New answers tagged grammar
5
votes
Accepted
Syntax of "What's going on at work these days that you're always on the phone?"
Huddleston & Pullum (2002) discuss this, describing it as a case where a declarative content clause functions as an adjunct in clause structure (pp. 969-970).
They give the example:
What has ...
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Syntax of "What's going on at work these days that you're always on the phone?"
First of all, it's important to address the possibility of that being used here as a relative pronoun. I'd say this is unlikely here, and some would say an 'on' is missing (though this would sound ...
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0
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“Out of” or “Outside” the box
“Out of the box” and “outside [of] the box” have sharply different meanings in typical, generally informal, use.
The first means ready for use without alteration, customization, or assembly, whereas ...
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3
votes
Accepted
In headlines, how did the comma become a substitute for "and"?
The origin of the headline comma is at least decades old and not original to digital media.
Headlines don't follow all the conventions of standard written sentences. They can omit articles and ...
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3
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Another important distinction when considering the effects of migration
The others are correct. "Considering" means that "the effects" are considered by an entity capable of "considering", that is evaluating according to some criteria, which ...
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Do I need the comma in "it is in short...everthing"?
It's such a clumsy sentence - more pauses than actual words. I'd opt for "In short it is everything." and ditch all the fussy extras, but that's just me. I learned to write for newspapers so ...
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0
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Do I need the comma in "it is in short...everthing"?
I believe using the comma before "in short" is a matter of style and preference rather than a strict grammar rule. I haven't encountered such a use of ellipsis in official correspondence.
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Usage of "go to" vs "go"
Some special cases:
go home
go here
go there
Use go with directions
go in/inside
go up
go aft
go downtown1
Use go to with places or static events
go to school
go to the cinema
go to a wedding
...
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1
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Can "as well" follow the verb it modifies?
There is a rule that you generally should avoid putting an adverb or an adverbial phrase between the verb and its direct object. This is why, for example,
*to include as well the city of Krasnoy,
...
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2
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Usage of "go to" vs "go"
Go to can't be used with:
home
downtown
west / east / north / south
outside / inside
there / back
Go to is used with noun, that means uncommon places (not the cinema, not a restaurant...):
go to ...
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2
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"glad to V" vs. "glad (that) S V"
You can't notice something that's missing, so that's what makes those sentences odd. You can notice that something is missing, but you can't notice the thing itself if it's missing.
As for the ...
- 107k
1
vote
Is this sentence is a conditional? "Marta on if she would ever make a tinder account"
"Marta on if she would ever make a tinder account"
This is not a sentence and it is a title.
It is not conditional. It is a fragment. It is of a style used in headlines and titles. Nouns, ...
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0
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Independent clauses
"He said" is the first part of an independent clause. "He" is the subject; "said" is the verb. However, "said" is a transitive verb—it needs an object to act ...
2
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Why does 'scent' here use the singular form?
Your logic is fine. But English does not adhere to strict logical consistency—no natural language does. But there is some consistency here, namely that attributes are expressed in the singular in the ...
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1
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Can a single adjective be an appositive for the clause?
The only possible reading seems to be by taking frustrated as modifying the cab. It is then a bit of a metaphor, a personification or similar.
frustrated, the cab leapt forward a foot or so, only to ...
2
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Can a single adjective be an appositive for the clause?
There are several definitions of "appositive" out there, but what they have in common is that the two things in apposition stand in the same syntactic relationship to the rest of the ...
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vote
"We did something with a friend" or "I did something with a friend"
If you and Jake played tennis then
I played tennis with Jake
is correct.
Jake did not play tennis with Jake. Therefore there is only one person who played tennis with Jake, and it is you.
If you ...
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1
vote
Can an independent clause have an implied (or null) subject?
I feel like this is a stylistic choice. Commenters seem to be getting hung up on the OPs sentence and the use of the word "anyway," vs. the actual question at hand. If we replace that ...
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How should this English sentence be parsed linguistically?
You asked this same question a few days ago on ELL. You were wanting to have the phrase that begins with the word "independent" modify only the single noun "grasp". In a comment ...
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How should this English sentence be parsed linguistically?
