Timeline for Why does moving the adverb to the front remove ambiguity?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
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| Jun 14, 2015 at 5:53 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Presumptuous, perhaps, but the OP was not so impolite and arrogant to merit a stinging and frankly, quite rude, riposte. | |
| Jun 14, 2015 at 5:08 | history | edited | Erik Kowal | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 13, 2015 at 19:18 | comment | added | Peter Shor | @user118723: adverbs can modify the entire sentence without modifying just the verb. Consider: "Strangely, the preacher spoke about art" and "the preacher spoke strangely about art". | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 14:21 | comment | added | user118723 | @JanusBahsJacquet You are incorrect. Adverbs that modify an entire sentence must necessarily modify its head only, as in the example "Instinctively, grizzly bears from Alaska hibernate." Only 'hibernate' gets modified. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 14:18 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @user118723 Note that I said directly. Modifying a sentence modifies everything in the sentence, not just its head; rigorously modifies (to the extent that it really ‘modifies’ anything at all) learn, but it also modifies study, math, students, and who. But the only thing it directly ‘modifies’ is the sentence itself. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 14:14 | comment | added | user118723 | @JanusBahsJacquet If it modifies the entire sentence, it modifies 'learn' automatically because the head of a sentence is a verb. In this case, the head is 'learn'. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 10:25 | comment | added | Peter Shor | I agree with @Janus and Erik. There is a difference between "Rigorously, this theorem needs to be proved using prolate spheroidal wave functions," and "This theorem rigorously needs to be proved using prolate spheroidal wave functions," and that the second doesn't make any sense. (This is how rigorously is used as a sentence adverb.) | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 9:27 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | “It will be clear to any native speaker of English that in the second sentence, 'rigorously' modifies 'learn'.” ← No, it most certainly will not. As other comments have already shown, it is clear to many (I would venture pretty much all) native speakers that rigorously in the second sentence does not in any way directly modify learn, but the entire sentence. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 6:31 | comment | added | Erik Kowal | Correction to a typo in my last comment: I meant semantic, not syntactic. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 5:58 | comment | added | Greg Lee | No, I don't have to agree with you at all, Erik. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 5:53 | comment | added | Erik Kowal | @GregLee - It seems to me that you've misconstrued the nature of the OP's construction. It's not unacceptable as an example, it's unacceptable as an actual query sentence. This is because it is severely malformed in terms of Standard English usage, and is therefore incapable of making the kind of sense (whether grammatical or syntactic) that the questioner is attempting to impose on it. As for the tone of my answer: you feel it's gratuitously insulting, I feel it's humorously lighthearted. We'll have to agree to differ on this point. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 4:57 | comment | added | Greg Lee | I find this answer pretty irritating. It doesn't say anything that is relevant to the question that was asked, and because of some disagreement with the questioner about acceptability of examples, it is gratuitously insulting. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 4:56 | comment | added | Erik Kowal | @user118723 - You cannot plausibly treat grammaticality as a quality that is unrelated to conformity with normal usage (or to meaning, for that matter). Not all adverbs are interchangeable from a grammatical perspective; nor are all transitive verbs, or intransitive verbs, or ..., or ... (Oh, and what Joe Blow said in his first comment. :) | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 4:50 | history | edited | Erik Kowal | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 12, 2015 at 3:38 | comment | added | Fattie | just fwiw (actually as STEVEN says, sorry missed it) I would interpret the very strange form "Rigorously, blah blah blah" as meaning "Regarding the theorem, concept, or fragment blah, blah, blah, here's a statement of it in a rigorous manner" (or possibly, "and now we'll go on to look at it in a rigorous manner.") Exactly as physicist might say "More rigorously, blah blah .." in continuation of a previous thought. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 3:36 | comment | added | Fattie | "I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with this." I'm tempted to make a really smart ass comment like "when you learn English, you'll agree with Erik" :) | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 3:18 | comment | added | Steven Littman | Sorry, user118723, I'm with Erik here. An adverb + comma at the beginning modifies the whole sentence (cf. normally, usually, unfailingly, unequivocally, etc.). And "rigorously" modifying the whole sentence is without meaning. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 3:08 | comment | added | Greg Lee | I am also unenthusiastic about the acceptability of "Rigorously students learn math". It sounds very strange. However, if it's possible at all, it seems clear that the "rigorously" must modify the "learn math". (I am a native speaker.) | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 2:47 | comment | added | user118723 | I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with this. It will be clear to any native speaker of English that in the second sentence, 'rigorously' modifies 'learn'. Whether such an expression is ideal is entirely separate from the question at hand. Grammatical =/= ideal. | |
| Jun 12, 2015 at 2:35 | history | answered | Erik Kowal | CC BY-SA 3.0 |