Search results for 'tag:Regards tag:Accusative' matching tags 'Regards' and 'Accusative'

Re: About the meaning of "where"

Velimir — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:56:07 GMT

Hello again,

Unfortunately,I've put one part in my previous post wrongly.Sorry for that.It would be correct to use the preposition "toward" in the following part:

"But,if the verb indicates motion,or in plain english,if you are :going toward, flying toward, traveling toward.."

What I've stated after that would be true now,i.e the following noun will be in the dative case.But,if the stress is on the final destination of flying,traveling,going..then the following noun will be in the accusative case,necessarily preceded with the preposition "to".(the preposition "to" perfectly match serbian "za",as attendant to the verbs of motion).
Although the case of a noun is influenced by the verb,modifying adjective(and its case),number(and its case)and gender of that noun,the case of the noun is most heavily influenced by the preceding preposition,if it is present.If the noun is not preceded with a preposition then other factors will determine the case of the noun.The importance of the preposition is apparent in the following example:

I arrived in London. - the noun "London" is in the accusative case

I arrived from London. - the noun "London" is in the genitive case

I suppose that it would require serious contemplation to explain all aspects of the "case" in any language,and additional comparison with english would make it really painful.

Best regards

Re: About the meaning of "where"

Velimir — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:11:58 GMT

I'll try to give some information on this as a non-professional.This is how it looks like in the serbian language,and I suppose,it is very similar in all other slavic languages and also the latin language.

For indicating a location the locative case of a noun is used.If the english language had similar declension of nouns then the nouns following the prepositions "in" and "at" would be in the locative case.The presence of the preceding preposition is obligatory when the noun is in the locative case.

But,if the verb indicates motion,or in plain english,if you are :
going to, flying to, traveling to..

like in the question given in the opening post,then the noun will be in the dative case.This case you can connect with the nouns following the preposition "to" although the preposition is not necessarily present.The word "dative" derives from latin "dare" which means "to give" and the usage is most obvious on the example of that verb:

I gave my girlfriend a flower.

If you translated this in serbian,"girlfriend" would be in the dative case.Indirect object is in the dative case.The direct object ("a flower") is in the accusative case.

"Cases play a major part in determining a noun's syntactic role in the sentence, so word order is not as important in Latin as it is in other languages, such as English. Because of noun cases, words can often be moved around in a sentence without significantly altering its meaning, though the emphasis will have altered" (from a Wikipedia article on the latin language)
Btw,changing nouns,adjectives,pronouns and numbers to different cases is pretty tough area of the language with more cases,and is often lifelong mistery for many natives,and I know that well.Luckily,english is not a case-sensitive language.

Best regards

more phrasal verbs decoded

Kvinchuca — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:52:00 GMT

At explained

The particle at appears to be the goal or objective of opportunists who attempt to take advantage whenever possible. Some verbs show an endeavour to do something by the subject but we do not know if the attempt was successful or the goal was attained. The objects of some verbs are close to the subject, being within arms reach or at a distance that can be covered by a leap.

The particle is always followed by the accusative which denotes the importance of the object, or goal.

Because there is much effort in trying to accomplish something but no evidence of it being successful, there is a feeling that the subject is somebody who has not quite mastered the art of his craft, rather like an apprentice. So we can think of at as being more to do with adolescents rather than more mature and proficient adults.

There is much rough and tumble, grabbing, grasping, snatching, with sudden attacking, leaping, jumping, flinging, throwing, and flying at the target or objective, verbs that are aggressive in nature. Therefore who are these aggressive apprentices?

During the Middle Ages, vassals, who were people who swore allegiance to a nobleman in return for land, would send their sons to the lordâs castle at the age of seven, where they lived as a page to the noble family, this being the first stage in their preparation to be a knight.

