Search results for 'tag:Whom tag:Noun phrases' matching tags 'Whom' and 'Noun phrases'

Re: What he said were distortions

CalifJim — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:10:56 GMT

OK. I think I understand.

criticize NP for NP is the pattern. (NP = noun phrase)

The example you asked about at the beginning of this thread is correct.

Mr. Obama criticized Clinton* frequently during the debate for what he said were distortions of his views and record by the former president.

* in the form of whom in the original statement.

Here's the skeletal form with NP's in brackets:

criticized [Clinton] for [what were distortions]

CJ

Re: Types of appositives

Grammarian-bot — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 09:55:45 GMT

Inchoateknowledge wrote:
Appositions identify or explain the noun phrase, pronoun, they are in apposition to, and modify.

REstrictive app is needed to make the sentence meaningful: The British Linford Christie won the 100 m race.
LC is needed, otherwise you do not know who won. Comma is not needed.

Non restictive: you can omit the apposition. Comma is needed.
Linford Christie, the British athlete, won.

So, it means that restrictive/non-restrictive appositions and restrictive/non-restrictive clauses have the same set of rules. But if you visit the link below, you'll see some other set of rules. I'll summariza them for you.

www.readbygrade3.com/noun.html.html function ss(w,id){window.status=w;return true;} function cs(){window.status='';} function clk(url,oi,cad,ct,cd,sg){if(document.images){var e = window.encodeURIComponent ? encodeURIComponent : escape;var u="";var oi_param="";var cad_param="";if (url) u="&url="+e(url.replace(/#.*/,"")).replace(/\+/g,"%2B");if (oi) oi_param="&oi="+e(oi);if (cad) cad_param="&cad="+e(cad);new Image().src="/url?sa=T"+oi_param+cad_param+"&ct="+e(ct)+"&cd="+e(cd)+u+"&ei=qtviRKj3GrfkRaXPxOIN"+sg;}return true;} var bdg = 0;function sb() {bdg = 1;}function ga(o,e) {if (document.getElementById) {var a = o.id.substring(1); var p = "", r = "", t, f, h;var g = e.target;if (g) { t = g.id;f = g.parentNode;if (f) {p = f.id;h = f.parentNode;if (h)r = h.id;}} else {h = e.srcElement;f = h.parentNode;if (f)p = f.id;t = h.id;}if (t==a || p==a || r==a)return true;document.getElementById(a).href += "&ct=b" + (bdg ? "d" : "g");bdg = 0;top.location.href=document.getElementById(a).href}} function anbc(id) {if (document && document.getElementById) {var o = document.getElementById(id);if (o && o.href) {document.location = o.href;}}}//-->

If the appositive is a single word, then no commas are needed. the comma in such a sentence would mean that the name inside the commas is the person to whom you are addressing.
My brother John is a sportman. (John is my brother)
My brother, John, is a sportsmsn. (John is not my brother but is being addressed.)
(Here a question arises that what if the person being addressed is reffered by his full name such has John Holmes. Then we have to put commas but then it would create ambiguity that whether John Holmes is being addressed to or is an appositive.)

Please can you put some light on it.

GB

Re: one of, neither, either, any of, none

MrPedantic — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 14:18:03 GMT

1. Neither of my friends are rich.
2. Neither of my friends is rich.

My inclination would be to use #1; though #2 is fine. The OED seems happy with "neither of" + noun phrase + plural verb, and gives an example:

3. Neither of us are the proper judges.

It also seems to be acceptable in literary contexts:

4. At length, when these two potentates had wearied themselves with waging war upon one another, they agreed upon an interview, at which neither of their counsellors were to be present. (Addison)

5. Now the reader will be pleased to consider, that, as neither of these men were fools... (Fielding)

6. For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation...that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude... (Thackeray)

And here are some implicit plurals:

7. According to Madame F., neither of the Rougiers had taken off their clothes for four years. (Orwell)

8. Stanley has obtained permission to apply personally to his friends; and, as they have neither of them ever seen him, let Sir Oliver assume his character (Sheridan)

9. Isabel was silent; neither of them had seated themselves; they stood there with a certain air of defiance. (H. James)

MrP

Re: heartily

Grammar Geek — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:32:26 GMT

I think you need to replace "it" with the specific antecedent - presumably his victory? or perhaps just his strong finish? As it reads now, the reader is mostly likely going to try to attach "it" to the most recent noun phrase - in this case, the congratulations. And once the reader realizes that that doesn't make sense, he'll have to try to figure out what you mean. They'll be able to infer, like I did, that it has to do with his performace or his win, or whatever the larger paragraph is about, but if you can avoid making your readers work harder to get your meaning, it's a good idea.

