Language Overflow

Anonymous

01:08

> Thank you so much for continuing to educate us about the dangers of plastic additive BPA, especially No. 7 plastic "Dangerously Hard," Spring 2009. Recently I was shocked to discover that the "pure" drinking water provided in many workplaces (including my own) in large inverted water coolers are all in No. 7 plastic.

Anonymous

> Recently I was on a flight to Thailand. My daughter, Billie, and I were flying direct from L.A. to Bangkok.

Anonymous

> Recently I went to the Williams-Sonoma flagship store here in New York City to try out some wonderful recipes. Fresh herbs, as you know, can be great in pastas and salads. But they can do so much more, and there's so much available this time of year, as cookbook author Tori Ritchie is here to tell us.

Anonymous

> There were too many chinks in her armor, and lately it seemed as if God had decided to test each and every one.

Anonymous

> His blue eyes seemed familiar, but she couldn't place them. She'd never been good at placing faces with names, but lately she found herself with people she knew well, and yet it wasn't just their names that seemed to have vanished from her mind, but any clue that could help her identify them: a distant cousin, a neighborhood shopkeeper, a friend of a friend, a patient, a colleague? She had learned to fake it so that people wouldn't feel offended or embarrassed that she had no memory [...]

Anonymous

All from COCA. I was searching for lately * [vvd] and recently * [vvd]

Anonymous

01:15

Although it's harder to find examples of lately that way because it tends to occur later in the sentence

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's interesting that one result has Bangkok in the sentence. :-)

But that's what I think. I think the simple past should be possible with both recently and lately.

I'm not very sure about the simple present. I think it's less likelier, and probably marginal.

Also, I'm still unsure about the difference between recently and lately. My original idea was that recently should be more compatible with the simple past, and lately should be more compatible with the present perfect, but both should work with both the simple past and the present perfect.

Anonymous

It may be less likely, but I don't think there's a problem with it. I'll invent a pair of examples:

Anonymous

> 1. Recently I find that the answers on this site are excellent.

Anonymous

> 2. I think the answers are terrible on this site lately.

Anonymous

I don't think recently and lately have any general restrictions on what tense or aspectual forms they co-occur with.

Damkerng T.

01:29

Ahh-- Thank you very much!

Damkerng T.

02:30

I just saw this in another chat room:

in English Language & Usage, 5 hours ago, by Nicholas J.

I've been struggling trying to understand this specific sentence: "Seeing the number, the night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down"

The general meaning of the sentence is easy. No problem.

But the usage of that participle somehow bothers me.

Searching the web, I found that it's from Harvard Business Review: hbr.org/2012/05/the-darwinian-workplace/ar/1.

Here is the whole paragraph:

> Dale Carnegie told a story about the steel magnate Charles M. Schwab. One evening, to incentivize the workers in a mill, Schwab wrote on the floor the amount of steel the day shift had produced. Seeing the number, the night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down. Soon the two shifts were vying for bragging rights, and production soared. “The way to get things done,” Schwab said, “is to stimulate competition.”

Let's take a closer look at the sentence:

> Seeing the number, the night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down.

I doubt if it's really kosher.

I'm sure this is fine.

> Seeing the number, the night shift worked hard to top it.

> = The night shift saw the number. The night shift worked hard to top it.

But let's try this:

> The night shift saw the number, working hard to top it.

That's not kosher, I think.

Then, how can this be kosher?

> The night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down.

One possible way that I think can make the sentence sound kosher is to think that it was going on like that for several days.

Anonymous

Last time we had a discussion about simultaneity and -ing, I think I was told my intuition was no good.

Anonymous

My intuition is that it has a sequential reading.

Anonymous

> The night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down (when they were done).

Anonymous

But I think people didn't like that sort of thing.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think F.E. was against this kind of usage. I can't remember exactly how.

Anonymous

02:38

You could turn this into an ELL.SE question so people outside this room can contribute.

