English Language Learners

I think a lot of grammar books would avoid saying that work there is an infinitive (or in the infinitive) because it could confuse the learners.

COBUILD simply uses the term "base form".

I got lost with "felicitous"

Anonymous

Felicitous = appropriate in context

3:14 PM

my dict says "exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style"

Anonymous

Some things are grammatical, but may not always be appropriate

I think the senses are overlapped (between good and appropriate).

Anonymous

If you divide errors into grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic contexts, you get "ungrammatical", "nonsensical", and "infelicitous" respectively

so... all the felicitous things are grammatical, but not the other way around?

Anonymous

Although in real life the three categories are probably overlapping

Anonymous

3:16 PM

For example, think about a and the. Many sentences are grammatical regardless of which one you use, but in context usually only one or the other is appropriate.

ok, now I undersand why you saus "appropriate in context"

Anonymous

So when you change would to will, you get a grammatical sentence, but it may not be appropriate in the same contexts.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. There's a couple points of theory there:

Anonymous

1. Is the auxiliary verb a dependent of the main verb? Or is it the other way around?

Anonymous

> 1. I like [ to walk ] .
> 2. I can [ walk ] .

Anonymous

3:19 PM

You can say like takes a to-infinitival complement, while can takes a bare infinitival complement.

Anonymous

You don't have to treat auxiliary verbs as special in this sense.

Anonymous

2. The distinction between forms and the uses of those forms: I would say it's the plain form, much like Collins would say base form

Anonymous

But I would says it's the plain form used as an infinitive (in an infinitival construction)

Anonymous

You don't have to say that. I see no reason not to, though

Anonymous

Alternatively, you can consider infinitive itself a specific form

Anonymous

3:22 PM

(As in traditional grammar)

@snailboat When I wrote that answer, I thought "would" was used to express a speculation, and "will" to express certainty. Does that make sense?

....I hate modal verbs.

I like them. They make imagination possible.

They are intriguing!

They are like a coin that shows a different face each time you flip it! :p

Anonymous

@Nico I took them both as expressing uncertainty, but would as expressing past time as well

3:24 PM

But I'm sure one can master how to flip the coin!

@Nico Like the totem in Inception? :-)

Anonymous

> 1a. I'm sure they have been looking for those bank robbers.
> 1b. I'm sure they will have been looking for those bank robbers.
> 2a. I'm sure they had been looking for those bank robbers.
> 2b. I'm sure they would have been looking for those bank robbers.

@snailboat OK, so I think I should remove my answer, at least until I'm able to understand how to correct it

Whose totem in Inception is a coin?

Anonymous

The B variants are similar to the A variants, but less certain--they're expressing fairly confident speculation, but the speaker doesn't know that what they're saying is correct, they just believe it's pretty likely (presumption)

3:26 PM

Haven't watched Inception. :(

Anonymous

So the modal auxiliaries there have to do with the speaker's lack of information

@Fantasier Nope. I wish it could be a coin if I were in the movie. :-)

Anonymous

In other contexts, other meanings would be possible

Anonymous

Like, in another context, "I'm sure they will have been" could be a statement about a state continued until a point in the future

@snailboat That's a very neat example.

Anonymous

3:28 PM

And in another context, "I'm sure they would have been" could be counterfactual (like, "I'm sure they would have been looking for those bank robbers [if they had any manpower to spare]")

Anonymous

And so on.

Anonymous

@Fantasier Me too. I usually avoid answering questions about them :-)

the totem is still spinning ...

@snailboat I now have a lot to ask about them, but I keep them in a corner of my mind until I have a chance to read and finish the issue on a reference grammar; after that I may have the answers for myself without having to ask.

I did that a lot on my own/by myself/alone.

Anonymous

3:33 PM

@Fantasier Sure. I think modal verbs are hard for most learners, although of course it depends on how similar it is to your L1

Anonymous

Though that goes for everything in language learning--no language is harder or easier than another in a vacuum, it's all relative to what language(s) you already speak

I'm not sure I totally agree with that.

@snailboat I was about to edit my answer with your ideas and J.R. just vote for it. I still think your explanation makes sense.

Not that I really disagree.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Think of how hard Thai would be for a speaker of Lao versus a speaker of English

3:35 PM

... (thinking)

Anonymous

Or Japanese for a speaker of Korean versus a speaker of French

@snailboat I mean the "in a vacuum" part.

Anonymous

The only language learning you do in a vacuum is L1, and everyone manages to learn their L1.

We have something that needs to learn any language in a vacuum.