For the next seven years, the child was brought up by the women of the household, helping in the kitchens, serving at the table and being taught how to behave. At fourteen the page became an esquire. During the next seven years, the esquire (or squire) was educated in all aspects of combat and warfare becoming a master of fighting on foot or on horseback proficient in the use of sword and shield, mace, axe and lance. Training daily with these weapons, the young adolescent developed a strong physique and stamina. When not training for combat his duties were to serve his knight, look after the knight's armour and weapons and accompany him to tournaments acting as the knightâs personal assistant.

Though strong and formidable combatants, they were still adolescents and had all the traits of juvenile behaviour. Groups of these young men who accompanied their knights to the tournaments very often became a source of trouble, picking fights with the esquires of other knights, or even fighting amongst themselves. The tournaments were very popular and drew large crowds, knights and esquires from all parts of the country and even abroad.

These juveniles were a serious problem, clashes between opposing groups resulted in death and injury, not only amongst themselves but also amongst the local populace. The breakdown of law and order, pillaging, raping and deaths were so common, that in 1260 King Richard the First issued the Statute of Arms. This was a law that restricted any knight attending a tournament to a maximum of three squires. The squires were required by law to wear the badge of their knight, so that they could be identified. The statute also declared that:

âââ¦no Knight or Esquire serving at the Tournament, shall bear a sword pointed, or Dagger pointed, or Staff or Mace, but only a broad sword for tourneyingâ.

Failing to obey the statute meant the forfeiture of horse and harness, arms and armour and three or more years in the dungeon.

This shows how problematic and out of control these young men were; anyone familiar with the world of football hooligans will see exactly what we are talking about.

There are several verbs meaning to âsuddenly attackâ.

To come at sb means to move in the direction of sb as if to attack them as in fly at sb, go at sb.

There are attempts to take hold of something, the movement is sudden, as if on impulse, eg. to grab, grasp leap, snatch, and throw. These suggest a melee, rather like a scrum in the game of rugby and the particle with several verbs are synonymous with the verb âto tackleâ as in rugby (which is the action of one player throwing himself at an opposite team member who has got the ball, his arms locked around the legs, in order to bring him to the ground). Throw yourself at sth, and go at sth, meaning to start to do sth such as a job or difficult task, working hard to do it and getting the job finished.

There is opportunism, as in jump at sth, leap at sth and snatch at sth , meaning to accept an opportunity with enthusiasm. To stick at sth meaning to work in a determined way, tackling the problem until it has been overcome.

Although there is an element of surprise, the surprise is always on the part of the victim, who has been assessed as a possible easy target by the attacker. Examples are look at sth meaning to closely examine, think or consider about sth, and to put sth at sth, meaning to estimate the age or weight etc. of sth. In this case the âsthâ is the target to be attacked. After looking at and putting sth at sth, the attacker can decide whether the target or victim will be easily overcome. If, because of the age, weight, size and probable fighting ability of the examined target is rather too much of a challenge, the young squire would go in search of an easier target.

The knight was a mature and accomplished suitor, with refined powers of seduction, the esquire however was a juvenile lacking in his masterâs polished skills of love. Therefore we have fling and throw oneself at sb, a clumsy attempt at seduction, with the result that other squires would laugh at him. A successful squire who managed to attract his desired maiden, could have received a knowing look from a fellow esquire, who would wink at his advances. Likewise, to wink at sth is to show acknowledgement of sth that sb has done that is illegal, or for the squire, perhaps a breach of the code of chivalry.

The squire could be criticised for behaving badly by his knight who would talk at him, or level sth at him, thus giving the squire a cause to worry at sth, being anxious or preoccupied about some problem or the future outcome of a passed misdemeanour.

Play, to act as if you are, or to pretend to be, when used with at suggests the horse-play of the squires in a rough and tumble, but without any serious

intent to cause injury.

With peck, pick and sniff at sth, we can see the young squire who is accustomed to eating fine food from his masterâs table, showing distaste at food not cooked to his liking.

Kind regards and merry Christmas from Kevin chuca.

Re: Inferior dialects?

Randy_Tam — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:16:07 GMT

MrPedantic wrote:

What are we to make of the fact that adult native speakers often "self-prescriptivise"?

