Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

17:01

LOL -- Macmillan is inconsistent on this.

If I understand the dictionary correctly, it would say that Only in Only his is correct is an adjective.

While Almost in Almost everyone is here is an adverb.

Anonymous

When it's an adjective, it should appear after the determiner, if any.

Anonymous

So in an only child it must be an adjective; it appears in attributive position, after the determiner an but before the head noun child.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I agree that almost would be an adverb in Almost everyone is here, but I don't understand why only would be an adjective in Only his is correct.

Anonymous

H&P use a rather novel concept called functional fusion and would say his there is a fused determiner-head. But it's probably easier to understand if we just claim it's ellipsis of the head noun:

Anonymous

17:06

> [ Only his ~~answer~~ ] is correct.

Anonymous

That makes his a genitive (possessive) pronoun in determiner position.

Anonymous

And only appears before it, on the left periphery.

Anonymous

That makes it an adverb, not an adjective.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Previously discussed:

Anonymous

in English Language Learners, Nov 18 '14 at 16:41, by snailboat

3. As a reduction of almost: I think most everybody would agree.

Anonymous

17:07

in English Language Learners, Nov 18 '14 at 16:42, by snailboat

CGEL explains that use #3 is mainly American English

Anonymous

You might be meeting resistance mainly from speakers of other dialects.

Damkerng T.

Maybe I misunderstand the dict, it doesn't give any example like that anyway.

Anonymous

By the way, we have distinguish these peripheral modifiers from predeterminers. Predeterminers also appear before determiners.

Anonymous

NP structure is complicated! ;-(

Anonymous

By the way, I've finally had my caffeine for the morning. :-)

S.R.I

17:09

"most yours are nice"? Huh....

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

@S.R.I Yeah, that's ungrammatical.

Anonymous

Though I can imagine most of yours are nice sounding like that to a learner if of were reduced in pronunciation.

Anonymous

Since it's ungrammatical, we can't really say what's modifying what . . .

S.R.I

@snailboat I suspect it's from their native language influence

Anonymous

17:11

@S.R.I Could be! I don't know who said it originally.

S.R.I

@snailboat I once came close to saying "Inside of" instead of "within"

Anonymous

@CopperKettle @DamkerngT. I found the page in CGEL with almost reduced to almost. It's in CGEL (H&P, not Quirk et al.) page 1166.

S.R.I

In fact, I routinely hear native-language influenced sentences like "I didn't knew that was possible"

Damkerng T.

Thanks! -- looking...

Anonymous

Besides noting that it's "found primarily in AmE", they also say it's "characteristic of relative informal style".

Anonymous

17:14

@S.R.I It's very common for learners to mix up the past tense and past participle forms for irregular verbs, given that they're identical for regular verbs.

Anonymous

Native speakers too have some interplay between the two forms.

Anonymous

The distinction tends to get leveled out, so people say !had went instead of had gone.

Anonymous

Here the exclamation point ! identifies had went as non-standard.

S.R.I

@snailboat that's when I tell them to try "I have had my coffee" to mess with them some more :-)

Anonymous

Certainly something (some) native speakers say, though.

Anonymous

17:16

Also, in some cases the input is too chaotic and varied for native speakers to acquire the traditional distinction naturally, which is why (for example) so many people mix up the forms for lay and lie.

CopperKettle

@snailboat Thank you, Snails!

S.R.I

@snailboat "had went" vs "had gone". It's certainly confusing - so, when I come across a situation like that, I usually look to my past reading. "Have I read something like that?" I get my answer most of the time

Anonymous

@S.R.I Sounds like a good strategy! :-)

S.R.I

@snailboat Let's see if you can do that, shall we? :-)

Anonymous

Do what, list the forms of lay and lie?

S.R.I

17:19

Between the two sentences, which one of them sounds correct? "I dived right in" vs "I dove right in" :P

pbbt

Damkerng T.

I guess snailboat would do neither. :-)

Anonymous

@S.R.I Trick question! ;-)

S.R.I

@snailboat Have fun :-)

Anonymous

So I will go with μ.

Anonymous

(Better: 無)

S.R.I

17:21

heh

Anonymous

I like typing μ though.

Anonymous

How many words are like dive?

S.R.I

You mean, like dive vs dove? Don't know - I just had that situation last week :P

Anonymous

I was thinking of dived versus dove.

Anonymous

In AmE, dived and dove are both used as past tense forms of dive.

Damkerng T.

17:27

broadcast?

S.R.I

Yes, so I guessed right

Anonymous

In BrE, it's mostly regularized to dived.

Anonymous

So in my dialect, both choices were fine, but it turns out that's not true of all dialects!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Broadcast and broadcasted!

