Search results for 'tag:Word order tag:English grammar' matching tags 'Word order' and 'English grammar'

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: Relative Clauses and Indirect Questions

Cool Breeze — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:19:32 GMT

Clive wrote:
The bottom line, of course, is that any of these systems is OK as long as it provides a tool that someone finds useful in learning to speak good English.

Would you call this a relative clause? I don't know where the pen is. What would you say it relates to?

When I asked this, I thought you might reply that it relates to the term or idea of 'a location'. You surprised me by answering in my grammar the clause in bold is an indirect question, not a relative clause. I don't see it as any kind of question at all. Would you also see I know where the pen is as an indirect question? If not, then what would you call it and what would it relate to?

I learned a grammar that includes categorizing clauses as noun clauses, adverbial clauses and adjectival clauses. That seems helpful to me, because it allows me to say things like this. In the sentence Mary likes cake, you can replace 'cake' by another noun, by a gerund or by a noun clause. In other words, you can use a noun-equivalent as the object. If I just talk about relative clauses, I can't say this so simply, because some kinds of relative clauses can fit as objects and others can't. eg I can't say Mary likes which is chocolate-flavoured. So, I assume that there is some way to differentiate between types of relative clauses in that style of grammar?

Hi Clive

I trust you have returned home with a refreshed mind and full of eagerness to get back to "work" on EnglishForums. I agree with you 110 percent: grammar and grammatical terminology and definitions are just a tool, and if a tool works for a person, the tool is good enough for him. I am actually not particularly interested in academic grammatical nuances. I'm very pragmatic in my attitude to grammar.

With regard to I don't know where the pen is: yes, of course where indicates a location, but that is self-evident to me and I wasn't taught to analyze language using such terms. And indeed, I was taught to consider where the pen is an indirect question even in a sentence like I know where the pen is. Of course no one is asking anything in the sentence; the term "indirect question" is just grammatical and stems from the word order. The point for me (ages ago) was to learn not to say I know where is the pen, and thus I arrived at the correct word order even though the term "indirect question" made me wonder about the logic of grammar in those early days.

I'm sure there are other terms that describe the clause with better logic but I don't want to adopt new terms for it. That might cause linguistic confusion in my head because everything relates to everything in language - or languages - and English grammar isn't the only grammar I deal with. At the moment, I think, I have everything sufficiently correctly pigeonholed in the area of my brain reserved for grammar.

I think I'll get a headache if I dig deeper into noun clauses, adverbial clauses and whatever you mention in your post because I am not used to these terms at all. I'm sure they are helpful and good but I have never used them.

I sometimes mention grammarians by name in my posts as I realize that I occasionally use terms which may be unfamiliar to some readers. This is just to stop people thinking I have made up these terms myself.

Cheers
CB

English influence on other languages

Cool Breeze — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 21:56:36 GMT

Hi all

It would be interesting to hear from nonnative speakers of English in particular what influence English exerts on other languages nowadays. What English words and expressions are used in your language? Does English grammar or syntax have an influence on your native language? Where is this influence seen or heard? Books? Journalese? Advertising? Conversation?

Are Anglicisms frowned upon in your language or generally accepted? Of course I welcome replies from native speakers as well, anything you think worth mentioning.

English and Finnish are not related and thus the idea of English grammar exercising an influence on Finnish grammar is all but inconceivable. In advertising, some English expressions are commonly used, for example happy hour is often seen in bars and pubs and some people use it even when they speak Finnish.

CafÃ© is the word often seen outside coffee houses or cafeterias, but no one uses the word when they speak Finnish. Finnish is a highly inflected language and cafÃ© just doesn't lend itself easily to our inflection patterns, which may be the reason people never use the word in conversation.

Some yongsters have adopted the non-Finnish way to read decimals: two point five. I don't mean they say it in English, they just use the Finnish word for point, which is incorrect in Finnish. We don't have a decimal point, we have a decimal comma (2,5). Pocket calculators and computer programmes are probably chiefly to blame for this phenomenon.

There is at least one Finnish Eurosport tennis commentator who uses the English word order when he says thirty all. In Finnish the numeral should come last.

If I realise I have forgotten something important, I'll write another post later. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to your contributions.
Thank you.

CB

Help with nominative-accusative case.