Damkerng T.

nods

I think it deserves a question!

Hmm... what tag should I use?

sequence of participles? :P

Anonymous

Shrug! :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, ELL doesn't have a lot of question tagged with participles!

All fit in one page.

Anonymous

Cutler's book makes a lot of interesting points, by the way.

Anonymous

One is that we're always tuning our phonetic perception.

Anonymous

02:42

We're really very flexible! That never stops, even as we get older.

Anonymous

We constantly adjust to new speakers.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods -- That's good news!

Anonymous

We learn very rapidly when we interact with a speaker who speaks a little bit differently, and we get better and better at identifying where the boundaries between phones lie for that speaker.

Anonymous

And without trying, we remember

Anonymous

We stay better at identifying the sounds from that particular speaker.

Damkerng T.

02:43

nods

Anonymous

And it doesn't affect our ability to understand other speakers.

Anonymous

Like, if the boundary between [f] and [s] has to be adjusted for a new speaker,

Damkerng T.

Have you seen Manny Paquiao's spot?

MANNY PACQUIAO | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL 'SAFE STEPS

►

Anonymous

the boundary remains the same for other speakers

Anonymous

What is this?

Damkerng T.

02:45

(The first time I saw it, I barely understand anything he said!)

Anonymous

A-ha!

Anonymous

An illustration of the concept.

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

What's interesting is that for this sort of learning, we don't really have to keep practicing.

Anonymous

Once we can understand a particular speaker, we don't generally have to re-learn to understand that speaker, even if we don't hear from them for quite a while.

Damkerng T.

02:46

Indeed! I hadn't seen that spot for a while, and last week I saw it again. Suddenly, I could pick up what he said almost 100%!

Anonymous

Oh, it does take me a fair bit of concentration to understand that video.

Damkerng T.

The spot broadcast over here starts at around 0:33 in that clip.

Yes, his accent is was very unfamiliar to me.

Anonymous

I didn't miss any words, but my comprehension was delayed a number of times

Anonymous

Interestingly, you can train your ear to understand a particular speaker even if they're saying nonsense words―as long as those nonsense words are possible given the rules of English phonotactics.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

02:49

So, words like sprounth or flortaines

Anonymous

So for this kind of listening, understanding is not crucial

Anonymous

Although understanding is an important part of ear training in general

Damkerng T.

I think I agree.

@snailboat Oh, about [f] and [s]... that reminds me of /f/ and /v/ for "th" in the Cockney accent!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh! :-)

Damkerng T.

Jun 20 at 15:11, by Damkerng T.

(BTW, this clip about the Cockney accent is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WvIwkL8oLc)

You can skip to 6:20 for the test. :-)

/f/ and /v/ for "th" is at around 2:49.

Damkerng T.

03:08

33 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

One possible way that I think can make the sentence sound kosher is to think that it was going on like that for several days.

I reread the whole paragraph again. This time I think it's the case (that it was going on like that for several days).

38 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

> Dale Carnegie told a story about the steel magnate Charles M. Schwab. One evening, to incentivize the workers in a mill, Schwab wrote on the floor the amount of steel the day shift had produced. Seeing the number, the night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down. Soon the two shifts were vying for bragging rights, and production soared. “The way to get things done,” Schwab said, “is to stimulate competition.”

Schwab wrote down the number on the floor. The night shift saw it. The night shift worked hard to top it. The night shift marked its number down. The day shift worked, and Schwab wrote the day shift's number down again. The night shift saw it, worked hard, and marked its number down. This repeated over and over until the production soared.

Anonymous

04:28

I think that's right.

Damkerng T.

11:20

To preserve the original degree of modality (in its basic, 'how much faith I have in my statement', [linguistics] sense): 'We may just possibly get an answer tomorrow.' — Edwin Ashworth 2 hours ago

Hmph... maybe it's different in BrE and AmE.

> It is just conceivable that we shall get an answer tomorrow.

