Search results for 'tag:Predicates tag:Numbers' matching tags 'Predicates' and 'Numbers'

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

Avangi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:27:00 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. The article is required in all of these. I honestly have no idea why. My guess is that "language" is the object of the verb "to learn," and would require an article if it were used without "English" as a modifier. To qualify for standing without the article, a "subject of study" must be one of a few very well-established courses. "I'm majoring in Romance Languages at university." Here, Romance Languages is the recognized name of a well-established course of study, as is Chinese. In the case of a dialect, the indefinite article would be used if there were more than one. Avangi
<<One - - is their own misconceptions.>> IMO there should be number agreement here. Possibly, "One - - - is dealing with their own misconceptions."
Yes, there should be number agreement between verb and object. If I followed your suggestion then the sentence would read: One of many problems faced by learners of the English language is that they are dealing with their own misconceptions. Is that what you suggested? That would be fine. I was considering "that they are" to be optional, as the gerund "dealing" may serve by itself as predicate nominative following the being verb "is." Avangi
This is about "learners." You refer back five times with "they." At some point you might remind the reader who "they" are. Eg, "these learners," "the students," something else of your choosing.
Is choosing'' used as a present participle in the above context? I'd say functionally it's a gerund, serving as object of the preposition "of." The other option, "choice," would of course be a noun.
Avangi
<<During the learning process, they should stop taking the machinery of their native tongue for granted.>> As the final sentence of the first paragraph, this seems enigmatic. It's very well phrased, but the meaning is less than obvious (to me.) I feel like I want an additional sentence by way of (=as means of, as a type of) explanation, or clarification. Optionally, you could make your "machinery" image a little easier to connect up.
How can I make the machinery image a little easier to connect up? How did I know you were going to ask me that danged question?? During the learning process they should remind themselves that the machinery of their native tongue was a long time in [the] building and fine-tuning, and they must be willing to devote an equal effort to the new language. (I'm not sure I have your intention right.)
Avangi
In the second paragraph, at first blush (=when first thought of or considered) the antecedent (=a word or phrase which a pronoun refers back to) of "They" would seem to be "English speakers."
Yes, you are right. I will be more careful about such constructions in future.
Avangi
Have you verified that "idiomaticness" is a word? Or is it a "nonce (=occurring, used, or made only once or for a special occasion) word"?
It is a proper word according to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

Congratulations on your hard work. - A.

Edit. "Why is the article "the" essential here?"

Re: in any/whatever sense

CalifJim — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:56:47 GMT

See Semantics: a coursebook, by Hurford and Heasley (Cambridge University Press, 1983), Unit 11.

There's material on four kinds of antonymy. (It apprears I misrembered and exaggerated the number -- or the eight were from another source which I can't locate just now.)

Binary antonyms. If one predicate is applicable, the other one isn't.

true - false; same - different

Converses. If one predicate describes a relationship between X and Y, in that order, the other describes it between Y and X, in that order.

parent - child (If X is the parent of Y, Y is the child of X); above - below (If X is above Y, Y is below X)

Gradable antonyms. Opposite ends of a continuous scale.

hot - cold; clever - stupid; love - hate; long - short

Contradictories. A proposition is the contradictory of another if both cannot be true at the same time in the same circumstances.

X is alive - X is dead; X is brass - X is plastic

Re: conjunctive adverbs

miriam — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:13:39 GMT

Conjunctive adverbs, or simply "conjuncts", do exist, and are different from sentence adverbials.These conjuncts link sentences or paragraphs and usually appear at the beginning of a sentence.

The adverbials Anonymous mentioned in their first post, those that tell us something about the verb (why, when, where, how, what for, etc.) are adjuncts (as opposed to conjuncts. Unlike conjuncts, adjuncts are part of the structure of the sentence (from the point of view of syntax); they will appear in the predicate. You also have âsentence adverbialsâ, which modify an entire clause or sentence and are placed, usually, at the beginning of the sentence).

Adverb: a part of speech whose main function is that of modifying a verb, an adjective or another adverb.

Adverbial: a syntactic function that may be realised by a number of structures (and even single words): adverbs, prepositional phrases, clauses (both finite and non-finite), noun phrases.

Both conjuncts and adjuncts are adverbials, only they are of different types.

Most conjuncts are adverbs or prepositional phrases: however, consequently, yet (meaning âhoweverâ), firstly, lastly, anyway, nonetheless, nevertheless, meanwhile, by the way, on the one hand, on the other hand, to begin with, to sum up, in short, etc. Even some conjunctions can function as conjuncts, as long as they appear at the very beginning of the sentence (for example âandâ and âbutâ). again, these are not part of either the subject or the predicate, but remain outside the structure of the sentence and act as links to the previous sentence/s or paragraph.

Miriam

Re: Transformational Rules and Subject-Verb Agreement

miriam — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:01:07 GMT

In response to the questions posed in the first post of this thread, "the officer" is NOT the subject of the sentence regardless of whether the sentence is active or passive. "The officer" is undoubtedly the doer of the action in both sentences, but it is the subject only in the sentence with the active verb.

In the sentence with the passive verb, it can only appear in the predicate as "agent". It is still the doer of the action but no longer the subject of the sentence.

The subject, in a sentence with a monotransitive verb such as "capture" is always the "receiver" or "undergoer" of the action, and it will change from subject to direct object in an active sentence.

If we have a look at the post before mine, we will see "The officer has been captured by the subjects", which is untrue if we consider the sentences in the first post correct. The subjects have been captured, not the officer.

"The subjects" is not only the grammatical or formal subject of the passive verb, it is also the notional subject or whatever other name you might wish to call it. The subject of a sentence is not necessarily the doer of the action, and that fact doesn't make the subject in question any less "logical" than it should be. Actually, it'd be illogical to make "the officer" the subject of the passive verb if what you mean is precisely the opposite.