M. Caliban — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:59:05 GMT

Although I'm a native English speaker, I've often struggled to understand English grammar, especially its morphosyntatical elements. I've done some reading on nominative-accusative as well as ergative-absolutive cases and I just don't get it.

Can someone who's better at linguistics explain this to me?

I understand that a sentence has a Subject, a Verb, and an Object. (John sees fish) I understand that a verb can be transitive, in that it demands both subject and object, or intransitive, in that it won't accept an object.

For example, 'to see' is transitive in that John (the subject) has to see something (the direct object), he can't 'just see.' On the other hand, 'to sleep' is intransitive in that John can 'just sleep' but he can't sleep a direct object.

1a: John sees fish.

1b: John sees.

2a: John sleeps fish

2b: John sleeps.

Therefore, 1a and 2b are right. 2a is never right and 1b is only right if you want to interpret it as actually saying, "John does see."

As I understand it, nominative-accusative case is when a language 'marks' the direct object of a transitive verb. So, if my mark was '-do' then I could say:

1. John sees fish.

2. John fish-do sees.

3. Fish-do sees John.

4. Sees fish-do John.

And all of them would mean the same thing. Word order doesn't matter now as no matter where I scatter the word fish the -do tells me what its function in the sentence is.

My problem (took me long enough, didn't it?) is that English is described as having a vestigial normative-accusative case in its use of pronouns and passive voice but I don't see it. Can someone explain how normative-accusative applies to the English language?

Re: Joy to the world, the lord is "COME" ????

Cool Breeze — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 20:06:53 GMT

I always thought it was a remnant of the French (Norman Invasion, 1066). There is a handful of verbs in French conjugated with "to be" rather than "to have" in the passÃ© composÃ© (past) tense. Rise, [to be] born, arrive, leave, go (all "coming and going" verbs) are some examples. We also sing "He is risen" and we allow for "he is gone" as well as "he has gone".

Hi Philip

There has been vacillation between be and have as the perfect auxiliary in the Germanic languages - that's what I really meant to say in my previous post - but to my knowledge no one has ever maintained this usage derives from French. As a matter of fact, French had little effect on English grammar in terms of grammatical structures although the number of loan words is remarkable.

One of the structures derived from French is the of-genitive, which most scholars believe is based on the de-structure of the French language. And of course the word order of e.g. court martial reflects French grammar.

The only tenses Old English had were the present tense and the preterite (past tense); in other words, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who invaded Britain in the 5th century didn't take the perfect, pluperfect and the future tense with them from the continent.

Cheers
CB

Re: Writing a sentence with an Indirect Object.

Clive — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 16:39:16 GMT

Hi,

I need to write a sentence in the following pattern, and I don't see how it's possible.

The pattern is: adjective + direct object + helping verb + subject + verb

No articles allowed?

So, something like 'Great strength did he use'. This kind of odd word order seems very literary or poetical. This doesn't seem like a typical every-day English grammar exercise.

If you can add other parts of speech, you could look at normal questions, eg Which red sweater did she buy?

(As regards your thread title, this is not really an exercise that deals with indirect objects)

Best wishes, Clive

phrasal verbs decoded. The placement of the object.

Kvinchuca — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 02:04:16 GMT

The various forms of phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs can be transitive or intransitive, separable or inseparable.
The object or accusative can in the cases of separable phrasal verbs be placed before or after the particle.
With inseparable phrases, the object/accusative is fixed and its position either before or after the particle cannot be changed by the speaker.
Our analysis has shown that the position of the object/accusative assigns an importance, diminished importance, or a complete lack of importance from the speakers point of view.
If the particle is followed by the object/accusative then the importance is clearly shown.
If the object/accusative precedes the particle it has a diminished or lack of importance.
If the object/accusative can go before or after the particle, as is the case in separable phrases, then the importance assigned to it is decided by position the speaker places it.
The separable phrases are commonly described as having the same meaning, no matter where the object/accusative is placed, either before or after the particle and in general this may be true, however there is a difference, so small as to be unnoticed.
There nevertheless occasions when the object/accusative sounds to be misplaced to the ears of a native speaker.
There are in many phrases a word order that is generally accepted to be the norm, and a diversion from this order would immediately be noticed by a native speaker and not necessarily by a non-native.
For example, the colours of the Union Jack (the British national flag), are red, white and blue. If somebody described them as blue red and white, they are technically correct, but the native speaker would sense an uncomfortable feeling that the speaker was not quite right, or had spoken incorrectly.