> => We may get an answer tomorrow.

We shall expresses a very high certainty (as if firmly planned), I think. Not sure if it's still in use AmE. It probably still is, but only rarely.

Damkerng T.

11:40

0

Q: Difference between "have" and "have been"?

Tell me all you know. First of all I thought they both mean doing a continuous action until the very present, until I saw the other post on pretty much the same topic. I feel what that post provide is incomplete so seek to get a more complete understanding of their difference. Here is what it s...

present-tense

> I feel what that post provide is incomplete

Too bad that there is no link to that post.

Though it's rather clear that the OP has some misconceptions. The frustration is also real and reasonable.

> Now, I am confused how so trivial a preposition may change what "have" means.

Because it's not really about what "have" means?

Too bad that the answer doesn't address the real problem adequately (if at all).

It's not easy to explain anyway.

English tenses and aspects, that is.

Damkerng T.

12:46

Regarding is a preposition.

Damkerng T.

12:58

in English Language & Usage, 40 mins ago, by Vishnu

Like it, but didn't want to pollute the star board over there.

There were several things went on in my head seeing that photo.

And more when I read the exhibit texts.

Ecology, biohazard, genetic, decision making, risk assessment, pattern recognition, neuroscience, and such.

Damkerng T.

13:20

Something to write about: ambiguity, deliberation, unfamiliar components, deep embedding, long-tailing, multi-component structures -- roots of difficulties

Damkerng T.

13:37

in ELL's Cabin, 17 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

I think it's unfortunate that somehow some learners read (or were taught to read!) Y's X as "X of Y" and X of Y as "X that belongs to Y".

in ELL's Cabin, 17 hours ago, by snailboat

Well, it's useful to know that those constructions have some overlap (and to know how much or how little overlap that is)

in ELL's Cabin, 17 hours ago, by snailboat

① TV's Walter Cronkite
② ??Walter Cronkite of television
③ ????Walter Cronkite that belongs to television

in ELL's Cabin, 17 hours ago, by snailboat

@DamkerngT. Both X of Y and Y's X are commonly referred to as genitives, although it's rather confusing using the same term for two different things like that. Y X is sometimes referred to as genitive as well.

in ELL's Cabin, 17 hours ago, by snailboat

To be more precise, the of Y, Y's, and Y in each have been referred to as genitives. (But I only refer to Y's as genitive.)

^Could be a good topic to elaborate later

Damkerng T.

14:30

A climatic, dramatized speech in Lincoln (2012):

> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/quotes?item=qt2083761
Thaddeus Stevens: How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men ARE inferior, endowed by their maker with dim wits impermeable to reason with cold, pallid slime in their veins instead of hot blood! You are more reptile than man, Mr. Pendleton, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you! Yet even YOU, Pendleton, who should have been gibbetted for treason long before today, even worthless, unworthy you deserve…

Anonymous

16:30

@DamkerngT. Modal auxiliaries are different in AmE and BrE, but not very different.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Have doesn't mean anything. It's a grammaticalized marker of anterior (perfect) aspect.

Anonymous

(Which some people prefer to call a secondary tense system.)

Damkerng T.

Good morning! @snailboat

Good evening!@Man_From_India

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Where's mah good evening?!

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M !gnineve dooG @inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

16:38

Poor @Dam, can't get things mirrored, here. . . Try txtn.us/mirror-words.

Damkerng T.

Oh! That could be useful!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah.

Damkerng T.

16:56

Google Ngram Chart of the Day

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Nah, let me find something better.

Damkerng T.

(Related: ell.stackexchange.com/q/61701/3281)

Go for it!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

Weird. I think I may use both spellings for burned/burnt.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

books.google.com/ngrams/…

No, wait. . . this: books.google.com/ngrams/…

Interesting how the hyphenated versions are not non-existent.

Damkerng T.