Anonymous

There are extralinguistic concerns that are harder in one language or another, like writing systems, for example

3:37 PM

nods

My あ looks like rubbish.

Ah.

Well, my handwriting is never good in any language.

You sound like a good doctor!

Anonymous

Keep with it. Write out the whole fifty-sounds chart every day until you can do it from memory. It's okay if your handwriting isn't super neat

3:39 PM

I'll try!

@DamkerngT. Quite close, my parents are dentists.

Wow!

Anonymous

I used to tell people to start by adding one row of kana each day: day one, write あいうえお, day two write あいうえお and かきくけこ, and so on. Keep doing it until you've got the chart so far memorized, then stop, add 5 new flashcards (on 3x5" note cards), and quiz yourself on recognition.

Anonymous

Some people try to cram all the kana in a day or two, or use Anki, or whatever method they like.

Hey, I can tell 2 out of 10!

Anonymous

Ultimately it doesn't matter since there's only a few kana, and if you use them every day learning them shouldn't be much of an issue regardless of method, since you'll see them millions upon millions of times

3:41 PM

Now I can guess all 10.

I see.

Anonymous

(Methods for stuff like this matter more for students who have difficulty learning to read and write. Most students can make do with any old approach :-)

Kanji would be more challenging.

Anonymous

Yes, for a number of reasons

Oh, now, even FF answers an etymology question!

3:49 PM

They repeated themself.

On the first sentence.

Good chart!

Looks like my infinitely improbably drive is still having its chances!

However infinitesimally possible!

dancing for the drive...

┏(--)┛┗(-- )┓┗(--)┛┏(--)┓

Anonymous

4:05 PM

@DamkerngT. That's a nice chart.

It was from one of ELL answers.

Here's the link: ell.stackexchange.com/a/21273/3281

Hmm... I kept thinking about alone/on my own/by myself for a while...

My conclusion: any distinction attempted to be made out of the three was an illusion.

Some verbs or some sentences might convince us to think otherwise.

But I believe that we can think of any of them as either unaccompanied or unaided.

Anonymous

They might not all be equally likely in all situations

Yes, I agree with that.

But the meanings aren't that different.

Anonymous

> 1. Hey, I don't need your help! I can lift this heavy box by myself!
> 2. Hey, I don't need your help! I can lift this heavy box alone!

Anonymous

The second sentence seems funny to me.

4:17 PM

Read it again and again several times, and you might change your mind. :-)

Anonymous

I did that before I typed it, and I haven't changed my mind yet.

I see.

So, "I can do it alone" (it ~ lifting) is funny?

Anonymous

> Jill alone has the authority to sign cheques.　　　←　No one else has the authority
> Jill by herself has the authority to sign cheques.　←　She can sign them without getting permission, I guess
> Jill on her own has the authority to sign cheques.　←　I have no idea

No, move them to the end of the sentence.

(But okay, I will try thinking of them--Jill alone--for a while.)

If you do that, the sentences' meanings will change.

4:21 PM

See?

Anonymous

Yeah, if you move alone to the end of the sentence the meaning changes.

I'm rewriting the answer. But I still feel there is something wrong with the example in the questio.

A：We saw a police helicopter overhead yesterday morning.

B：Really? They would have been looking for those bank robbers.

I think the OP's sentences are more like them being at the end of the sentence.

To my ear, "Really?" sounds out of place.

Anonymous

But in here, you said there was no difference between the three. You didn't say "in the OP's context" :-)

4:24 PM

To me, it's like a surprise.

@snailboat I know. I know. :-)

That's why I don't like generative grammar.

Anonymous

That seems like a non sequitur.

(Or whatever that looks like one to me.)

Saying "Really?" expresses surprise, and then the next sentence jumps to express a speculation.

Anonymous

@Nico It does seem a little rough. Spoken, you could probably represent the transition in thought with a pause and change in tone

I think so.

Anonymous

4:27 PM

But I think you're right

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I do agree they're very similar in that position (the end of the sentence)

Anonymous

I'm not willing to admit that there is no difference, though

Yay!

Agreement! I love agreement!

I think they're a little different in production, but in comprehension the differences are really, really small.

Anonymous

Being at the end of the sentence isn't a sufficient description: the situation I mentioned where they differ (postmodifier in NP structure) can also occur at the end of a sentence: "He made millions from Titanic alone" ≠ "He made millions from Titanic by himself"

(And I had to do something I don't like to do--hacking the language.)

In that case, they are really different.

Anonymous

4:31 PM

And I'm not willing to say that "alone" example from earlier is wrong, either

Anonymous

Only that it sounds funnier than the alternative.