Anonymous

Great example! :-)

S.R.I

17:28

Correct, so I settled on the BrE variant :-)

Anonymous

Hung and hanged could be an example too, but we can potentially treat those as separate words since there's a difference in both form and meaning.

Anonymous

@S.R.I See, when you asked, I thought you were trying to trick me! Both seemed fine to me :-)

Anonymous

But I'm an AmE speaker, and I don't know BrE as well.

Anonymous

I take back my faux μ.

S.R.I

@snailboat Exactly, both seemed fine to me too since I recalled reading both forms of the past "dive"

Anonymous

17:32

You must have been reading American English! :-)

S.R.I

I don't really see the distinction between AmE and BrE too much these days. They all go awash in a sea of words :P

Anonymous

Yeah, you know, I think that almost all American English speakers read or listen to some British English, and vice versa. They seem different to me, but we have to remember that they're 99% the same, and bits of that remaining 1% sometimes cross the pond one way or the other :-)

Anonymous

Barbaric Americanisms!

Anonymous

Still, there remain British English speakers who are shocked, shocked I tell you, at gotten.

S.R.I

heh, haven't they even used "ill-gotten wealth"?

Anonymous

17:34

I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head.

Anonymous

I can find ill-gotten gains in both COCA and BNC!

Anonymous

(Gains is the number one collocate of ill-gotten.)

Anonymous

So I guess even they do use ill-gotten :-)

Damkerng T.

I wonder if the word's ever made it to BBC News.

Anonymous

google.com/…

Anonymous

17:36

A lot of these gottens are ill-!

Damkerng T.

Wow!

S.R.I

@snailboat Third link on google search!

bbc.com/news/magazine-14201796

> 15. What kind of word is "gotten"? It makes me shudder. Julie Marrs, Warrington

I count only 2 of them with a different variant than 'ill-gotten'

Anonymous

@S.R.I Haha!

S.R.I

> He's now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday.
> "Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud....

Anonymous

The author here writes gotten, but apparently she has dual British-American citizenship and got a B.A. in the states, so she's probably succumbed to our pernicious influence.

Anonymous

17:42

(Purple prose day!)

S.R.I

@snailboat There's one more BBC page that uses 'gotten' :

> Until I have gotten everyone to do this, I will still have to email people.

Author seems American

Anonymous

Careful, though. That gotten is in a quote!

Anonymous

It's possible that the reason it says gotten is the American author.

Anonymous

But it's also possible the person being quoted actually said it.

Anonymous

I'm not sure how good the odds are, though – journalists are pretty terrible at actually quoting people!

Anonymous

17:50

So let's file that one under status: unknown.

Anonymous

So I suppose ill-gotten is a holdover from another age in BrE. Although the OED noted that it survived dialectally in BrE at one point, so it's possible it still does . . . ?

Anonymous

Words ending with gotten in the British National Corpus: corpus.byu.edu/bnc/?c=bnc&q=43958953

Anonymous

I wonder how many of those gottens are due to AmE speakers.

Anonymous

@S.R.I I just noticed you don't really participate on the natural language sites!

S.R.I

@snailboat Nope, I don't. All I like to do is make fun of English :P

Anonymous

17:57

Poor English!

S.R.I

It's not a language I'm particularly fond of. I now have the misfortune of being more fluent in English than my native tongue :-(

Anonymous

You must use English a lot, then.

S.R.I

I read a lot of English than speak, yes

Anonymous

Oh, I see.

Anonymous

For professional reasons?

S.R.I

17:59

Yes, and in a different age, academic reasons :-)

Anonymous

Out of curiosity, do you ever find that it's easier to talk about some things in English (say, programming or computer science) and other things in your native language?

S.R.I

Oh, all the time. We don't have technical journals or content in my native language, unlike say, German/Japanese

Or even Russian

Damkerng T.

@S.R.I That makes you curious to me!

Do you still use your first language regularly?

S.R.I

@DamkerngT. yes, I do. Isn't your side-hobby about guessing other native language speakers? :-)

Damkerng T.

Yes!

But in your case, I can't really tell from your English.

S.R.I

18:09

Can't tell if it's a compliment or otherwise :P

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's definitely a good thing. Yes, it's a compliment.

S.R.I

Oh, thank you!

Damkerng T.

It was quite a surprise to me when you said you're more fluent in English than your native tongue.

And you mostly read, rather than speak English.

(Which made me speculate that you didn't spend time in any country where people speak English as their first language when you learned English.)

S.R.I

No speculation needed there. I already revealed my nationality: I'm Indian

Damkerng T.

Okay! :D

But can someone be fluent in English than their first language by just reading? that's one of the questions I always ask myself.

And you're here, as a proof. :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

18:16

No, I'm here as a chatter.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. more (0:

"But can someone be more fluent in English than their first language by just reading? "

Damkerng T.

Ah, I dropped my more without even noticing it!

