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

Mistakes made by Chinese Learners

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:30:26 GMT

Hi everyone

I just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:

Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as rude/inconsiderate, more serious transfer may affect comprehensiveness.
No inflections in L1 - tenses difficult to learn in L2 as L1 has no true tenses and concept of time is expressed by adverbs/implicit or contextual assumptions.
Difficulty distinguishing [r] & - Does anyone know why this is as I can't find a reason?!!
Prepositions such as 'on', 'in' & 'at' have one chinese translation in many contexts, 'zai' - may be confused resulting in phrases such as 'on Taiwan' instead of 'in Taiwan'.
Use of awkward gerunds e.g. 'no noising', excessive use of verbs ending in 'ing' e.g. 'do not climbing', confusion of 'ed' & 'ing' verbs e.g. 'i am bored' vs 'i am boring' --- all of these errors occur because verbs are not conjugated in chinese, for tense or pronoun.
No equivalent word for 'the' so may be used excessively when not needed e.g. 'The China' or missed out when needed. May also be confused with 'a'/'an'.
Confusion over countable and uncountable nouns, use of 'how much?' vs 'how many?' - leads to phrases such as 'I want a soup' & 'a lot of shoe'. This is due to there not being plurals in chinese - no inflections.

Switching between 'he' & 'she' - Does anyone know why this is?

If anyone can think of anymore it would be greatly appreciated or if anyone knows the answers to my questions about gender switching and distinguishing [r] & this would also help a lot!!

Thank you in advance.

Shannon

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: Using ''need'' as a modal

Cool Breeze — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:06:55 GMT

Jackson6612 wrote:
Need sometimes behaves like a modal, for example 'She need know', 'She needn't know', or, in more formal English, 'She need not know'.

Examples:

1: You needn't worry

2: Buying budget-priced furniture needn't mean compromising on quality or style...

3: Loneliness can be horrible, but it need not remain that way...

4: You needn't come again, if you don't want to...

[an excerpt from Collins COBUILD Dictionary]

I would have written the above examples as:

1: You needn't to worry

2: Buying budget-priced furniture doesn't mean compromising on quality or style...

3: Loneliness can be horrible, but it need not to remain that way...

4: You needn't to come again, if you don't want to...

Questions:

1: I suppose ''to'' is functioning as a preposition in the above examples. Why can't a preposition be used after a modal?

Hi Jackson

You've got it wrong. To isn't a preposition in your sentences after need, it's a particle before an infinitive.

Examples of to as a preposition:

I am going to the park.
We are listening to him.

Examples of to as part of an infinitive:
I want to go there.
It's impossible to learn this.

The to-particle is normally not used after a modal auxiliary, or a defective auxiliary, as they are also called:
I will do it tomorrow.
Can he swim?
You should buy it.
You should have bought it.

If you use need or dare in the same way as the modals are used, they behave in exactly the same way as the modals:
1. You don't use do in questions and negations.
2. You don't use the third person singular s-inflection.
3. You don't use to before the infinitive.

Examples:
Can he come? Need he come? Dare he come?
1. NOT: Does he can come? (Wrong!!!)
2. NOT: Cans he come? Needs he come? Dares he come? (Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!)
3. NOT: Can he to come? Need he to come? (Wrong!!!)

You cannot use need in the past tense at all in the above way, but dare is sometimes possible in the past tense as well:
He dared not do it. (Or: He didn't dare to do it.)

Cheers
CB

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:02:24 GMT

Hi Forbes

Thank you for your long reply. I do appreciate it. I would just like to say that I my opinion is based on the knowledge I have of the Germanic and Romance languages and it is of course very subjective. I fully understand that not everyone agrees with me and what I consider easy may be difficult for some others as I have already said. However, I have given my honest opinion and I don't think you or anybody else would want me to lie on this forum? I'll add some comments.

I thought that might be what you were getting at.

I think it is a mistake to equate complexity solely with the degree of inflectional morphology of a language. I agree. I was talking about morphology only. To my mind I made no mistake. I do know what is difficult about English.