Perhaps we should separate the case of alone as an adjective from alone as an adverb.

Perhaps that is the only real difference.

Anonymous

Maybe when you want to emphasize the meaning "without any help", alone isn't as good phonologically because it's shorter

Anonymous

Not that it's wrong, but putting extra stress on the longer alternatives feels more natural to me

Anonymous

And that's not really related to the particular meaning

Anonymous

4:41 PM

I can't really think of any differences in terms of meaning between the three

Anonymous

Maybe differences in connotation in one situation or another

nods

I think the choice depends mostly on the speaker's familiarity or taste.

Anonymous

They can also all occur with all

Anonymous

"I'm all { by myself / alone / on my own } now."

nods

Anonymous

4:45 PM

But not here: "I feel so very { alone / *by myself / *on my own } now."

I think that alone is an adjective.

Anonymous

Me too

Anonymous

The postmodifier in NP structure which is a restrictive focus modifier ("[ He alone ] can pull the sword from the stone") is an adverb

Eh? Really?

Oh, Macmillan seems to agree with you.

> He alone knows where the files are hidden.

Macmillan says it's an adverb.

Anonymous

Yeah. You can see the same thing with only: oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/only

Anonymous

4:48 PM

> Only their faith sustained them.

I'm a little surprised that they say that it's an adverb.

Anonymous

Focusing adverbs modify all sorts of phrases, or even entire clauses

Anonymous

They're kind of a special category

If I were an author of English grammar, there would be only two parts of speech.

Entities and specifiers. :-)

Anonymous

This grammar would probably not have great predictive value in term of syntax :-)

4:52 PM

:D

Depends on your definition of "grammar".

Anonymous

The whole point of talking about "parts of speech" in the first place is to avoid repeating yourself all the time by grouping similar things together

Anonymous

If you just want to have two parts of speech, fine, but if you want to be accurate and just have two parts of speech, you'll have to do a lot more explaining :-)

If by that you mean "the syntactic rules according to which a language actually works", Dammy's grammar would be very much predictive!

Yeah! Even verbs are classified as "specifiers".

4:54 PM

The only probably is that he would have to be God...

Or at least in some Asian pantheon.

Heehee.

To make the grammar more useful, I could even add another part of speech: linkers.

Anonymous

How would your grammar work?

See it fits the ESL learners: Entities, Specifiers, Linkers.

Anonymous

Do parts of speech describe individual words?

Yes, mostly.

I could still use the terms: sentences, phrases, and clauses. -- I like them.

Anonymous

4:58 PM

What is a sentence like "Yes, mostly"?

It's the same as in the traditional grammars.

An affirmative sentence.

Anonymous

An interjection and an adverb, plus ellipsis? "Yes, [parts of speech] mostly [describe individual words]"

I have a solution for things I can't classify them as E or S or L: others!

Anonymous

Hah

:D

Anonymous

5:00 PM

ESLO!

ESLO

sounds good.

Anonymous

Honestly, you should get rid of other and specifiers, and just have two categories of linkers

still thinking about what the two categories would be...

I'm going to Bang Saen with my family tomorr... I mean, today. See you everyone!

I see. Have fun!

I know it must be fun -- if it's not very crowded...

Never been there myself for several years.

Oh, and drive safely! Have a safe trip.

5:07 PM

Oh I didn't know we had a second Thai!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'm not sure, but the whole thing would be ELL, so it'd be appropriate for use on this site

Oh, I see now! :-)

@Cerberus We have two of them now!

Scary!

It's an invasion.

Heehee.

Slow but steady, like...snails.

5:10 PM

:D

Anonymous

We have two snails. There's also Mechanical Snail. Although he seems to be MIA from the language sites at the moment

Soon enough, ELL will become ELT.

Ah, yes.

What's MIA?

Anonymous

Missing In Action

@DamkerngT. English Language Thai?

5:11 PM

I will say Teacher for a while.

@snailboat Ah, I am not good at foreign military abbreviations haha.

When everyone feels comfortable with the idea, we'll change T to Thai. :-)

But what would it mean...

Anonymous

@Cerberus I don't really know military stuff, but that's one of the terms people use sometimes informally in other contexts, like AWOL

Yeah I can never remember those.

Abbreviations are bad enough when they're not commercalese/militarese hehe.

Anonymous

5:13 PM

I know AWOL, but I can't remember what it stands for. (Well, I can now because I just looked it up, but I'll have forgotten it in a day or so, most likely.)

Anonymous

To me it's just a word.