There are many example of this: bacon and eggs (correct) eggs and bacon (uncomfortable). Black and white films (correct) white and black films (uncomfortable). Cup and saucer (correct) saucer and cup (uncomfortable).
There is nothing in English grammar that rules the order of these words and to a non-native speaker the fact that all the information is there, is all that matters, but the uncomfortable sensation felt by the native demonstrates that something very subtle is going on.
The same applies to the separable phrasal verbs. In most instances the subtle difference is unnoticed even by the native, yet in speaking the word order used demonstrates a particular importance or diminished importance that has subconsciously been attached by the speaker.
For example. âthat man is chatting my girl-friend upâ, in this phrase, I have given a diminished importance to my âgirl-friendâ and there is a subtle sense of indifference to the situation. Whereas âthat man is chatting up my girl-friendâ, in this phrase âmy girl-friendâ is after the particle and is subtly stressed. âMy girl-friendâ is shown to have more importance in this phrase and there is an implied sense of indignation as opposed to indifference.

When we use a pronoun instead of naming the object/accusative, the pronoun always goes before the particle. The reason being that once the object has been named the attached importance to the person or thing is slightly diminished, but the importance can be restated by the repetition of the name.
For example, âIs your girl-friend called Sarah?â âYes why?â âWell, that man is chatting her up â. âBloody hell, youâre right, heâs chatting up my Sarahâ.
Here the indignation is obvious because of the naming of the girl a second time. If the phrase was âyes heâs chatting her upâ the indignation felt by the speaker and heard by the listener would depend on the inflection of the voice, whereas in âmy Sarahâ, there is no doubt how the speaker feels.

Re: whomever or whoever?

miriam — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 08:18:38 GMT

Hello, Paco.

Not that I am anywhere close to being a linguist but, according to the little history of the English language I studied years ago, the "Anglo-Saxon" words (I think Pemmican knows more about this!!), are more than just "borrowings". Low German, or some branch of it -which the Angles and the Saxons, and perhaps the Jutes as well- brought into Britain, is the very core of the English language. It is true, however, that there were attempts to suppress it with the coming of the Normans to Britain (who did not really speak French but something called "Norman French", some version of their own). It was more than just attemps, come to think of it. There are about 200 years in British history in which this Anglo-Saxon language was spoken almost exclusively by peasants and those called "illiterate" by the conquerors.

As a side note, the fact that French has remained the language of the sciences and the arts makes it easier for Spanish-speaking people to learn English, as was the case with me. The more formal English you speak, the more it resembles the romance languages.

There is something else: not all the grammar of English -as we know it today- comes from Latin (or from Latin through French). Latin is an inflected language, and Old English was inflected too -though not to the same extent as Latin- but contemporary English is not; very few inflected forms have survived. Just to mention an example, English grammar relies mainly on word order, while Latin does not because it is so highly inflected that the position of the words in a sentence will not determine their function.

Just a comment about a topic I like.

Miriam

Adverbial objectives

paco2004 — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 06:59:15 GMT

Many English nouns and noun phrases can be used as adverbs. They are called "adverbial objectives". From the standpoint of word order, an adverbial objective is put as if it were an objective of a verb, but actually it works as an adverbial modifier of the verb. This sort of constructs comes from an Old English grammar rule that allowed ti use accusative cases of nouns as adverbs. For example, let's take an Old English sentence "He eode ham"[=He went home]. From the view of current English the word "ham" [home] would be treated as an adverb but it was the accusative of the noun "ham" in Old English. In current English this sort of noun phrase uses is prominent especially in the case the noun phrases means "time/duration", "space/direction/distance", "measure/degree", "manner" and others.

Time/Duration
[1.] Did you see him this morning?
[2.] What time shall we go?
[3.] She is thirty years old.
[4.] I'd like to start Wednesday, the first jury day. ["the first jury day" is appositive to "Wednesday"]
[5.] Please tell me what day you are free.
[6.] The parcel arrived last week.
[7.] They prayed all night in the cathedral.
[8.] They walked two hours.
Some other examples of noun phrases of this use:
every day, next week, next Monday, the day after tomorrow, one of these days, one day, any day in this week, etc.