CopperKettle

I picked it up and put it in the pocket!

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Anonymous

How convenient! :-)

CopperKettle

18:19

(0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle The pocket has a hole.

CopperKettle

@snailboat That's a quote from a song by Ella Fitzgerald (0:

S.R.I

@CopperKettle because @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. picked it

Damkerng T.

Oh, a pocket with a hole. I remember one in Polar Express!

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. A great cartoon!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

18:20

@S.R.I I SWEAR I DIDN'T! Wait, pick what?

meta.ell.stackexchange.com/users/20792/user20785 — How marvelous.

@Dam why do I see a bazillion pins on the star board?

Damkerng T.

Huh?

CopperKettle

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. On starboard = on the right? (0: Nautical terminology?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Pins are way more than they should be.

@CopperKettle Yeah.

Trying to figure out whether it's right or left

Damkerng T.

I promise I'll unpin the topmost one tomorrow.

CopperKettle

Starboard is right, because the person steering the ship used to hold the tiller in his right hand. Port is left, because that's the side the ship berths to the quay

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

18:24

@DamkerngT. Promise that you'll make this room gallery just about now.

Damkerng T.

We've gotten only a couple votes so far.

S.R.I

what's a galleried room?

CopperKettle

I second the question

Damkerng T.

A-ha! Maybe you could make a new poll. Most everyone probably doesn't know what the poll is about!

Note 'most everyone' :P

CopperKettle

(0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

18:26

A room only certain users can talk in.

Of course @Dam will allow everyone to talk in.

S.R.I

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. As he should. Otherwise, he'll lose his hobby :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

The only difference would be that while talking we'll remind ourselves that this is a gallery room and won't go off-topic.

Damkerng T.

@S.R.I LOL

Hello, I'm R. Language Detective Damkerng. R. is for Robot.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

There is a difference between being allowed to talk and talking freely.

S.R.I

Sounds like free speech

Damkerng T.

18:30

4

Q: What is the correct word for a 'band' of frogs?

What is the correct replacement for a 'band' of frogs?

word-choice

1

Q: What is the correct replacement for a 'band' of whales

What is the correct replacement for a 'band' of whales.

word-choice

I wonder what's next.

(They're good questions, though, imho. :-)

S.R.I

That got 4 votes? Things that can be found on Google search are now upvoted here?

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if band of frogs will land them on the right page.

Lemme try...

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@S.R.I Things that don't even need a Google search get upvoted here.

@DamkerngT. What is the correct replacement for a 'band' of robots?

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

I think it's not that straightforward on Google.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Colony of robots?

Clique of robots?

Just robots?

Damkerng T.

18:34

LOL

S.R.I

Army of robots?

Damkerng T.

Some robots are very friendly.

S.R.I

Chain of robots? Since they are mostly about executing a chain of commands?

Damkerng T.

I doubt if they'll form any army.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

BTW @Dam you can unpin the "please write a FAQ for comments" thingy.

Damkerng T.

18:36

Done!

Anonymous

We're going to catch up on that Heroes show soon.

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Anonymous

So @DamkerngT., whatever you were saying about Heroes, I'll have seen it soon enough :-)

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Be prepared to meet Hiro soon! :D

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

18:38

He hasn't shown up in the stuff we've seen so far.

Anonymous

We're a couple months behind, I think.

CopperKettle

Heroes (TV series)

Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the characters' lives. The series emulates the aesthetic style and storytelling of American comic books, using multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger, more encompassing narrative. The series was produced by Tailwind Productions in association with Universal Media Studios. It was filmed primarily...

Damkerng T.

That sounds about right, I think.

CopperKettle

You're talking about this?

Damkerng T.

Yes, a sequel called Heroes Reborn.

CopperKettle

18:44

NES has been suspended until Jan 20. Was it because it turned out that it was he who used the name Empire Strikes Back?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle No, because most prolly he didn't cooperate with mods and did something bad again.

CopperKettle

If a mod changed his name this way, this is bad on the mod's part.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle A mod didn't.

CopperKettle

How can we be sure? We ain't got (the?) access to the log files.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

They were trying to play the good vigilante. It didn't work out.

@CopperKettle There's no reason for Shog to lie.

Do you think they can keep up a community if they lie?

And a community as big as SO?

CopperKettle

18:47

Well, I live in Russia, and it has not disintegrated yet, after a millenium of lies.

And it's quite big.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Real life's different @Copper. Mods are volunteers that mop up vomits, they're not the guy who walks on the front.

CopperKettle

nods

"vomit" is a mass noun // trying to conform with the room's "strictly English grammar" nature (0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

:)

Anonymous

19:06

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. That description makes me proud to be a moderator on Japanese.SE.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@snailboat HEY! It's mods themselves who use these kind of stretched analogies.