Example:

"Oh, hello, MrP. MissQ was just telling Randy and me â Randy and I â about L1 acquisition."

MrP

I read your question wrong... oops.

Um, I think that does not resemble 'self - prescriptivism' at all, at least according to my definition thereof. It is, nevertheless, an instance showing an L1 speaker having the tendency to correct himself of speech errors. That he generates a nominative, instead of accusative at the objective A - position (tell sbd, that 'sbd' is the 'Object') is inexplicable with UG, except with a more careful examination as to whether, when the speaker was acquiring the language, he was given sufficient evidence as to the fact that English has an explicit accusative 1st person form. If he was not, then he would treat that inflection as a covert one, resembling the invisible case system in Chinese. If I say 'I love him' in Chinese:

(i) ææä»

without regard to the grammaticality of the translation, the clause can be roughly translated as:

(i) I love he

in which the verb is constant (Chinese verbs do not have tense morphology) and the case is covert (ie. no inflectional morphology).

If he constantly generates a nominative at objective A - position, then he has already acquired the setting that English does not have morphological case for the singular 1st person pronoun. It does not, therefore, amount to prescriptivism, but actually the acquisition of a (perhaps new?) variant of English case morphology.

Re: To whom/whom

Casi — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 03:46:47 GMT

So I think we had better suspend this discussion for a while. Couldn't you agree?

Yes. I couldn't agree more. (try, "Wouldn't you agree?")

On a closing note, then, I'd like to add that I see your point quite clearly now:

[Native speakers] take "whom" only as a question word for DO (accusative objects). So when they want to make a wh-question in regard to an object which should be overtly dative, they have to use 'to who(m)' instead of 'who(m)'.

Yes. That's a good observation on your part, Paco, and it's true. "whom" is accusative/objective, and it's found in the pre-positional phrase "to whom":

whom1 (object)
EX: I gave the book to whom? => Who did I give the book to?

whom2 ("to" absorption)
EX: I gave whom the book? => *Whom did I give the book?

All the best,

Re: To whom/whom

paco2004 — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:47:41 GMT

Casi

Thank you again as usual.

As to explaining the difference between the constructs of SVOO and SVO to O, the Chomskian theory is someway persuasive (I have learned the theory through the online resources given by Professor Beatrice Santorini at Pennsylvania University). But I don't think the theory can give us a definite answer to the question why we cannot to construct a wh-interrogative like "Who(m) did you give the book". Sounds you talked something about it, but I'm sorry I have to say I cannot understand you, My answer to the question is very simple: English speaking people don't have a notion that 'who(m)' can function as a question word for IO, namely, dative objects. They take it [='who(m)'] only as a question word for DO (accusative objects). So when they want to make a wh-question in regard to an object which should be overtly dative, they have to use 'to who(m)' instead of 'who(m)'.

Casi, I think we have discussed a lot about this issue. It was a great discussion thanks to you. I really appreciate it. But I don't think we could get immediately to a complete agreement even if we continue this discussion further. So I think we had better suspend this discussion for a while. Couldn't you agree?

paco

Re: To whom/whom

paco2004 — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 00:31:56 GMT

Hi MrP

Yeah I agree to your view that the double objects construction had been established when case inflection was still retained English. I guess you are rather special in linguistic sense. I'm a little doubtful of common English speakers in the sense of differentiating objects into dative and accusative. In this regard I am interested in what way an English speaking child acquires the meaning of "Mom gave me this book" My guess is like this:"I wanted this book and mom gave me this book and now it is my book" I feel English speaking children first acquire the meaning of the double objects construction by the result that the book came to be under their possession.

paco

Search results for 'tag:Regards tag:Accusative' matching tags 'Regards' and 'Accusative'

Re: About the meaning of "where"

Re: About the meaning of &quot;where&quot;

more phrasal verbs decoded

Re: Inferior dialects?

Re: To whom/whom

Re: To whom/whom

Re: To whom/whom

Re: About the meaning of "where"