modal word which helped the verb "known" to form present perfect tense.

She has a good job- being possessive of
She has done a good job. - she accomplished something well.

Part of speech identification

Eagerlearner — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:22:31 GMT

Hello, this is my first post here, I like to know these words
kilometer
centimeter

Are those words noun if they are standing alone ? if it's, what kind of noun it's, proper noun or abstract noun or etc ?

After that, I want to indentify the part of speech of the following sentence by using the stanford parser at http://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/parser/index.jsp
if you input,
convert kilometer to centimeter
it gives convert/VB kilometer/NN to/TO centimeter/VB

if you input,
convert 2 kilometers to centimeter
it gives convert/VB 2/CD kilometers/NNS to/TO centimeter/NN

You can refer to the tagset below, my question is, is the first input grammatically correct ? if it's correct the part of speech given by the program seems to be incorrect because
the centimeter should be noun instead of Verb, or am I wrong ? If you add the "2" as the second input the program gives the correct part of speech tagging,
is it because my first input grammar is incorrect ? Thank you.

Reference
1. CC Coordinating conjunction 25.TO to
2. CD Cardinal number           26.UH Interjection
3. DT Determiner                27.VB Verb, base form
4. EX Existential there     28.VBD Verb, past tense
5. FW Foreign word              29.VBG Verb, gerund/present participle
6. IN Preposition/subord.     30.VBN Verb, past participle
218z     conjunction
7. JJ Adjective                 31.VBP Verb, non-3rd ps. sing. present
8. JJR Adjective, comparative    32.VBZ Verb, 3rd ps. sing. present
9. JJS Adjective, superlative    33.WDT wh-determiner
10.LS List item marker          34.WP wh-pronoun
11.MD Modal                     35.WP Possessive wh-pronoun
12.NN Noun, singular or mass    36.WRB wh-adverb
13.NNS Noun, plural              37. # Pound sign
14.NNP Proper noun, singular     38. $ Dollar sign
15.NNPS Proper noun, plural      39. . Sentence-final punctuation
16.PDT Predeterminer             40. , Comma
17.POS Possessive ending         41. : Colon, semi-colon
18.PRP Personal pronoun          42. ( Left bracket character
19.PP Possessive pronoun        43. ) Right bracket character
20.RB Adverb                    44. " Straight double quote
21.RBR Adverb, comparative       45. ` Left open single quote
22.RBS Adverb, superlative       46. " Left open double quote
23.RP Particle                  47. ' Right close single quote
24.SYM Symbol             48. " Right close double quote

Part of Speech identification

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:16:08 GMT

if you input,
convert 2 kilometers to centimeter
it gives convert/VB 2/CD kilometers/NNS to/TO centimeter/NN

You can refer to the tagset below, my question is, is the first input setence correct ? if it's correct the part of speech given by the program seems to be incorrect because
the centimeter should be noun instead of Verb, or am I wrong ? If you add the "2" as the second input the program gives the correct part of speech tagging,
it it because my first input grammar is incorrect ? Thank you.

Reference

1. CC  Coordinating conjunction  25.TO  to 
2. CD  Cardinal number           26.UH  Interjection 
3. DT  Determiner                27.VB  Verb, base form 
4. EX  Existential there   28.VBD Verb, past tense 
5. FW  Foreign word              29.VBG Verb, gerund/present participle 
6. IN  Preposition/subord.   30.VBN Verb, past participle 
218z     conjunction 
7. JJ  Adjective                 31.VBP Verb, non-3rd ps. sing. present 
8. JJR Adjective, comparative    32.VBZ Verb, 3rd ps. sing. present 
9. JJS Adjective, superlative    33.WDT wh-determiner 
10.LS  List item marker          34.WP  wh-pronoun 
11.MD  Modal                     35.WP  Possessive wh-pronoun 
12.NN  Noun, singular or mass    36.WRB wh-adverb 
13.NNS Noun, plural              37. #  Pound sign 
14.NNP Proper noun, singular     38. $  Dollar sign 
15.NNPS Proper noun, plural      39. .  Sentence-final punctuation 
16.PDT Predeterminer             40. ,  Comma 
17.POS Possessive ending         41. :  Colon, semi-colon 
18.PRP Personal pronoun          42. (  Left bracket character 
19.PP  Possessive pronoun        43. )  Right bracket character 
20.RB  Adverb                    44. "  Straight double quote 
21.RBR Adverb, comparative       45. `  Left open single quote 
22.RBS Adverb, superlative       46. "  Left open double quote 
23.RP  Particle                  47. '  Right close single quote 
24.SYM Symbol  48. "  Right close double quote

Re: have to

milky — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:08:59 GMT

Incho.