I have never studied Finnish, but I would be willing to bet that at least one of the following is true:

1. that a language with at least 30 cases has a corresponding lack of prepositions

There are only about 15 cases in Finnish - I don't actually remember the exact number and didn't bother to check, but we always
have a different form for the plural and that explains the 30. It is true that Finnish has fewer prepositions than English. In my opinion the number of changes made to words and the number of inflections cause far more difficulties for nonnative learners than the number of English prepositions, though..

2. that word order is fairly free and is used to express different emphases Correct.

3. that the inflectional morphology, though complex, is regular Correct again. Someone has said that there are ten rules in English grammar and 10,000 exceptions and 10,000 rules in Finnish grammar and ten exceptions. That's not quite true, though.

4. that it is perhaps not quite so difficult to learn once you begin to get the hang of it That is a matter of opinion and dispute. Quite a few nonnatives have said it is very difficult. They say it is hopeless to try and master the grammar from books. There may or may not be some truth in this. The number of "rules" must seem endless to some and people say it's a better idea not to worry too much about all the inflections and changes in the middle of the words but just go where people talk and learn the grammatical complexities by ear.

I have to say that I have met one or two Finns and they do seem to relish the idea that Finnish is a "difficult" language. I have also met some "Swedish Finnish" (I am not sure what the correct term is) and they all tell me that they are bilingual in Swedish and Finnish. They will of course have been helped in acquiring Finnish because either they live in a bilingual community or started to learn the language at an early age (I am not sure how it works) so they would not have been prejudiced by any concept of "difficulty". I expect that your idea that Finnish is difficult is confirmed by the fact that you do not know many foreigners living in Finland who have mastered it. This will be because:

1. It is more difficult to learn any language when you are an adult That is true about all languages.

2. Someone who is working full time will not be able to devote more than an hour or two a week to learning the language That is true about all languages.

3. Everyone will find it more convenient to speak to foreigners in English and there is therefore little incentive for them to learn Finnish There is a lot of truth in this. However, there are lots of people who have come to Finland for good and want to learn the language.

4. You keep harping on about how difficult the language is and put them off! I have spoken to Brits in Finland who say the opposite. They say they get encouraged in their efforts to speak Finnish. I don't think we are any better or worse than other people in this respect.

(I live in Spain and all the above applies to expats.)

You think that English is "simple". I venture to suggest that this is because you started to learn it at an early age and were introduced to it gradually so that you did not perceive its difficulties; you acquired your mastery over a long period. Also, I suspect that Finns are "subjected" to English in a way that the English are not subjected to foreign languages. A lot can be learned without realising it.

No. I have perceived its difficulties all right. They are the spelling and the idioms and the exceptions, for me anyway. The grammar, as I understand it, and structure are the easiest of the languages I am familiar with. Mind you, I don't pretend to be perfect in English. Actually, I don't think I deserve the icon, or whatever is the right word, that says I have a good grasp of the language. I would say I have a good grasp of the grammar but my vocabulary isn't at all on a par with native speakers. My knowledge of idioms and colloquialisms could also be much better.

Consider the following:

There is no single way of negating verbs in English. I do not eat, but I must not. I do not have any eggs, but I have not got any eggs.

There is no single way of forming questions. Do you come here a lot? but Can I go out?

True. And a third way: Who came? What happened?

It is not always easy to know when to use the continuous form of the verb. Try and explain why you can say Are you having cakes for tea? but cannot go into a shop and say Are you having cakes?

The meaning of prepositional verbs is not always transparent. John has got it in for me.

English is a highly analytic language and meaning is often derived from context:

A. You keep complaining. Have you got it in for me?

B. I asked you to bring in the shopping. Have you got it in for me?

These are just a tiny example of the complexities of English and they have nothing to do with inflectional morphology.

I am familiar with these things and I admit I make mistakes using expressions and tenses. However, I was referring to the fact that English words have only a handful of forms and the fewer inflections there are the easier it is to learn them. Using them correctly is indeed another thing, I agree with you there. Other languages have their "difficulties" too. I admit that English is difficult, at least for me, in this respect. No language is easy in every respect, or if there is one, then it is impossible to express nuances in that language.