The officer, whether as agent or subject (from a syntactic point of view) will always be the "agent" of both sentences, the active and the passive, from a different perspective, from that of thematic roles. Perhaps analysing the sentence in terms of thematic roles will help you see the diferences between active and passive constructions more clearly. In this type of analysis, the agent (not a syntactic function) is the doer of the action regardless of whether the sentence is active or passive and also regardless of the position the construction occupies in the sentence. The direct object of an active sentence, and the subject of that sentence in the passive voice, are called "patient" if a living entity, and "theme" if it's a non-living entity. Again in this case, it shows that places are not always what define a function.

Leaving that aside and coming back to transformational grammar, Chomsky and his theories aren't the easiest to understand. But it is important to remember that an active sentence and a passive one require different mental processes and that, according to Chomsky, when you think of a sentence there are choices you must make before actually coming up with an utterance. One of those choices has to do with the sentence being active or passive. If you decide on a passive sentence, that will dictate a number of sub-processes needed in order to make adjustments to produce a grammatical sentence. Chomsky says that the choices concerning a sentence in the passive voice are made at the very beginning, at the moment you decide your sentence will be in the passive voice instead of the active. All this usually happens without us being aware of our own mental processes, but it seems we make decisions such as subject-verb agreement the very moment we decide what type of sentence we wish to produce. In his first book (Syntactic Structures, 1957, Chomsky made the rules for the passive voice appear as "optional". Later, in 1965, when he was already closer to becoming a rationalist or mentalist, and farther away from structuralism, he saw that the rule couldn't possibly be optional and that they should appear at the level of the phrase structure rules; in other words, before the "transformational" stage.

I hope this makes sense. I tried to put it in very few words, but I'm not sure it was a good idea.

Miriam

Re: Are these SIMPLE sentences?

Clive — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:02:08 GMT

Hi,

I moved to Singapore and got a teaching position at a small college.

This is a simple sentence. It is easy to see, however, why someone might think that this is a compound sentence, since it contains the co-ordinating conjunction "and"; however, the conjunction actually joins two predicates -- "moved to Singapore" and "got a teaching position ..." -- within a single clause. The clue that you are dealing with a compound predicate rather than a compound subject is the fact that there is only one subject, "I." I don't agree with this definition. If I moved to Singapore and I got a teaching position is compound, then so is I moved to Singapore and got a teaching position.

I'm neither a native speaker nor a teacher, but this is something I'm sure of.
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/rvsntstr.html ( See sentence number 5) I looked here, biut it doesn't seem to suggest answers, so I can't comment on it.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cgi-shl/quiz.pl/sentence_types_quiz.htm (sentence number 2) I looked here and the sentence they are asking about is Pauline loves to go to the beach and (to) spend her days sunbathing. I agree that this is not compound. However, Pauline loves to go to the beach and spends her days sunbathing is compound, and that's the same kind of example as I moved to Singapore and got a teaching position at a small college.

Best wishes again, Clive

Re: Are these SIMPLE sentences?

Clive — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:02:06 GMT

Hi,

Re: Are these SIMPLE sentences?

Aous — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 08:28:24 GMT

I moved to Singapore and got a teaching position at a small college.

Oh my Gosh!

This is a simple sentence. It is easy to see, however, why someone might think that this is a compound sentence, since it contains the co-ordinating conjunction "and"; however, the conjunction actually joins two predicates -- "moved to Singapore" and "got a teaching position ..." -- within a single clause. The clue that you are dealing with a compound predicate rather than a compound subject is the fact that there is only one subject, "I."

I'm neither a native speaker nor a teacher, but this is something I'm sure of.
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/rvsntstr.html ( See sentence number 5)
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cgi-shl/quiz.pl/sentence_types_quiz.htm (sentence number 2)

I'm really somewhat disappointed.
Thanks clive for telling me about this discussion. I'm happy that my post wasn't answered!!!

Re: why participle?

Pioussoul — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:03:38 GMT

Inchoateknowledge wrote:

Hello

I saw this syntax in a dictionary.

"The predicate is [a syntactic unit] (that functions as one of the two main constituents of a simple sentence), the other being the subject, and (that consists of a verb, which in English may agree with the subject in number,)"

Even so, even if there is a conjunction, the sentence is still unbalanced. Thanks

Hi, Incho.

I presume you omitted something singnificant to the whole statement; and I get it back in order to have a clear and whole picture of your base sentence.

The conjunction "and" is used to connect two adjectival relative clauses that modify "a syntactic unit" here, so it's balanced.

Predicate Nominative

Breez — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:23:53 GMT

Do predicate nominatives have to agree in number with the subject?

Re: Could the problem be style?

CalifJim — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 19:19:32 GMT

curious why the difference in comma usage exists between introductory prepositional phrases and other introductory elements.

I don't know precisely why, but my educated guess is that verb phrases are the main driving force behind the majority of the comma rules. When a subordinate clause is placed before the main clause, a comma usually separates the two so there will be no confusion about where the main idea starts. When two main clauses, each having its own subject and predicate, are joined into one sentence with a coordinating conjunction, a comma is used so there will be no confusion about the separation into two parts. A subject and its verb phrase are not separated by an odd number of commas, though an even number of commas may be used to set off a subordinate idea after the subject.

Note that all these rules are designed to preserve the integrity of the connection between subjects and their verb phrases, and to keep different groupings of subject and verb phrase apart from one another.

That's my guess.

Some of the other rules are pretty fussy. If they produce a sentence riddled with commas which impede the flow of the reader, I usually leave out a comma or two for clarity.

CJ