Over the centuries, there are generally four accepted stages of change regarding "have":

From "have + obj + to + V" to "have to + V (+ object).

Stage 1. have is a full verb meaning âto possess, have in possessionâ (still in use)

Stage 2. the semantics of have are considerably weakened; meanings of possession and obligation or duty exist side-by-side (van der Gaaf 1931: 181-182).

Stage 3. the possessive semantics of have are completely bleached; it expresses duty or obligation exclusively. Have is no longer a full verb, but has been (partially) grammaticalized (van der Gaaf 1931: 184; Visser 1969: 1478). The order of the construction has been transposed to have + infinitive + object.

Stage 4. the possessive semantics of have are completely bleached; it expresses duty or obligation exclusively. Have is no longer a full verb, but has been (partially) grammaticalized (van der Gaaf 1931: 184; Visser 1969: 1478). The order of the construction has been transposed to have + infinitive + object.

Source:

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF QUASIMODAL HAVE TO IN ENGLISH
Laurel J. Brinton
University of British Columbia

Re: TO BE

Mister Micawber — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:25:59 GMT

OK-- please ignore all my other rambling above. Let's go back to your originals. They belong to two groups of verbs that do not take the active voice:

1) The situation is said to be critical. (this structure with say, repute, rumour, see does not have an active form)
2) These types of nouns are said to be in possessive case. (as #1)

3) These trees are not (to be) found elsewhere. The to be is optional, but I cannot use it in the active form (We cannot find these trees elsewhere); the main verb is be to, a modal idiom for futurity:

These trees are to be found only here; if they were to be found elsewhere, it would be a miracle. If they were to grow elsewhere, this place would not be unique. We are to begin planting seeds all over the world next year.

But, sorry, I cannot answer your question of why we cannot use these forms in active voice. (There are also verbs that do not appear in passive voice, and I have no answer for that either.)

Re: How to use i.e. /e.g./ for example /and so on

Jussive — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 17:47:52 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
If a student points to some construction and asks me if it's the subjunctive or not, I can't reply, 'No, it's a monkey!'

Now there you are wrong! You are the teacher and can say any dang thing you want!
In fact a smart retort like that might go a long way toward making your students realize that knowing the correct terminology for this or that word or phrase is not at all the same as gaining competence in the use of English.

It rather depends on whether you want your students to be able to express themselves naturally in the real world, or whether the important thing is for them to pass tests in which they correctly identify word groupings as "noun phrase", "progressive tense", "gerund", "possessive adjective", "pronoun in the nominative case", and other such lingo of no use to them once they walk out the classroom door. It's quite amazing the number of students who know the word "nominative" but draw a blank on "lease a car" or "repair the light fixture". It is as if we were preparing them to live their entire lives in the English classroom.

Of course, if you are making your living in an academic institution where all those things are regarded as marks of competence in English, then you really have to concentrate on the lingo, like it or not, I suppose. If so, my condolences!

CJ

I completely agree with you bar a couple of things, CJ:

These technicalities are good for diagnostic reasons. It doesn't help anyone in the fluid process of speaking English, but if there is something wrong then it's easier if there's a technical understanding of grammar and the termonolgy involved so that the teacher can pinpoint the problem quickly. Also, I think, some particular and detailed aspect of any subject may be unnecessary and seem obsessive to some, however, to others it may play an important role to their overall understanding of that subject. It really does depend on how you've put the pieces together in your own mind as to whether one particular piece holds more or less value for you in your understanding of the subject.

As you indicated, though, the students have to pass exams, and I have been taught and am supposed to teach the language in this way, whether I like it or not. Personally, I'd rather just give the grammar where and when I think it's needed and not base their whole learning experience on it.

One last thing, I appreciate that sometimes and in some sense, termonology is just that, and you may as well call some things 'monkey', however, termonology also categorises important functions, elements and differences. For example, I get the sense that there IS a good reason why grammar books tend not to categorise the non-past and modals used hypothetically as 'the subjunctive'.

