Very often there is no knowing for certain. English has an extremely rigid word order and in many cases certain collocations have acquired a certain meaning over very long periods of time. If the participle is after a noun, which is the case in

HI, Tom, who is a brute, punches Mrs. Wilson in the face. In this sentence, it's an adjective clause, because it describes the noun 'Tom'. But consider this examples. I know a fact . 'A fact' is a noun.

I went to the cinema and I liked the film very much - I went to the cinema and I liked very much the film Why can´t I say the second one? The word order of the second sentence would be possible in many languages that have special cases for

Hi, Different, and hence conflictual, they are, especially in the present case, as they have irreconcilable principles. I have separated conflictual and different with commas to precise that I only refer to the former when I mention

The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary lists "myriad" as both noun ... the indefinite article "a" ... and myriad other constructions ... Why would one argue that the "a" shouldn't be deleted? If

So What's Wrong With English? 27 December 2004 Among the disadvantages of English, for example, are the comparatively inflexible word ... awkwardness of having to use "it" for what the French distinguish as il and ce . He assets that

I am infact *very* confused. The right title is "Soldier Blue" and I'm asking if there is any difference with "Blue Soldier". In English an adjective almost always precedes the noun it is qualifying, so the title

FB wrote on 04 Sep 2004: In "Practical English Usage", Michael Swan also deals with inversion ("298 inversion (1): auxiliary verb etc before subject") and posposition ... she* look that everybody burst out laughing. UNQUOTE I

Here's the first example I found in Google in which the phrase occurs with no punctuation and the source is British or American. It comes from an administrative opinion issued in South Carolina, and here it is with context: "5. S.C. Code

Thus speaketh Paul Rooney: Depends on what you mean by 'functionless'. Examples? Adverbs. That's what I was taught: if you don't know what it is, or what it does, it's an adverb. Ha ha! That's what I was taught too. I had