17:07

Also, the over ones are down under!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

books.google.com/ngrams/…

This is very interesting.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Ever since IUPAC nomenclature came about, hyphenated versions have been hated.

Damkerng T.

Could be because the style guides were at work.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. If you use both, you should distinguish them properly.

Anonymous

17:10

They aren't interchangeable.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wondered if I distinguished them properly.

Anonymous

Wait. Maybe they are interchangeable in some regions.

Damkerng T.

Though lately I seem to use more and more of just burned.

Anonymous

Looks like I forgot how UK speakers treat burnt and burned.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Are they harsh to poor words?

Anonymous

17:11

Oh well, we probably have a question about it somewhere.

Damkerng T.

Maybe similarly to learnt and learned?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Reins, whips?

Anonymous

Well, since I clearly don't remember properly, I'm going to avoid answering that :-)

Anonymous

But I think we have a description somewhere on ELU or ELL.

Anonymous

Of both of those pairs

Anonymous

17:12

Sorry, capitalization and punctuation.

Damkerng T.

> Learned (but not learnt) is also an adjective, pronounced as two syllables (ˈləːnɪd) rather than the one syllable verb (ləːnt or ləːnd). The adjective, when said of a person, means 'having acquired much knowledge through study'. It can also be used of objects, meaning 'showing, requiring, or characterized by learning; scholarly'.

> oxforddictionaries.com/words/learnt-vs-learned

Anonymous

I just capitalize the beginning of chat messages and occasionally put a period at the end, regardless of whether I'm beginning or ending a sentence :-)

Anonymous

Thank you!

Damkerng T.

My pleasure!

Anonymous

Although I think this particular blog has had some mistakes in the past...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:13

23

Q: When do you use “learnt” and when “learned”?

Is learnt UK English and learned US? Is it that simple? I’m used to using learnt, but my US spellchecker says it is wrong.

american-english orthography british-english past-tense ed-vs-t

Anonymous

This looks right at first glance.

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Fighter jets!

Anonymous

Well, I'll leave it to other people to discuss what's right and wrong re: these pairs :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, learnèd!

Looks like a good pronunciation aid.

> ### The Verb: “Burned” Versus “Burnt”
“Burned” and “burnt” are both acceptable past-tense forms of the verb “burn,” but which one you use depends on where you live because the verb “burned" is the most common form in the United States, and the verb "burnt" is the most common form in Britain.

> ### The Adjective: “Burned” Versus “Burnt”
When you're using the words as adjectives, then "burnt" is also used in the United States, although "burned" is still an option.

> quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/…

Anonymous

17:20

0

Q: Negation prefixes: un- or in-?

Is there any general rule how to choose between negation prefixes? Sometimes it's un- like in unpopular or unhealthy, while in other cases it's in- (and its variants) like in impossible or irrelevant.

prefixes

Anonymous

Nope... I mean, you can make a couple points, but they're mostly going to have to memorize which words are pre-formed with particular prefixes in the lexicon.

Anonymous

Though un- is relatively productive.

Damkerng T.

I think the sound also influences the choice.

(for example, I think inaction sounds better than unaction)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Question: Is treble really the commoner form in BrE? books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M than in AmE or than triple?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

17:23

Than triple.

Damkerng T.

The chart seems to say otherwise.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Seems not, somewhat surprisingly.

Meta.SE question of the day:

55

Q: View site with a specific reputation value (lower than your own of course) or as a specific user (for mods)

To be honest I find it hard to keep up with all the changes, and very frequently I have to go look at the privileges list to see whether a user (that I'm looking at, so I have his reputation value) has a certain privilege or not. However, I still don't know what that user will actually see or ho...

feature-request status-declined reputation privileges moderation

Anonymous

There's also un- as in undo

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Word of the yesterday: Betwixt

Damkerng T.

I think indo would sound very weird!

Anonymous

17:25

Well, yes, but it's not about the sound

Anonymous

In that case.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Now you can find one for the day. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Working on it.