To me it is like...a random number. I cannot remember such things, my mind goes blank.

We have these abbreviations for various state benefits, AOW, WAO, and WW.

I hate them.

Anonymous

Oh, wow! AOW WAO!

Yes.

Algemene Ouderdoms-Wet and Wet Arbeids-Ongeschiktheid.

One is for old people, the other for disabled people.

Anonymous

In Japanese, you can add arbitrary strings of "w" to the end of a sentence online to mean "LOL", so I wanted to make a joke there, but it would have fallen flat :-(

5:16 PM

Haha quite.

Aww... AWOL is spreading all over the room!

Anonymous

(I'm not the type of person who types "LOL" or "wwww", though)

Something like staatspensioen "state pension" and invalidengeld "invalid money" would be so much better, both less ugly and less hard to remember.

Anonymous

Ahh

Anonymous

Dumb acronyms.

5:18 PM

I mean, the official name can be long and cumbersome, fine. But the name used in normal documents and speech should rather be something like that.

Once upon a time, we had to name all variables in our code within 6 letters.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Not me! I was born in the 80s. :-)

That's not much!

Exactly!

invalid money --> INVMNY

invalid money 1 --> INVMN1

And we had lots of that in COBOL!

Anonymous

Although I did have a similar experience.

5:19 PM

And, assembly!

Anonymous

Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0 only used the first two characters of an identifier.

I should have used had, today's COBOL is much different.

Hah!

Anonymous

So VAR1 and VAR2 were the same variable.

Anonymous

C64 BASIC was my first language.

I bet that you would have had lots of I1, I2, I3, ... :-)

Anonymous

5:21 PM

I actually stuck to mostly single-letter variables.

Anonymous

Although I would be the first to admit I was not a great programmer in grade school.

Oh! You could still have 26 variables. That was probably not too few. :-)

Anonymous

Well, you had multiple types: I, I%, and I$ were distinct variables

Oh, I remember that. That really helped!

(It can cause lots of bugs, too!)

Anonymous

There were lots of funny "bugs" possible on the C64.

Anonymous

5:24 PM

When I was little, my brother made a program which draw an asterisk which moved around the screen randomly by one square in any of the eight possible directions

I was so glad that I didn't have to punch any cards. :-)

Anonymous

He made a big list of REM ########################### statements at the end of the program

But my seniors had to.

Anonymous

And eventually, the asterisk would fly off the screen one way or the other, and start overwriting memory not mapped to video :-)

Oh!

Sounds like a good worm. :-)

Anonymous

5:26 PM

And it would draw stuff in the remarks, or it would start changing the variables for screen background color and so forth ;-)

Anonymous

I have never seen a punch card in person.

I had!

Anonymous

But my dad, now in his late 70s, was a programmer all his career, and a good portion of that career was spent on OS/360 and such

I also had a chance to see big reels of tape in person!

I had a chance to do some work on 370.

Anonymous

I never really got to see what his job was like, although he always had books about various computery topics around the house

Anonymous

5:28 PM

And my brother and I both got to learn to program when we were little, partially because we were left to tinker with the computer, but partially because my dad had things like software (assemblers and so forth) and books

Did you try Logo?

Anonymous

We had Turtle Graphics. (Graphix?)

Anonymous

I may have actually used that before C64 BASIC 2.0, but I can't remember for sure. It was too long ago.

I think it's the same. (Not very sure.)

Anonymous

I did draw stuff by making a turtle walk around.

5:29 PM

Yeah! So did I.

Logo made me fall in love with computing.

Anonymous

I was very young, though.

Me too!

Anonymous

I started learning this stuff at the same time I was learning to read and write and do math

Anonymous

So I have no memory of falling in love with programming or anything like that--it was too early for me to really remember

Trying to have turtle walk in circle was challenging enough back then. :-)

Anonymous

5:31 PM

I can't remember not having been exposed to programming :-)

Because you were born into it, I think!

Anonymous

I remember associating Turtle Graphics with the spirograph

Anonymous

I miss that thing

spiral?

Anonymous

Spirograph

Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. It was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965. "Spirograph" has also been used to describe a variety of software applications that display similar curves. It has also been applied to the class of curves that can be produced with the drawing equipment, and therefore may be regarded as a synonym of hypotrochoid. The name has been a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc., since it bought the Denys Fisher company. Hist...

5:32 PM

Oh, yeah! I like them.

A lot!

Anonymous

Is there a Thai word for spirograph? :-)

Nope!

Not to my knowledge.

Anonymous

So if you wanted to talk about it, you'd have to use it like a proper noun or use a description?