As I said in my previous post, what is easy for some may be difficult for others. My views are based solely on my experience and I certainly don't expect everybody to agree with me.

Cheers

Re: Ing question

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:15:56 GMT

Hi KFE

Welcome to EF. You have already learned about the continuous tenses (I am reading, he is coming etc.) and no doubt you'll learn about other ways to use the ing-ending in due course.

Because there are only a handful of inflections in English, the same verb forms must be used in many functions to enable communication. In I am looking forward to speaking to you 'speaking' is a gerund, not a present participle, and it must be used because the red to in the sentence is a preposition.

Other examples of ing after a preposition:
I am interested in reading poetry.
He had an opportunity of visiting us.
He dreamed about winning for a long time.

This explains your sentence ...interested... in discussing...

Ing is also used in many other cases, one of which is the structure with have:
He had a friend helping him when he did his homework.

Cheers
CB

Re: Gerund VS Present Participle

Cool Breeze — Thu, 04 May 2006 09:44:32 GMT

Owing to the fact that there are so few inflections in English, the few inflected forms that there are are used in a number of ways. An ing-form, for example, can be

1. a present participle: a walking man
2. a noun: the beginning as easy
3. an adjective: I was willing to learn it
4. a preposition: I'll contact him concerning his salary
5. a gerund: Seeing is believing
6. a verbal noun: the correct speaking of English is easy
7. an adverb: it was biting cold

And so on. What makes grammatical matters more complicated is the fact that grammarians don't always use the same terms to refer to the same things. For instance, in the above examples, many would call number six (verbal noun) a gerund as well.

In my opinion a gerund is not a noun, nor is it a verb, but a little bit of both. The verbal aspect of the gerund is seen in this sentence, in which a gerund is followed by an object:

Speaking English is easy.

Nouns can't take an object, at least not in traditional grammar, so in my opinion speaking is not a noun in the sentence above. Furthermore, nouns can normally be preceded by adjectival attributes, but slow speaking English is easy would probably be regarded as incorrect by all.

Please don't get me wrong: I don't want to argue or even really disagree with anybody. I just want to make a point.

Re: who/whom special

MrPedantic — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 01:52:41 GMT

Swiss Jake wrote:

Do you actually say whom when you speak/talk? Your is it just a formal thing which is used in writing?

Another opinion, to add to your collection:

I never use "whom" in speech, except in parody; in written English, I use it after prepositions (by whom, for whom).

I live in the hope that, one day, a historian of language will somehow demonstrate that questioning "Whom?" is in fact a deeply unEnglish solecism, which some ancient inflection-crazed non-native grammarian inflicted on a young and all-too-trusting nation. (Or better still, a dative.)

MrP

Re: phrasal verbs

Kvinchuca — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:23:28 GMT

Phrasal Verbs, A New Approach To Learning

âI donât understandâ he said, âI just donât understandâ.

These words from a student in early 2003 set me off on a quest to resolve a problem that has for centuries defeated teacher and student alike.

My student, JosÃ© GarcÃa Bes, like millions before him, wanted an explanation that I was unable to give him. âThere is no apparent logic behind phrasal verbsâ I told him âyou will just have to memorise them like everyone elseâ. JosÃ© was not a man to be so easily fobbed off with such a glib reply. âThere is logic behind all language, we simply have to find itâ.

It was then that JosÃ© stopped being my student and became my colleague and co-explorer in the uncharted realms of the English language.

We spent around on average 40 hours a week, analyzing the seemingly impossible, I spent many extra hours on the internet reading thousands of references, papers discussions etc., but we appeared to be getting nowhere. If there was a logical approach, then the logic was so tortured that we too had to think in a completely different manner. Fortunately I had a good man with me, for JosÃ© is one of Argentinaâs most brilliant minds.