Space/Direction/Distance
[1.] Today I came a different way. ["Today" is a TIME ad. ob.]
[2.] Elms stood either side of the street.
[3.] Let's go some place.
[4.] He lives next door.
[5.] She'll come home soon.
[6.] Come this way, please!
[7.] We wandered north and north.
[8.] We walked ten miles.

Measure
[1.] She was thirty years old.
[2.] The bottles was about three quarters full.
[3.] They stood up together *** high in the sea.
[4.] He stands head and shoulders above his fellow.
[5.] Her skin was snow white.
[6.] It was pitch dark inside the room.
[7.] Stars are diamond bright and there is no dew.
[8.] The sea went mountains high.

Degree
[1.] I should not mind a bit.
[2.] She blamed herself no end.
[3.] She used to laugh a good/great deal.

Manner
[1.] Don't look at me that way.
[2.] He speaks good English
[3.] He came full speed.
[4.] He stood there sailor-fashon.
[5.] She run upstairs two steps at a time.
[6.] They walked barefoot.
[7.] Our ship sailed first thing in the morning.

Noun Couplets
[1.] Bind him hand and foot.
[2.] He smote them hip and thigh.
[3.] We all got to go sometime reason or no reason.
[4.] Let's fight tooth and nail.
[5.] They discussed the matter heart to heart.
Some other examples of couplets: day after day, year after year, face to face.

The Superlative and the Comparative
[1.] My father liked this hat the best.
[2.] He runs the faster.
[3.] She couldn't know which she liked the better.
[4.] I don't know whose eyes would be the widest open.

Distribution
[1.] She visited the States twice a year.
[2.] He paid $ 20 a pair for my shoes.

To my guess, these collocations are so common that most of native speakers could acquire them even without knowing the concept of "adverbial objectives". And (therefore?) many of grammar books currently available don't mention this, and dictionaries give a definition to a noun used as an adverbial adverb as an adverb separately from the definition as a noun. As for the complex adverbial objectives, they are explained as simple idiomatic phrases without giving any grammatical explanation. Accordingly, in teaching English as a second language too, the concept of "adverbial objectives" is rarely taught at the beginner's stages in school at least in Japan. So many of English learners in Japan (including me) learned theses expressions one by one without knowing the mechanism why native speakers use nouns as adverbs. I sometimes feel it might be better to let students know the concept of "adverbial objectives" at an earlier stage of English learning and it could be helpful for them to learn this kind of noun usage more efficiently. But I'm not sure. I would like to hear opinions from English teachers (especially those who teach English to ESL students) about this.

paco

Re: Su Cheng Zhong's Post: the Vocabulary Problem in Modern English

julielai — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:57:04 GMT

Su's post:
I always wonder some thing in English grammar. For instance, the sentence:
I drive him.
'I' is the subject. 'Him' is the object. Yet their position have told us this too. Is that means the English grammar is sort of double expressing? For if the sentences of: I him drive. drive I him. drive him I. him drive I. him I drive. never happened in our printing material, the position will tell us what they are.
Another example is this:
I carried him, before.
It is also double expressing. The past tense 'ed' tells us the action happened in the past, while the word 'before' tells this too.
So the question would be; why should we express a certain meaning in a sentence twice, while other meaning only once? Is there any meaning that need to be expressed three times?

Julie: Subject Verb Object (SVO) isn't universal. In Japanese, the order is SOV.

e.g. honya e ikimasu. (bookstore, to, go = I go to bookstore)

If memory serves, suffixes in Latin determine the case, so word order is more flexible.
(is that right, Mr. P?)

Old English had a lot more inflections, but as inflections became more simplified, the language relied more and more on word order for its meaning. We can't assume the position determines the case, since SVO isn't universal.

Besides, look at the classic case of:
I like him more than her.
I like him more than she.

How do we distinguish between the two if we don't have objective cases?

As for your second example, I think Chomsky has brought it up in his transformational grammar book(s).
IMHO, tense markers do seem redundant in some cases. e.g

I watched TV last night.

Since we know it's "last night", the tense marker in "watched" does seem redundant as we can simply say "I watch TV last night".
Based on this, we may want to do away with tense markers. But then look at this example:

I came. I saw. I conquered.

Now if English doesn't have tense markers, we will have to add another word to explain the tense (like we do in Chinese):

I come already/before. I see already/before. I conquer already/before/etc. etc.
In this case, "I came. I saw. I conquered." is a lot more efficient.