Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Constructions' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Constructions'

Re: Due to/Owing to

Cool Breeze — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:27:40 GMT

My take:

The match was cancelled due to / owing to / because of / on account of rain.

All correct, no difference in meaning. This is what Random House Webster's says about due to:

âUsage.7. DUE TO as a prepositional phrase meaning âbecause of, owing toâ has been in use since the 14th century: Due to the sudden rainstorm, the picnic was moved indoors. Some object to this use on the grounds that DUE is historically an adjective and thus should be used only predicatively in constructions like The delay was due to electrical failure. Despite such objections, DUE TO occurs commonly as a compound preposition and is standard in all varieties of speech and writing.

which vs of which

New2grammar — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:41:53 GMT

1. He'd only left her a note on the bedside table of which she had not understood the content.
2. The car in the driveway which has a convertible roof is my new Ferrari.

Both sentences share a similar construction where 'which describes the noun before the immediate noun but the first sentence requires an additional preposition 'of'.
Could you please explain it in an easy to understand way?

Many thanks in advance! This is one of the toughest grammar concepts for me. It may sound really simple to you so please bear with me.

Re: Participial Construction??

Mister Micawber — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:48:42 GMT

.
Your examples are of participial construction and rightly bear the same subject as the main clause. However, participial constructions also exist outside that relationship.

With the wind blowing abeam, we quickly tacked to the inlet.-- Here, the participal clause is the object of a preposition.

Re: preposition+obj pronoun+?

Avangi — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:44:13 GMT

Anewcomer
Avangi: Hey, i know that "a boy" shouldn't use "do" but in this context "a boy" is not a subject and shouldn't use does, however if does is used in the context (context I'm talking about) " I team up with a boy does 5 subjects" it doesn't make sense at all, unless "who" is included before "does", which I already thought to be true (relative pronoun/clause) and so does the "participle phrase" (doing), which i already know that it's widely used.

Hi Anc - I wasn't suggesting you use does instead of do in your "third type of construction." I thought if I understood why you wanted to use "do" it might give me a clue as to what you have in mind. If you could only give us an example using "do" which you're fairly sure is correct, we might then be able to apply it to the case in hand. - A.

Re: unnecessary words

Ant_222 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:21:54 GMT

1 â not redundant for sure. "Dispose of" is like "get rid of", while "dispose" implies a kind of destruction.

2 â although "why" is considered undesired in constructions like "the reason why I love you", in your example "why" sounds good to me, so I think it is neither wrong nor unnecessary...

EDIT: Clive: or does it happen only in programming that "dispose" means destroy and takes no prepositions??

Verbs

ganesh77 — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:38:41 GMT

The list isn't meant to be exhaustive or carefully arranged. Any additions, corrections or further examples would be welcomed.

1 main verbs; lexical verbs (all verbs which are not auxiliaries or modals)

2 action verbs; event verbs; dynamic verbs (a verb which can be used in continuous tenses) i.e. eat, run, talk

3 state of being verbs; existence verbs; state verbs; stative verbs; static verbs (a verb which describes a state and is not usually used in a continuous tense) i.e. be, own, know

4 regular verbs (a verb that has four forms and follows the normal rules)

5 irregular verbs; strong verbs (a verb not following the normal rules for inflection)

6 auxiliary and modal verbs (which make up verbal phrases) â 23 in total

7 linking verbs; copulative verbs; copulas (a verb which links the subject and complement of a clause) i.e. It is warm today.

8 transitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that involves more than one person or thing, and so is followed by an object) i.e. Sheâs wasting her money.

9 intransitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that only involved the subject and so has no object) i.e. She arrived.

10 multiword verbs

a type 1 â intransitive [phrasal verbs; adverb particle

b type 2 â transitive (inseparable) [prepositional verbs; preposition particles]

c type 3 â transitive (separable) [phrasal verbs; adverb particle]

d type 4 â transitive (with two inseparable particles) [phrasal-prepositional verbs; first particle is an adverb, second particle is a preposition]

11 compound verbs

12 delexical verbs (a verb which has very little meaning in itself but is used with an object to describe an action) i.e. She gave a small cry.

13 ditransitive verbs (a verb which can have both a direct and indirect object) i.e. She gave me a kiss.

14 ergative verbs (a verb which can be used transitively to focus on the performer of the action, or intransitively to focus on the thing affected by the action) i.e. He boiled the water. The water boiled.

15 reporting verbs; performance verbs; performative verbs (a verb used with a quote or a reported clause to describe what people say or think) i.e. suggest, say, wonder

16 reciprocal verbs (a verb which describes an action involving two people doing the same thing to each other) i.e. They met in the street.

17 reflexive verbs (a verb which is typically used with a reflexive pronoun) i.e. Donât cut yourself with that knife.

18 defective verbs (a verb without all the inflected forms of a regular verb) i.e. modals

19 finite and non-finite

a infinitives

b gerunds; verbal nouns

c participles

20 catenative verbs (a verb that takes other verb forms as objects; found at the head of a series of linked constructions) i.e. We agreed to try to decide to stop eating snacks.

