All Questions
9,220
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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answer
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The traditional grammar term for 'nominals'
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 329) has a section titled 'Nominals':
Intermediate between the noun and the NP we recognise a category of nominals:
[3] a. the old man
b. that book ...
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votes
0
answers
132
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“Crone” and “Crony”
Looking at the etymology of crone, a derogatory term for an old frail woman, we see it is a Late Middle English word, derived from Middle Dutch croonje, caroonje ‘carcass, old ewe’ with possible ties ...
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What's it called when a date has the same 'day-number' as 'month-number'?
For example, my birthday is 9/9. My brothers' birthday is 12/12. Tomorrow will be 3/3. Is there a word that describes when it is the same date as the number we use to represent the month?
Please note ...
- 71
7
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587
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Earlier sources or identity of person who coined the term "neutrois"?
A lot of work I've been doing recently has been around the emergence of various gender identities. "Neutrois" recently came to my attention, with more information about it here:
Nonbinary ...
- 561
6
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0
answers
85
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Is there a regular phonological explanation for the diphthong in the infinitive of the verb "to say" becoming a monophthong in "he says"?
The infinitive form shows a diphthong /seɪ/, while the typical pronunciation of the third-person singular "simple present" form has /ɛ/ as the nucleus /sɛz/. Wiktionary suggests that the ...
6
votes
4
answers
402
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Prepositional verb structure - "[rely] [on John]" or "[rely on] [John]"
It is difficult to determine the correct consituent structure of prepositional verbs, such as rely on someone. Either on someone forms a constituent to the exclusion of rely, as in (1), or rely on ...
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5
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43
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How are /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ realised in the Nottingham (East Midlands) accent?
I've got a sample of a few words pronounced by a Nottingham accent representative: https://youtu.be/2fCSeDEZeVU
My ear is far from perfect and this is why I'd like to ask for your help in this ...
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5
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135
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Origin of quote “Mathematics is the second cheapest profession, requiring only paper and pencil and a wastebasket. ...”
I remember hearing this quote from various different places:
“Mathematics is the second cheapest profession, requiring only paper and pencil and a wastebasket”
It is usually followed up by saying ...
- 59
5
votes
1
answer
149
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Is there a word that means a day's "antipode" within a year?
I notice today is September 15th, which is about 6 months after (or before) March the 15th, famously known as the Ides of March (and not much loved by Caesar).
In geography, an antipode is the ...
- 179
5
votes
1
answer
225
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Category of the First Term in the Partitive Construction
Are the words in bold type in the following sentences determiners?
One of the books was written by X
I want two of those
8 percent of the population has X
I ate some of that cake
In a treatise ...
- 175
5
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0
answers
129
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What nouns describe the relationship between tiers?
For example, in the majority of football (soccer) leagues, you'll have a number of tiers such as the first division, second division, third, etc. At the end of each season the few top teams in the ...
- 151
5
votes
1
answer
504
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The pronunciation of the definite article by American speakers
I was reading an article the other day and I came across an interesting passage:
Notice that the weak form of the is typically [ði] before a
vowel-initial word (the apple) but [ðə] before a ...
- 824
5
votes
1
answer
803
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"With probability", "with a probability", "with the probability"?
As a mathematician, I often write and read about probabilities. In the literature, I've seen versions of all the sentences below. Which one is correct?
This happens with probability (of) 30%.
This ...
- 151
4
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0
answers
122
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There’s one letter (for you) to sign
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by H&P says (Page 1394):
(d) Infinitival extensions
[11] i a. A few replies are still to come. b. There are still a few replies to come.
ii a. One ...
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0
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112
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How can I distinguish between supplements and modifiers as proposed in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL)?
In CGEL, the authors use the term 'adjunct' as an umbrella term to cover an element that is either modifier or supplement. On page 1350, the authors explain the properties of supplements to ...
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0
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260
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There seems (to be) a... vs. There seems (to be) little
There seems to be a problem.
There seems a problem.
In this type of construction, the version with to be, such as (1), is much more productive than the one without, such as (2). See this Ngram: ...