Idiom of the day (though easy): Packed like sardines

Damkerng T.

Still cute anyway!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Ngram of the day: Email vs. e-mail

Damkerng T.

17:29

Hah!

iphone, ipad

See, they're not new.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I blame Star trek.

Word of the day: Permeable

Damkerng T.

Like it!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

My subconscious has been looking for this word for a long long time.

It's a very essential word in explaining Osmosis.

I wonder why I capitalized that.

Damkerng T.

'Cause it's important?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Maybe 'cuz I was also thinking Osmium.

@Dam this is interesting: books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

17:46

Nice trick, eh? :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Forget about the trick; I thought think could never be grammatically accompanied by a noun.

Hullo @oer. . . Feels good to pop in and out, eh?

oerkelens

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Hullo :) Open browser tabs, and not checking all of them every time :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Like @Dam with his legendary tab numbers?

oerkelens

I feel like a beginner when I hear his numbers :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well, he's trying to break a Guinness record.

He has to keep practicing.

oerkelens

17:54

hehehe

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hey @Dam how many tabs?

Damkerng T.

1860 tabs this window, plus 36 windows more.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Dam Co Inc. - Pushing FumbleFingers. . . I mean FireFox to its limits since 1888 B.C.

Damkerng T.

:D

Damkerng T.

19:27

yesterday, by Damkerng T.

For tomorrow (or the day after): Back to the basic: What is tense?

A tense is a grammatical form that locates a situation in time—for example, past, present, or future. — snailboat 2 days ago

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

What is intense? Opposite of tense?

Damkerng T.

> 6.2 The inflectional tense system
We have seen that there are two inflectional tenses in English: preterite and present.
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/overview.html

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

If tense is a locator, what is a ɘƨnɘƚ?

Damkerng T.

> Tense What does tense mean? In this case, it means that you can look at the form of the verbs played and likes and tell that the events or states conveyed in the sentences took place at different times [...] Tense is a system of marking on the first verb of a finite VP to indicate whether the event or state held in the past or it holds in the present or future (what might be called the non-past). English has two tenses, which are traditionally called past and present.

> public.wsu.edu/~gordonl/Grammar_Book/Chapter_2.pdf

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I think I can understand the difference between tense and aspect.

Or I think I can.

Damkerng T.

19:31

> He would have done it differently. -- What tense is it in?

> Sit down. -- What tense is that?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I give up.

Damkerng T.

How about: They used to be here?

Or: Only if it was/were real...

Or: I'd rather she helped him.

Or: I had better keep trying.

Or: Here be dragons.

Are some of these (above) atense or non-tensed?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Am not gonna make assertions on this one.

Maybe they're dealt with differently.

Damkerng T.

nods

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

This very question popped in my mind a while ago.

Damkerng T.

19:42

> In Latin and Greek and any inflected language, "tense" usually
means a paradigmatic set of affixes that refers (often obliquely)
to time in some sense. The English word "tense" comes from
Latin "tempus", after all. But English is almost uninflected,
unlike Latin, and there are really only two inflectional tenses,
on the Latin model, left: present (am/are/is, go(es), walk(s), etc.)
and past [purists may prefer "aorist"] (was/were, went, walked, etc.).

> www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/tense.html

> Besides those, there are innumerable possible phrases formable
from auxiliaries like (forms of) "be", "have", "do", "will", "would",
"must", "might", "may", "shall", "should", "can", "could", "go",
"come", "let", "ought", "get", etc. These can co-occur in so
many combinations that it seems wasteful to assign special names
to each combination. And most English "traditional tenses" (i.e,
the tenses that are "sort of the same as" the 6 tenses Latin had:
present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I do hope there be an ELL blog in a future.

Damkerng T.

nods -- This half-blog half-chat (chblog?) may be useful as a seed of the blog. :-)

> [...]