(By the way, from whom did he receive the congratulations? From everyone in town? From his competitors? From his loyal fans? From the Queen of England?)

Re: Adj clause or noun clause

miriam — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 09:44:30 GMT

Hello, Komountain.

You have just posted an example yourself!

"And I would be glad to see some example sentences (in which clauses introduced by prepositions are not noun clauses)."

The subordinate clause in your sentence is a relative clause whose antecedent is the noun phrase "example sentences".

Here are a few more examples:

"The chest (in which we keep old photos) is in my bedroom.

"I cannot find the woman (to whom I lent some money last week).

"AIDS is a disease (for which no cure has been found yet)."

Regards,

Miriam

Re: analysis of English

paco2004 — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:40:54 GMT

Petra Hendriks

Coordination
A coordination joins two sentence elements, called conjuncts. In a coordinate structure like "cats and dogs" the conjunction coordinates the conjunct "cats" with the conjunct "dogs". In many languages, conjunctions like "and" or "or" can conjoin words or phrases of virtually every category, under the condition that the categories being conjoined are of the same sort. It might appear as if coordination was a relatively simple phenomenon. However, coordination is notoriously difficult for linguistic theory to define. Although a wide variety of structures can be conjoined, not all coordinations are acceptable. One of the first generalizations regarding coordination is Ross's Coordinate Structure Constraint (1967). This constraint states that coordination does not allow for asymmetrical constructions. For example, the sentence "This is the man whom Kim likes and Sandy hates Pat", is unacceptable, because only the first conjunct is relativized. The sentence "This is the man whom Kim likes and Sandy hates" is acceptable, because both conjuncts are relativized. The Coordinate Structure Constraint might be explained by the requirement that the conjuncts in a coordinate construction must be of the same "sort." This requirement is sometimes referred to as the Law of Coordination of Likes. Linguists are uncertain as to the relationship between "sort" and syntactic category. "The sentence Pat is stupid and a liar" shows that being of the same syntactic category is too strong a requirement for conjuncts in a coordinate construction, since an adjective phrase ("stupid") can be conjoined with a noun phrase ("a liar"). It is therefore unclear what it means for two conjuncts to be of the same sort.

......

Help with English Grammar Exam (

Green_Eyed_Girl — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:23:27 GMT

I know this is a long post, but I have a final exam about this on Tuesday and I need answers. Any help will be very appreciated, if you don't have time to answer all and just have time to answer one question it will be equally appreciated! Thanks in Advance.

1. What are the 5 noun phrases in the sentence below? Which grammatical function does each one of them have?
"A reporter said the Queen's guests would leave the country the next day."

I suppose they are:
1. A reporter
2. The Queen's guests
3. The country
4. The next day
But there's one missing, would it be "Queen" and "the guests"? In that case, what is the grammatical function of "the guests"?

2. Explain why the following sentence is ungrammatical.
"Never watch I television." - I know it is ungrammatical, and I know how to correct it, but I have no clue about how to explain why it is ungrammatical.

3. How do you know which word is the "head" of the bracketed construction in the example below?
"There are [several answers to this question]. I think it is "answers", but how can I explain how I know that?

4. How might the following contrast be accounted for?
a) They have referred to the book.
b) The book has been referred to.
c) He went to the station.
d) * The station was gone to.
I have no clue about how to answer to this question.

5. How can the contrast between c) and f) be explained?
a) She spoke to the manager
b) Who did she speak to?
c) To whom did she speak?

d) She put on a coat.
e) What did she put on?
f) *On what did she put?
Again, I don't really know how to answer this.

6. Comment on the way in which the noun phrase "an elephant" is understood in each of the sentences a) and b) below.
a) An elephant has four legs.
b) We saw an elephant at the zoo.
Well, here I would say that in the first sentence the elephant is the subject and in the second sentence it is the direct object. Is that the correct answer?

Thank you very much!

Re: To whom/whom

Casi — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 02:58:47 GMT

Do you feel [the] descriptions are right?

I agree with all of the statements. IO incorporation is the reason "I gave my son it" is acceptable but rare, and the reason "Who(m) did you give the book?" is deemed ungrammatical in the following context:

Statement: I gave my son the book. ("my son the book" is the verb's object)
Question: *Whom did you give the book? ("Whom" is a preposition's object)

First, both the statement and the question are correct (iff, that is, "to" is implied in the question), but together, as a set, the question is incorrect. It doesn't represent the statement.