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4
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0
answers
101
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Is there more to “A hell of a …” than mere interjection or expletive?
Previous examination of “A hell of a …” on this site focussed on emphasis, interjection or expletive usage. As examples we have:
(What is the meaning of "a hell of a lot"?)
a great deal or ...
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4
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0
answers
73
views
What do you call the set of ngrams?
A lexicon is a list of words that belong to a particular language (see this answer).
Is there a name for "the set of all ngrams" ? I mean the set of all consecutive words (collocations and ...
- 141
4
votes
1
answer
90
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"every" + possessive + noun
I naively asked a question about the use of "every" with possessives on the ELL thinking there will be a very simple answer. I was pretty sure that saying either
Every your thought is ...
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4
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0
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90
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Again = 'back, opposite direction'
In the OED, archaic again, under def. 1a, is 'In the opposite direction; back.' The last example given there is from John Bunyan, with "turn again": "Come then, Neighbour Pliable, let ...
user376535
4
votes
6
answers
421
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B vs P pronunciation?
I'm a native Arabic speaker -Egyptian- we don't have the V & P sounds natively, I'm fully capable of pronouncing the V sound & telling the difference between it & the F sound perfectly, ...
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4
votes
2
answers
186
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Comparison (using Ellipsis)
I am trying to figure out when do we need to use an action verb explicitly and when can we omit it using the (ellipsis concept). For Example:
John is taller than Jim [is] (I understood that here is ...
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4
votes
3
answers
125
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Is there a word to describe the situation when a system that you created yourself surprises the author?
I just thought that there would be a bunch of errors logged in my system, because it seemed as if two files with the same path and filename were being saved at the same time, conflicting with each ...
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4
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0
answers
198
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Is there an alternative modern approach to the fused-head noun phrase?
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 410) defines "Fused-head NPs" as follows:
Fused-head NPs (noun phrases) are those where the head is combined with a dependent function ...
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"Say" and "said" as transitive and intransitive verbs
I have an interesting question. Is "say" a transitive verb in the case of direct/reported speech? I understand that it can be a transitive verb in cases like "She said the phrase." or "She says the ...
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1
answer
12k
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Similar vs Similarly to
This is related to the following questions, 1, 2.
In many papers in mathematics, I often see the following constructions.
Similar to [1], we have that 2+ax = 3y.
Similar to Equation 2.3, we note that ...
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1
answer
229
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Using ‘first’ pre-verbally: ‘When I first wake up, I...’, ‘When we first saw them, we...’
Sorry, I don't have a clear question so much as I'm just looking for info on this construction. I just realised how odd this construction is to think about, even though it feels perfectly idiomatic. ...
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4
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1
answer
147
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What are parents with a living child called, compared to "Shidu" parents (parents who have lost their only child)?
The parents who have lost their only child are known as Shidu parents (失独父母) in China, I don't think ‘normal parents’ is a good phrase, do you have any suggestions? I want to use this phrase in a ...
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4
votes
1
answer
271
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Pronunciation of Edinburgh
Why is the Scottish capital Edinburgh pronounced as Edinbruh?
It is not clear to me why the letter "u" is silent, so that the "b" is followed directly by the "r". Then a ...
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1
answer
306
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The "few would argue" idiomatic phrase
Taken literally from a modern US English viewpoint, the phrase "few would argue that" would mean that the statement the phrase appears before is widely held to be false. The specific wording ...
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1
answer
166
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Performative "allow, permit, let"
According to Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, page 208,
Allow, permit, and let can express deontic possibility, permission, but are also used more generally in a causative sense similar ...
- 2,343
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Grant somebody access to something or Grant access to something for somebody
Often I have to request access to specified resource for specified person. Is there any error in any of these forms and what is better to use?
Grant somebody access to something
Grant access to ...
4
votes
1
answer
1k
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What distinguishes a predicative complement from an object?
Asked this on ELL but with no answer:
What makes be an intransitive verb? How do we know that the analysis of It is me as transitive by tradtional grammars is incorrect?