One of the principle problems we faced was the question of what constitutes a phrasal verb. There is no consensus of opinion among lexicographers and what may be described in one dictionary as a phrasal verb, in others it appeared as a normal verb or as an idiomatic phrase. English lacks a governing body such as the Real Academia EspaÃ±ola or the AcadÃ©mie FranÃ§aise, so who is to say what is what, and who is right or wrong.

In our work we have identified 41 particles, with other verbs they are adverbs or prepositions that radically change their properties when conjoined with simple verbs to form phrasal verbs.

Our studies have resulted in what we think is a startling breakthrough, and has provided a simple way to teach and learn these most used and little understood foundations of spoken English.

Each particle represents a unique part of medieval society, or events and or ubiquitous locations within the medieval world. Without wishing to give the game away, as we are publishing our findings in 2005, I would suggest you read the explanation below with an imaginative approach.

Around/About

Around/about suggests situations, actions, attitudes and certain activities that took place around the medieval town centre or market-place, but unrelated to commercial activities such as buying or selling and overwhelmingly suggest the following: idleness, time-wasting, and non-production, people who are common, badly behaved, ill-mannered, clownish, unsophisticated, lacking control and being spectators at a show.

Several verbs give a clue as to the meaning of around/about: fool, horse, lark, play and slap.

Here we have key elements of street theatre dating from medieval times that continue to be widely represented in many parts of rural England and can be seen in the performances of todayâs Morris Dancers. Morris Dancing is a traditional pastime in many parts of England performed in the open air as a form of street theatre. The dancers are troupes of men who continue the traditions of folk-dancing and mummerâs plays ( a simplistic type of early theatre depicting the struggle between good and evil, often religious in content but retaining pagan symbolism from the pre-Christian era). For more information go to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance

The street theatre in those days was ribald, bawdy and unrefined, with unambiguous use of references to bodily functions as a basis for much of their humour and comedy, which today we call âtoilet humourâ

The spectators would crowd around/about, sit, lie, roll, hang, wait, gad, and mill around/about.

The actors were looked down on by the upper-classes as vagabonds, wastrels, prostitutes and sturdy beggars, and as such subject to imprisonment and hard-labour. âI see sheâs going around with that boy againâ. Here we suspect that âthat boyâ is not someone who you would like your daughter to go about with, the inference is tacit, yet is obvious when one hears the words spoken because the inflection of the voice makes it so. This is one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, that the profoundly deaf native speakers have difficulties with phrasal verbs. If they cannot hear the subtleties of the voice, they are only left with the words, which confound the listener as they confound the foreign student.

The public was entertained by the antics of the players who often poked fun at people in the audience as well as within their own group of actors, as still happens today at many morris dancing events. Two of the most important protagonists of these ancient plays remain with us in the morris dancing teams, the fool and the hobby-horse.

The fool, armed with an inflated pigâs bladder on a stick would hit victims, selected at random from the audience (knock sb/sth around/about). Slap means to hit with the open hand to cause a painful stinging sensation but little or no damage. The fool would hit people with a slapstick, a device made of wood with a loose, hinged section. When a blow is delivered with the stick it produces a loud crack that gives the spectator the impression that the blow was hard, violent and obviously painful, whereas the exact opposite is true. From this comes the expression âslapstick comedyâ.

The fool would lark around/about (lark being a derivative of laik, meaning to play or not do work, and is still commonly used in many parts of northern England).

The antics of the fool appealed to the coarser nature of the crowd with references to ***, bum, fart, ***, bugger and ***. He may even poke, sniff, scratch, touching his victim in a genuine or simulated sexual manner in order to get cheap laughs from the victims friends and other spectators, who then fall or roll about/around laughing.

Sniffing around the crowd, the clown could show delight at some apparent perfume and conjure flowers the clothing of a victim of his attentions, or showing disgust at some apparent stench, produce a dead rat, cheers and laughs all round.

It is no coincidence that todayâs morris dancers delight the crowds by performing in the street, but always outside a pub or country inn. The dancing appears to have only two reasons for being. One is to dance to entertain and the other is to spend the money collected from the bystanders on alcoholic drink, such as beer or cider and hence the chosen venue being outside the pub.