> There really isn't any such thing as "the X tense" in a general sense. All
languages have their own repertory of forms and grammatical constructions,
and some of them may make sense when considered as "tense"; others don't.

But how about such "past" "tenses" as:

Past Necessitive              I had to go
Past Usitative                I used to go
Past Intentional              I was going to go
Past Potential                I might have gone
Past Potential Progressive    I might have been going
Past Potential Necessitive    I might have had to go
Past Potential Intentional    I might have been going to go
Past Perfect Intentional      I had been going to go
Past Perfect Necessitive      I had had to go
Past Usitative Necessitive    I used to have to go

> ... etc. There are lots more English auxiliaries left to conjugate, and
plenty more Latin grammatical terms where these came from. This is one
of the big reasons why Latin grammar isn't a great model for English
grammar; Latin is inflected (it "has a tense system"), and English isn't.
Anybody who feels (as many do) that these aren't "real" tenses is using a
sense of "tense" that isn't terribly defensible in modern English.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Cooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!one eleven111!!!1!

Damkerng T.

> [...]

> "Tense" comes from "tempus" ('time'); when you change the verb itself
(not just add another word to it, but actually change ["inflect"] it) to
refer to time, you got a tense.

> Change the verb itself to show how true it is, you got a "mood", like
Subjunctive, Indicative, Optative, Benedictive ["May this house be safe
from tigers"].

> Change the verb itself to show your viewpoint, you got an "aspect", like
Progressive, Usitative, Inceptive ["He started to leave"].

> Change the verb itself to show agency (who did what to whom), you got a
"voice", like Passive, Active, Mediopassive, Reflexive,

> Everything else that doesn't actually produce a different verb form
(as opposed to another word in the phrase) *isn't* yet another "tense",
but rather verb phrase syntax. English verbs are notoriously simple
in terms of their inflection, but getting all the verb phrases right is
a nightmare.

> [...]

> Well, no, not really. First, tense only "has to do with" or "comes
from" time. It doesn't really "communicate" or "refer" to it. For
instance, the so-called "present" tense (Bill walks to school) isn't
really about the present time at all. It's generic, describing a
characteristic activity of the subject, which is more than likely
not being indulged in at the present moment. You want that, you
should use the "present progressive" (present tense, progressive
aspect: Bill is walking to school).

> Second, the "requirement" is essentially a distinction between
morphology and syntax, the two kinds of grammar. Morphology is what
shows up in paradigms of the amo, amas, amat or he, him, his variety; it
refers to the *internal* economy of words, how they're formed and
changed and the regular, paradigmatic changes they go through. Syntax,
on the other hand, refers to the *external* economy of words, their
relative order, which ones can be used together, which ones *must* be
used together, what kind of morphology is governed in each case,

> [...] In the nuclear Verb Phrase (before getting to the complicated stuff), there can be up to 4 of these constructions, in a rigid order:

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. What's this?

Hehe.

Damkerng T.

19:53

   Modals     Perfect        Progressive      Passive       Main Verb
1)  *    + Infinitive
2)            have    +  Past Participle
3)                            be      +   Present Participle
4)                                              be         +  Past Part.
(* = may might can could shall should will would must)
All of these go before the Main Verb, the one that means something
lexically instead of grammatically.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I use [...] to indicate that something in the original was left out.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Dam an idea: Next time you bring in a big big discussion, pin the main question in question.

Damkerng T.

> [...]

> The best source for this is the late lamented Jim McCawley's
classic article "Tense and Time Reference in English", pp 96-113 of Studies in Linguistic Semantics, edited by Fillmore and Langendoen. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1971.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Oh, you mean, like a topic?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. I'm gonna do some reading in a near future. . .

@DamkerngT. Ahan. Am eating a salad so my sentences are. . .Fragged.

Damkerng T.

I didn't have a fixed plan about it going to be big or small, but...

You may find this page useful: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/24938/…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I always do.

Damkerng T.

