Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Indirect questions' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Indirect questions'

Re: The use of "about whether.

CalifJim — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:16:45 GMT

Are there any rules regarding the use of "about".

There aren't any rules concerning about in particular. It's a preposition, of which there are many.

The about in this sentence goes with confusion.

There is a great deal of confusion about this phenomenon.

Different nouns go naturally with different prepositions. You need to learn each combination separately.

In addition to confusion about, there's awareness of, relationship to, dependence on, confidence in, and thousands of others.

We had no awareness of the situation.
This has an interesting relationship to the problem.
They showed great confidence in their teachers.
________

With regard to whether, it is simply the marker of an indirect question structure, specifically a yes-no indirect question. Other markers are the question words what, who, how, where, when, etc. Such structures can take the place of nouns, so in addition to their uses as subjects and objects, they can be used as objects of prepositions.

We had no awareness of [the situation].
We had no awareness of [whether the situation would change soon].
We had no awareness of [how the situation might change].
We had no awareness of [when the situation might change].

This has an interesting relationship to [the problem].
This has an interesting relationship to [whether the problem will ever be solved].
This has an interesting relationship to [when the problem began].
This has as interesting relationship to [what was said about the problem yesterday].

There has been confusion about [the matter] since last month.
There has been confusion about [how this matter could have become such a problem].
There has been confusion about [where we can get more information about this matter].
There has been confusion about [whether this matter has been resolved].

Hopefully, that answers your question about whether these structures are correct.

CJ

Re: What

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:33:15 GMT

Hello guys

I'm a non-native anonymous poster. But I'd like to throw my two cents.

Children begin to learn the norm before their linguistic skills are far enough developed to understand a verbal description of what they are learning. This kind of learning has sometimes been called 'imitation', but that is too much simple an explanation for the complex processes that go on when children learn what is normal and expected in their own community.

As for the first what-clause, I would say it is definitely a free relative clause [i.e. what=that which], because it is the object of the preposition "of", which always requires a noun or noun phrase/clause. As for the what second what-clause, the judgment will depend on how one draws the line between an embedded interrogative clause and a free relative clause. Oxford English Dictionary says about this as follows;

The interrogative force varies according to the nature of the principal clause; after verbs or phrases of asking, wondering, or the like, the dependent clause is more or less explicitly an indirect question (e.g. "I asked him what he meant" = "I asked him 'What do you mean?'"); after verbs or phrases of knowing, saying, or the like, it is only implicitly so, but the sense is essentially the same, and is to be distinguished from the compound relative (= that which), which however it sometimes closely approaches, the construction being often identical; cf. "I did not know what he meant" (which implies the mental question "What did he mean?") with "I did not hear what he said" (where 'what' simply = 'that which'). [note :"learn" belongs to verbs of knowing]

anonymous

Re: Who/Whom

CalifJim — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:50:57 GMT

Let's say that you want to speak everyday American English, not write a formal paper. In that case you would not go far wrong to use "whom" immediately after a preposition, "who" otherwise.

Since the sentence initial position is never after a preposition (by definition of "initial position"), never start a sentence with "whom". In everyday conversation we even avoid the cases where "whom" comes after a preposition, so "whom" is pretty much restricted to writing.

At the beginning of a spoken sentence in everyday AmE:

"Who is calling?"
"Who is speaking?"
"Who knows where it is?"
"Who did you invite?"
"Who did you visit?"
"Who did the sweater belong to?"
"Who did you get that from?"

As an indirect question:

I asked who was calling.
I asked who you invited.

At the beginning of a relative clause:

The person who called asked for an address.

In formal writing many of these would be "whom" instead of "who", but not normally in everyday conversation.

CJ