When drinking a toast to the health of the company these days, glasses are raised and gently tapped together. Medieval revellers under the influence of large amounts of alcohol were less refined, clashing their metal tankards together so that beer or wine sloshed (spilled) out of their drinking vessels and onto the table or floor.

To slosh money around/about, now means to have money to waste, as in the wasted beer that is spilled.

Horse around/about comes from the hobby-horse, a regular protagonist in mummerâs plays and a common feature in many morris teams. For more information go to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby-horse

The hobby-horse capering around could quite easily knock over a small child or bump into one of the spectators, thus meaning to behave in a way that is both careless and potentially dangerous.

Our journey into the world of phrasal verbs has taken us down many thorny paths, with more than a few dead-ends. We have not been able to accommodate each and every verb that has been decided by consensus of opinion to be a phrasal verb, but this can be explained by the fact that the language is evolving. Many phrasal verbs are modern, such as âlog onâ, âswitch offâ etc. and have nothing to do with the medieval world, yet we have identified a common base for some modern phrasal verbs within the context of our explanation.

So if you can wait a little while until our publication is available, hold on, you can look forward to an easier way to master these demons and learn a little history at the same time. We are forging ahead and if our plans do not fall through, you should be able to count on seeing it in February.

For further information contact me at

Grammatical Cases and the English Language

Crux_online — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:08:50 GMT

Good day, all!

Read through....the question is at the end.

English cases, though no longer taught as such, are still somewhat present and remnants of the cases in Old English. During the time between say, 1300 and the present, we lost most of the inflections that were present before 1300, but some of the words -- particularly the possessive pronouns -- retained their inflections.

The four cases of Old English are:

Nominative
Genative
Accusative
Dative/Instrumental

The Nominative case gets its name from the idea that it is the 'naming' case. It identifies the subject of the sentence by name.

The Genative case gets its name by pointing out the 'genesis' of the noun. "Brother of mine", "Goblet of silver". Generally, anywhere 'of' is used, the object of the preposition will be in the Genative case.

Now Accusative and Dative leave me baffled. How did they get their names?

Accusative seems to bring to mind one accusing another. Even in Russian, ÐÐ¸Ð½Ð¸ÑÐµÐ»ÑÐ½ÑÐ¹ (vi-NI-tyl-ni) is the name of the Accusative case and the root verb of that is ÐÐ¸Ð½Ð¸ÑÑ (vi-NIT), to blame, accuse. But how does that apply to the case of a noun in the general role of Direct Object? Or is the premise of Accusative case being equivalent to the Direct Object faulty altogether?

Dative conjures in me the idea of dates. In linguistics, the Dative case is generally used to indicate the Indirect Object. The question becomes, "how/where does the concept of date intersect with the idea of Indirect Object?

Now naturally there are prepositions that require a specific case. In English all prepositions require the Accusative case (the Dative case seems all but lost in Modern English). In German hilfen, to help, requires the Dative, whereas sehen, to see, requires an Accusative object. Whereas this makes perfect sense, there are other that make no sense. This is not the thread for that discussion.

My question, after all that, is this:

Where did the different grammatical cases get there names?

Thanks!

Re: About English plural 's'

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:54:12 GMT

Pemmican wrote:
The "-s" is the most common suffix left in English by now, it took over several functions:

a) plural indicator: one apple - two apples
b) 3rd ps sg inflection indicator: sing - he sings
c) genitive ending: Jon's house

In my opinion, the -s in b) will certainly disappear sometime, it was already mentioned, that it is very often dropped already. In Scandinavian languages, such as Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, the inflection endings have vanished completely already and all persons take the same form of the verb.
The -s will also disappear in the function of genitive indicator. There's a tendency to replace it by the preposition of and the following noun in the object case. E.g. Jon's house --> The house of Jon (this will get more common also in these cases with people, not only items).

But the -s will certainly not disappear in its function as a plural indicator, I'd rather say that it will get more common as it already is by now. More and more irregular plural forms will vanish and be replaced by -s instead, also 'sheeps' instead of 'sheep' as the plural form is more probable than keeping the irregular form 'sheep'.