...but anyway, that's for:

http://www.englishforums.com/English/CoupleQuestionsAboutSubjunctive-Hypotheticals/bpkbn/Post.htm

Jussive

Re: Is anything wrong with this sentence?

CalifJim — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:36:28 GMT

deleted by an obligatory deletion transform.
Will this work on the clutter in my living room?

Don't we all wish!!! LOL

Part of the problem, as Paco has aptly observed, is the problem of finding the missing (deleted) subject of a dependent clause, the infinitive clause "to be ... cleverer ..." in this case.

In less complex situations, finding such a subject is child's play:

"Harry wants to marry Louise."
comes from
"*Harry wants Harry to marry Louise."
The subject of the infinitive in the deep structure is coreferential with the subject of the main clause. Therefore it is obligatory to delete it in the surface structure.

But the 'computer's-capacity' sentence is a "doozie" because a couple of other factors compound the problem.

If we express the whole sentence as a noun phrase: "Harry's desire to marry Louise"
the subject of the infinitive becomes a bit more elusive. Now the verb "want" is expressed as the noun "desire", and everything else has to shift accordingly: The subject noun "Harry" now becomes a possessive "Harry's", and the result is a possible misinterpretation that the desire may end up marrying Louise, not Harry! By "demoting" a verb "want"="desire" to a noun "desire", we have to "demote" the noun "Harry" to an 'adjective' "Harry's". To recover the real subject of "to marry Louise", we have to reverse the process, and then we see that "Harry" is the subject of that infinitive.

To compound the difficulty further, there are only a limited number of abstract nouns that can occur in the appositive structures I discussed in a previous post. A concrete noun simply won't do: "*Harry's kitchen to marry Louise" (on the relevant reading). The noun in question, whether "capacity", "desire", or whatever, must be deverbal in some way. ("capacity" is the deverbal form of the modal "can" -- obliquely, not directly, of course.)

So, all in all, there are several different grammatical phenomena working together here to undermine our ability to remain sane! (Whoops! There's another! 'our ability to remain sane': What is the subject of "to remain sane"??? Deleted "we"! -- And again the deverbal is modal in nature!)

Have a nice day, everyone. Hope this helped.

CJ

Re: parts of speech

Mister Micawber — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 14:39:08 GMT

1) My little brother would not turn down the radio volume in the morning.

MY = possessive adjective
LITTLE = DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVE
BROTHER = noun
WOULD = modal auxiliary
NOT = NEGATIVE PARTICLE
TURN = main verb
DOWN = adverb particle
THE = definite article
RADIO = noun (used as an adjective)
VOLUME = noun
IN = preposition
THE = definite article
MORNING = NOUN OBJECT OF PREPOSITION; THE PREP PHRASE IS A TIME ADVERBIAL

1) She came to class very late.

SHE = nominative personal pronoun
CAME = main verb
TO = preposition
CLASS = noun
VERY = adverb of intensity
LATE = adverb of time

parts of speech

Hela — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 12:04:31 GMT

Dear teachers,

Would you please tell me if my analysis is correct ?

1) My little brother would not turn down the radio volume in the morning.

MY = possessive adjective
LITTLE = determinative adjective (quantifier)
BROTHER = noun
WOULD = modal auxiliary
NOT = ??
TURN = main verb
DOWN = preposition or adverb ? (adverb particle ?)
THE = definite article
RADIO = noun (used as an adjective ?)
VOLUME = noun
IN = preposition
THE = definite article
MORNING = adverb of time

1) She came to class very late.

SHE = nominative personal pronoun
CAME = main verb
TO = preposition
CLASS = noun
VERY = adverb of intensity
LATE = adverb of time ?

Thank you very much.
Hela

Re: to be parsed

MrPedantic — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:27:54 GMT

Hello K.O.

That looks good - here's a little more detail:

Clause 1

We - subject

were spared - passive voice, past tense

the storm's fury - noun phrase, object (the storm's - possessive; fury - direct object)

Clause 2

but - coordinating conjunction

now - adverb

are having - modal verb, present continuous

to deal with - phrasal verb (prepositional), to-infinitive

the refugees and the misery - two objects coordinated by 'and'

(I expect there are other ways of parsing it.)

The present continuous emphasises the fact that the action is taking place as the speaker utters the sentence.

MrP