I wanted to give a bit more detail on the syntactic structure here.
"Independent" is modifying way, not grasp. In other words: "the way the world is independent of the way our minds ...
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How should this English sentence be parsed linguistically?
Syntactically, both readings are possible and correct. But semantics only allow the second reading.
Your first reading would give the following meaning, in paraphrase:
the world is independent of how ...
1
vote
How should this English sentence be parsed linguistically?
He denies that we have any grasp … that is not based on our minds’ construction of our experiences. Grasp of what? Of the way the world is. In other words, he asserts that any grasp of the way the ...
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Who is your favorite singer? It is
"It" in these answers is a placeholder pronoun that refers to the general concept that was asked about, not the person in the answer. Even though singer, president, and actress describe ...
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3
votes
Accepted
Is “I bind round” correct to say?
When citing a verb in Greek or Latin, the custom is to take the first Principal Part of the verb as its name. In both Greek and Latin, the first principal part of a verb is its first person singular ...
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What is a verb called that requires an adverbial complement?
Expanding on the previous answer:
The area of grammar that explores the nature of predicates, their
arguments, and adjuncts is called valency theory. Predicates have a
valence; they determine the ...
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Is “I bind round” correct to say?
Yes, I bind round is an independent clause with an intransitive verb in the first person singular. round is a variant of around.
round is also intransitive there, a preposition.
If a radio could ...
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Subject/Complement Agreement. How to describe problem with "The thing is/are the objects."
The only agreement rule is that finite verbs must agree with their subject. Period. There is no such thing as “subject–complement” agreement in English, be it grammatical or notional. The problem is ...
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Is “I bind round” correct to say?
I don’t know Greek, so can’t address the accuracy of the translation. But I bind round does have a grammatically correct reading. For example, the sentence
I bind round your head a crown of flowers
...
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“the tears rolled off the side of his face before they reached his lips”：should 'could reach' be used instead？
The point you make is logical, but English often takes liberties to simplify time- or possibility-constraints in verb constructions. Anne McCaffrey in 'Dragonquest' has:
The dragonriders took to the ...
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What is a verb called that requires an adverbial complement?
There is no term for a verb that requires an adverbial specifically. However, if one defines "valency" to indicate the number of a verb's arguments and defines its required dependents (such ...
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votes
What is a verb called that requires an adverbial complement?
BillJ commented:
It's not a complement. The preposition phrase "in a hotel" is functioning as an adjunct (your adverbial). It cannot be a complement since it is not licensed by the head &...
0
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Use of past tense or present tense with "to (not) understand"
She just understood what you haven't understood yet.
She has just understood what you did not understand yet.
She just understood what you have yet to understand.
In (3), have yet to isn't in the ...
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1
vote
Accepted
Can I omit the following words in order to make sentence shorter or concise?
A is a literary word but B is casual and everyday word.
You can omit word.
A is a literary word but B is casual and everyday.
Note that "everyday" is being used there in a somewhat casual ...
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-1
votes
Can I omit the following words in order to make sentence shorter or concise?
According to hints, the following two sentences are not correct then. [Post updated]
A is a literary word but B is a casual and everyday.
A is a literary word, but B, casual and everyday.
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Is the construction "which [noun] [rest of sentence]" proper as a means of introducing a dependent clause, rather than "which [rest of sentence]"?
The court then turned to negligence, [which issue it easily resolved].
It's called a relative construction, one where in this case the bracketed element is a non-defining relative clause.
Here, "...
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Can you omit the propositions "to", "as I", "as we" or "in order to" before a verb?
According to Xu (2017), "typical West African English grammatical forms" include the "absence of infinitival to after some verbs." Xu gives the example "He ordered him do it.&...
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3
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Why isn’t “this” a pronoun?
In their discussion of what they mention that as a pronoun it’s non-personal and as a determinative it’s “neutral with respect to the personal vs non-personal distinction.” I’d say that here too this ...
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2
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Is it correct to say "research competitor products" or "research competitors' products"?
There is a significant difference in meaning between competing products (which was suggested in the comments a supposedly superior, since more "popular", alternative) and competitors' ...
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