Take for example:
1. I gave ...
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1
answer
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The origin of the current use of 'readout' in reporting political news
The word ‘readout’ has recently started appearing in various U.S. news reports in a sense that seems to be relatively new: a public summary of a meeting, or a phone conversation, which was not itself ...
- 7,252
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1
answer
111
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How should I understand the nuances between "astringent" and "acerbic"
I keep on getting these two words mixed up in my head. How should I understand the nuances that distinguish "astringent" and "acerbic"? Is there ever a reason to use one over the ...
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3
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I need a word like "confound," or "confuse" but with an important nuance
The word needs to mean confound or confuse, but with ignorance on the part of the confused that they are indeed, confused. We as spectators can tell they are coming to wrong conclusions based on ...
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0
answers
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Usage of "high school" and "secondary school" in British Columbia
This post is about the history of word usage. Please let me know if I should post this question to another stackexchange category.
I grew up in British Columbia, Canada. In the area I grew up (Greater ...
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0
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118
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What are some pro-adjectives?
What are some pro-adjectives? That is, a pro-form that can substitute (satisfy the substitution test with) an adjectival phrase? A Google search brought up "such", but was otherwise ...
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1
answer
96
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What does "but" mean in this context?
This context comes from the movie Gangs Of New York by Martin Scorese.
Take him for a boat ride, John. Who knows, but he might save your life again.
(The person speaking knows that John's life was ...
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Specific usage of "more"
I was reading E.M. Forster's A Room With A View and came across this dialogue:
“Up to now I have never kissed you.” She was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately. “No—more you have,”...
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1
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a noun just before the relative clause referring the whole sentence
Consider:
They may play games, sports or simply sit and chat together, activities which are far healthier than sitting alone hunched over a screen.
Can we omit activities?
They may play games, ...
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0
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Does "have experience..." take a preposition?
I often struggle with whether "experience + noun/gerund" should include a preposition — and no matter how much digging I do in style manuals, dictionaries, and web search results, I never ...
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3
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0
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102
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Non-standard grammar feature in British dialect?
I moved from Worcestershire in the UK to a non-native English speaking country when I was a child, which has made me very aware of my accent. Unlike my parents, I used to have a regional accent. I ...
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0
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How did -ing become a suffix for both present participles and nouns derived from verbs?
In non-modern and non-Middle-English Germanic languages, present participles and nouns derived from verbs look and sound very different:
English: wend - wending - wending
Middle English: wenden - ...
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'To lie' and 'to lay' / 'to rise' and 'to raise' / 'to fall' and 'to fell' <-- Did English used to have more pairs like this?
My understanding is that there aren't many pairs of intransitive and transitive verbs in modern English. Off-hand, I know of three (though I think there are more):
lie vs lay
rise vs raise
fall vs ...
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3
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0
answers
98
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Term for different pronunciations of the same word
Does anyone know what it's called when a word's pronunciation changes based on context? I am not talking about different people pronouncing the same word differently (i.e. caramel).
E.g. I say "I ...
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0
answers
76
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English equivalent of German da- constructions
In German, the prefix da- can precede a number of prepositions, and in each case the compound da preposition is an anaphor, with the meaning of the preposition itself + it. For instance, the ...
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0
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58
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Was Middle English or something like it spoken during the late Anglo-Saxon period?
As far as I've been able to determine from Wikipedia and Googling (I'm not a linguist), Old English appears to have changed into Middle English very soon after the Norman Conquest (around the end of ...
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0
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100
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Why did the English people switch from the Celtic language to Old English?
There is a widely held theory that when the Romans left England in the 5th century AD the island was defenceless against Anglo-Saxon invading armies. In the south and east the Britons were defeated in ...
- 223
3
votes
0
answers
85
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Reverse Tensing of the /æ/ Phoneme in American English?
I am a native speaker of a General American sociolect that realizes the /æ/ phoneme as [ɛə] before nasal consonants (e.g. 'fan,' 'stand,' 'ram'), and I've recently noticed that I've begun un-raising (...