The question was formed by separating the verb's object into two categories, and then changing one of those categories into a prepositional phrase. Now, within a sentence, every word can have only one function, but in our examples, "my son" functions as the object of the verb as well as the object of a preposition. Which is it? It can have only one function.

Now, if we remove IO incorporation, like this,

EX: I gave the book to my son.

then there are four possible permutations:

1: To whom did you give the book? (traditional grammar)
2: Whom did you give the book to? (modern variation)
3: Who did you give the book to? (modern variation)
4: Whom did you give the book (to)? (implied "to", contextual)

Here's the formation process:

Statement:
I gave the book to my son.

Question formation:
1. I gave the book to whom? (replace the noun phrase with a pronoun)
2. To whom did I give the book? (move the prepositional phrase)
3. Whom did I give the book to? (move the noun phrase)

Statement:
I gave my son the book.

Question formation:
1. I gave whom the book? (replace the noun phrase with a pronoun)
2. -------------------------------------- (no prepositional phrase to move)
3. *Whom did I give the book? (move the noun phrase)

In 1., "whom" replaces an incorporated noun phrase. That phrase does not sit on its own. It's part of the verb's object, but in 3. it's taken out of that dependent structure and re-interpreted as an independent unit. That is the problem.

In short, your text is making the following observation: an IO incorporated phrase is not treated as an independent unit.

Re: To whom/whom

paco2004 — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 02:06:28 GMT

Hello guys

I'm still stuck in the mud of this problem. Please help me to get me out from the tangle. Let me write what my E-J dictionary says about the usage of the ditransitive 'give'.

Taishukan's "Genius E-J Dictionary" pp 788.
Give IO DO versus Give DO to IO
(1) "I gave John the book" and "I gave the book to John" are almost the same in meaning, but DO ('the book') is somewhat emphasized (or focused) in the former, and IO('John') in the latter.
(2) In the case both of the objects are pronouns, "I gave it to him" is more common, though some grammarians say "I gave him it" is also acceptable.
(3) When DO is a pronoun and IO is a noun phrase, choose 'Give DO to IO'. "I gave it to my son" not "I gave my son it"
(4) 'Give IO DO' cannot be changed into a wh-question with "who(m)" as IO: (x) "Who(m) did you give the book?". In this case use 'Give DO to IO': "Who(m) did you give the book to?" or "To who(m) did you give the book?"
(5) passivization: "I was given the book" (OK), "The book was given to me"(OK), "The book was given me"(could be grammatical but rarely heard).

Do you feel all these descriptions are right?

Re: Someone and me

anon1 — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:43:33 GMT

Hi Mask,

"I am taller than him."

You might find the following page interesting "than", as it discusses your point.

PREPOSITION: Usage Problem In comparison or contrast with: could run faster than him; outclassed everyone other than her.

USAGE NOTE: Since the 18th century grammarians have insisted that than should be regarded as a conjunction in all its uses, so that a sentence such as Bill is taller than Tom should be construed as an elliptical version of the sentence Bill is taller than Tom is. According to this view, the case of a pronoun following than is determined by whether the pronoun serves as the subject or object of the verb that is âunderstood.â Thus, the standard rule requires Pat is taller than I (not me) on the assumption that this sentence is elliptical for Pat is taller than I am but allows The news surprised Pat more than me, since this sentence is taken as elliptical for The news surprised Pat more than it surprised me. However, than is quite commonly treated as a preposition when followed by an isolated noun phrase, and as such occurs with a pronoun in the objective case: John is taller than me. Though this usage is still widely regarded as incorrect, it is predominant in speech and has reputable literary precedent, appearing in the writing of such respected authors as Shakespeare, Johnson, Swift, Scott, and Faulkner. It is also consistent with the fact that than is clearly treated as a preposition in the than whom construction, as in a poet than whom (not than who) no one has a dearer place in the hearts of his countrymen. Still, the writer who risks a sentence like Mary is taller than him in formal writing must be prepared to defend the usage against objections of critics who are unlikely to be dissuaded from the conviction that the usage is incorrect.

I don't understand your argument for "and" being a preposition.

"And" is a conjunction, used to connect words, phrases, or clauses that have the same grammatical function in a construction.

Hope that helps.