20:12

From Longman English Grammar by L. G. Alexander (1988; 12th impression 1995):

> 9 Verbs, verb tenses, imperatives
General information about verbs and tenses

9.1 What a verb is and what it does

> A verb is a word (run) or a phrase (run out of) which expresses the existence of a state (love, seem) or the doing of an action (take, play). Two facts are basic:

> 1. Verbs are used to express distinctions in time (past, present, future) through tense (often with adverbials of time or frequency).

> 2. Auxiliary verbs [> 10.1] are used with full verbs to give other information about actions and states. For example be may be used with the present participle of a full verb to say that an action was going on ('in progress') at a particular time (I was swimming); have may be used with the past participle of a full verb to say that an action is completed (I have finished).

9.2 Verb tenses: simple and progressive

> Some grammarians believe that tense must always be shown by the actual form of the verb, and in many languages present, past and future are indicated by changes in the verb forms. On this reckoning, English really has just two tenses, the present and the past, since these are the only two cases where the form of the basic verb varies: love, write (present); loved, wrote (past).

> However, it is usual (and convenient) to refer to all combinations of be + present participle and have + past participle as tenses. The same goes for will + bare infinitive [> 16.3] to refer to the future (It will be fine tomorrow). But we must remember that tense in English is often only loosely related to time.

> Tenses have two forms, simple and progressive (sometimes called 'continuous'). The progressive contains be + present participle:

> [... examples ...]

> Both simple and progressive forms usually give a general idea of when an action takes place. But the progressive forms also tell us that an activity is (or was, or will be, etc.) in progress, or thought of as being in progress.

Interesting that the book says English has two tenses too, but it mixes tenses with aspects.

> English really has just two tenses, the present and the past ...

> Tenses have two forms, simple and progressive ...

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Does it?

It just claims there are forms. . .

Maybe oversimplifying something.

Damkerng T.

20:28

nods

> However, it is usual (and convenient) to refer to all combinations of be + present participle and have + past participle as tenses.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

The same book?

Damkerng T.

Yes. Under 9.2.

Up there.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

:O When in the world did it become 0:58 a.m.?

Damkerng T.

?

Oh, your local time.

Go to bed. Quick. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

If we get this, does that mean that I can 💩 on bad questions? — Mysticial 4 mins ago

This meta discussion is getting funny.

Anonymous

20:34

My latest answer on Japanese.SE talks a little bit about English, too:

Anonymous

0

A: What exactly is the subject?

What is a subject? There's more than one theory of grammar, whether we're talking about English or Japanese, and you may find that the term subject has been defined multiple ways. But some definitions are more adequate than others. How can we define subject in a useful way? Let's start by...

Damkerng T.

Wow, that's a not very short answer. :-)

Anonymous

Well, I spent like 90 minutes on it.

Anonymous

I know how long because I'm making potatoes! :-)

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

20:36

In just a few minutes, I'll be eating tasty, tasty potatoes.

Anonymous

And I'll have forgotten all about this Stack Exchange stuff.

Damkerng T.

Eh, is this 魚が好きな人。 a sentence in Japanese?

Anonymous

It's an adnominalization of 魚が好きだ. The copula だ takes its adnominal form な.

Anonymous

People [ that like fish ].

Damkerng T.

Sounds like a (noun) phrase rather than a sentence.

Anonymous

20:38

Oh. Well, yeah, it is.

Damkerng T.

Oh, to parallel the introduction in your answer...

How can we define English 'tense' in a useful way?

That's the question. :D

Anonymous

Again, that takes a fair bit of discussion... :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@snailboat I hate potatoes now.

Long story.

Well, not so long, but my fingers are too lazy to type.

Anonymous

I edited the question to say "phrase"

Anonymous

Potatoes are good for you, though.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

20:45

Yep. Starch.

Anonymous

Yeah. And other stuff.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Stuff is always good.

Anonymous

Yeah, I try to get plenty of stuff in my diet.

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