Timeline for Is "A man is over there" grammatically correct?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 22 at 2:37 | vote | accept | Hayli | ||
| Sep 20, 2022 at 10:36 | comment | added | Hayli | @PeterShor Sorry. I suppose a better example is when someone knocks on the front door and you yell to your parents, "Someone's at the door!" | |
| Sep 18, 2022 at 16:38 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | Am I wrong in thinking the capitalisation in '… interaction of indefinite Noun Phrases and subject…' says as much about the author as the subject? Why should we trust anyone who wrote that sentence using capitals only for 'Noun Phrases'? Why do 'indefinite' and 'subject' not deserve caps? | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 21:48 | comment | added | dclxvispqr | A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And I should know. | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 21:33 | history | reopened |
Hot Licks KillingTime fev |
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| Sep 14, 2022 at 20:43 | comment | added | Hot Licks | "A man is over there" is legal syntax and semantics and could very well be "appropriate" in certain contexts. | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 20:40 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 14, 2022 at 21:33 | |||||
| Sep 14, 2022 at 18:01 | history | closed |
David Greybeard Davo |
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| Sep 14, 2022 at 16:57 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | One would expect a scholarly work to explain how the authors are using the term 'grammatical'. Svartvik and Greenwald published research showing that the term is ill-defined unless a stipulative definition is selected (practised linguists couldn't agree on the acceptability of some sentences). | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 16:47 | comment | added | DJClayworth | @YosefBaskin Most people would say "There is a dog sitting here. There is a man over there." even when describing a Manet. | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 16:46 | answer | added | DJClayworth | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 15:09 | review | Close votes | |||
| Sep 14, 2022 at 18:01 | |||||
| Sep 14, 2022 at 13:45 | comment | added | John Lawler | Pro tip: Don't believe everything you read, especially not about English grammar. | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 12:40 | comment | added | Yosef Baskin | Head exploding after reading your link. Complicated way to explain the complicated subject of what is idiomatic. And I can find cases to fit "A man is over there" smoothly: Here's the Manet. A dog sits here. A man is over there. And my grandmother's a trolley car. | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 12:40 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | It actually says that 'the pattern is not part of the structure of the language' - that is, it's not how native speakers naturally say it - rather than strictly ungrammatical. When introducing a person or thing that hasn't previously been mentioned, we say "There is a..." | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 12:22 | comment | added | Peter Shor | Why do you think someone is over there is grammatical? I wouldn't use it for the same reason I wouldn't say a man is over there — the subject is indefinite. (I wouldn't call them ungrammatical, but unidiomatic, but I clearly have a stricter definition of ungrammatical than the article.) | |
| Sep 14, 2022 at 11:34 | history | asked | Hayli | CC BY-SA 4.0 |