21 causative verbs (a verb that designates the action necessary to cause another action to happen) i.e. The devil made me do it.

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:30:34 GMT

As a native English speaker (well perhaps not entirely native, I was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S. at the tender age of 7) I would have to say that apart from the obviously difficult aspects of the English language such as tenses, an unorthodox phonetic system employed in the language and infuriating exceptions for just about every single rule, the two most puzzling features are the Verb+Participle+Preposition combinations and the sheer vastness of the vocabulary. Observe the former...

come+up+with

come+down+with

come+foward+with

come+out+for

come+down+to

Five different constructions which would be clear as day to any native speaker, are nevertheless mind-boggling to someone who is learning the language. Notice how they all start with "come", and then imagine that sort of illogical word-scrambling applied to every verb. Daunting, isn't it? Don't know how to break it to you folks, but I haven't even scratched the surface.

Now as to the latter, I am more than happy to have dictionary.com present proof of this phenomenon in my stead. Let's take a look at the word "jump". I mean, how many possible synonyms could there be for this word? Well, one simple search can help us find out. Here's the link:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/jump

40 entries for the first definition alone. FORTY. Forty different ways to say jump. But when you break it down, do all 40 words have the same meaning? Of course not! Nosedive means to jump into something headfirst, as in a pool of water or (if you're very unfortunate) onto a hardwood floor. To spring is to jump up energetically, with an almost almighty "lurch" (another word for jump right there :P) whereas to "bob" means to make jumping motions without every actually taking your feet off the ground. The list goes on and on. No other language I'm familiar with has such variety when it comes to synonyms, be it for seemingly uncomplicated actions or deep philosophical concepts.

Although English is my native language, I am also a nearly native speaker of Russian (I give credit to my parents for preserving the language of the "motherland" and passing it on to me) and fluent in German. I find Russian to be an incredibly expressive language with just as many (if not more) nuances as English, and its ability to convey feelings of dislike, anger or downright hateful fervor (i.e. swearing) is, in my experience, unmatched. German is an incredibly logical language, and once grammar constructs are mastered, relatively straightforward in its application. Mastering German grammar is a challenge however, and word order is an utter nuisance in some situations.

Just my two cents.

when and after

Believer — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:30:48 GMT

Hi,

It might take long to ask this question but I will try to shorten it. You have the conjunction 'when' and when you use it as a subordinate clause, I think you can use it elliptically like this:

He should not grunt when playing tennis

Here, I think a full, expanded version of 'when playing tennis' is 'when he is playing tennis'. So, my contention is that the part 'he is' is optionally and the clause would still be good. But, if I have to use this word 'after' (or 'before' as the case might be) in a sentence as a subordinate clause, I don't know if I can write elliptically as 'when' and still have a good subordinate clause. I think 'after' is both a conjunction and a preposition.

He should not play another sport after playing tennis.

Here, am I looking at the role of a preposition or a conjunction? I think 'playing tennis' as a gerund should be O.K. as a noun, then am I seeing the preposition 'after' here or a conjunction with a possibly permissible ellipted construction like the 'when' example above? I am not sure this is acceptable but for the sake of making my question more clear, I think the full version of a conjunctive use of 'after' in this case might be 'after he has done finishing playing tennis' (with the undelined part ellipted if that is possible).

Re: The acoustic/acoustics in the opera house

Hoa Thai — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:54:13 GMT

Hi Peaceblinkfriend,

I can see your interpretation that the 'sound architecture / construction' of the opera house is excellent.

However, I beg to differ. The reason is simple to me.; here are the three clues:

1. the use of the preposition 'in'.

2. the plural verb 'are'.

3. the phrase 'can even hear a drop of a pin' tells me an experience to sound not the design of the opera house.

Here is a more detailed extract from the previously mentioned dictionary:

'; } // -->

(Click to enlarge)

acoustics

Sound waves are deflected off sound panels and distributed throughout a concert hall.
(Precision Graphics)

aÂ·cousÂ·tics
n.

(used with a sing. verb) The scientific study of sound, especially of its generation, transmission, and reception.
(used with a pl. verb) The total effect of sound, especially as produced in an enclosed space: âSuch annoyances are frequently caused by flaws in the acoustics rather than the performersâ (Mel Gussow).

Re: 13. Driving by anger, John slapped across Mary,s face.

CalifJim — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:56:54 GMT

1. You need the past participle in these sentence opening constructions with by.

Driven by anger, Disappointed by the results, Frightened by a gunshot, ...

2. The syntax you're looking for is not Verb + Prep + Possessive + Body Part.

You want Verb + Person + Prep + the + Body Part

slapped Mary across the face

touched Marty on the cheek

poked Joe in the ribs

cut Tom on the arm

You leave out the preposition and the if you use the possessive. Verb + Possessive + Body Part

slapped Mary's face

touched Marty's cheek

poked Joe's ribs

cut Tom's arm