CopperKettle

"Anything can modify anything" belongs in the same pantheon as FumbleFingers' Perfect Truism. I christen it Ricky's Arrogance Principle. — StoneyB 6 hours ago

"Almost everybody came in the end." - an adverb modifying an pronoun

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Where's the adjective?

CopperKettle

A pronoun

Sorry, my brain is not shipshape. (0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

OK I can remove the fluff from this answer and get to one single word without any harm to the content: "Yes". I think it would really pay if you mention why "*very people" is incorrect (in the quantification sense; the correct version being "many people") while "almost everyone" isn't. But then again, these must be beneath you so I guess just have a fun day. — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 1 min ago

CopperKettle

19:16

"As the poet said, I'm sufficiently proud about knowing something to be occasionally modest about my not knowing everything."

I found it: it was Nabokov who said that.

A well-read guy. Nabokov's books are great.

CopperKettle

19:38

a discussion about adverbs modifying pronouns, dating back to 1998

"From this point of view, 'almost' lacks certain
characteristics that common adjectives share: i.e., we don't find
comparative and superlative *almoster or *almostest. We do find that
'almost' can modify nouns, verbs, and adjectives. To my way of thinking,
it's a better generalization to say that 'almost' is an adverb, and that
certain adverbs can modify very many classes of words, not just verbs."

> LOL: ""The Klingon Dictionary" by Marc Okrand (New York: Pocket Books,
1985) says on page 18: "There are three basic parts of speech in Klingon:
_noun_, _verb_, and _everything_else_." For English, _everything_else_ =
adverb."

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Use blockquotes! See how much @Dam loves them?

CopperKettle

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. how does one use them?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Just like the main site, except that you can't nest them.

CopperKettle

> Oh, I see. That's how.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle Yay!

CopperKettle

19:41

Yay indeed!

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle I wonder when someone will say that almost is a preposition. :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. almost is a preposition.

Damkerng T.

:-)

As for the argument that we don't say almoster or almostest, we don't say onlier or onliest either. Does that make it not an adjective in the only person?

(And what is my not up there? in 'make it not an adjective'.)

(My cat seems to be curious about what I'm typing away!)

Anonymous

Not all adjectives are gradable. But for something to be an adjective, it should have at least some adjective-like qualities.

Anonymous

Some adjectives only appear in attributive position. Others only appear in predicative position.

Anonymous

19:51

Some adjectives aren't gradable.

Anonymous

When adjectives don't have all the properties that most adjectives do, that's when we consider them peripheral members of the category.

2

Anonymous

But they still have to have some of the properties, or there's no use in calling them adjectives.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I don't think anyone would claim that adverbs only modify verbs.

Anonymous

That would be silly.

Damkerng T.

BTW, I'm a human pillow right now.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

20:09

Punches @Dam

Oh that's soft!

Damkerng T.

bouncing...

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Plays pillow fight, throws @Dam at @Snail

Damkerng T.

Argh! Please don't throw me around!

Anonymous

20:24

@CopperKettle The basic distinction between adjectives and adverbs is not 'modifier of noun' versus 'modifier of verb'.

Anonymous

Someone learning about English grammar might be confused by the verb part of the word adverb and make a claim like that, but it's not a serious claim.

Anonymous

The basic distinction is 'modifier of noun' versus 'modifier of other'.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle For further reading, and a more detailed analysis: The distribution and category status of adjectives and adverbs (Payne, Huddleston & Pullum 2010)

Anonymous

This is a newer analysis than in CGEL.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@snailboat verb part of the word? Am I officially allowed to say that adjectives modify jectives?

Anonymous

20:28

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. You'd be surprised how much (sometimes only apparent) etymology influences the way we think about words.

Anonymous

Let's talk about prepositions, which are not always pre-positioned in English.

Anonymous

Some folks are unhappy with the idea of calling them prepositions if they're not pre-positioned, right before a noun phrase.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, this leads to a very confusing analysis of English, in which there is a category of things that are often not in that position, but otherwise pattern like prepositions!

Anonymous

A very few prepositions typically follow their complements.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@snailboat And calling them what? Flower?

Anonymous

20:29

And some would prefer to call these postpositions.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Ahh

Anonymous

Linguistics has a hypernym for pre- and post-positions, and that term is adposition.

Anonymous

But some things in English pattern like prepositions without taking complements.

Anonymous

They appear neither before nor after their complements because they have none.

Anonymous

> I went home.

Anonymous

20:31

Traditionally, it'd be called an adverb.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

J.L.'s answer!

Anonymous

But the adverb category is full of a bunch of unlike things. And one subcategory of adverb is just that – words that pattern like preposition phrases, but without the NP complement. Home is one of them.

Anonymous

And home isn't pre-positioned before anything.

Anonymous

So of course people don't like calling it a preposition.

Anonymous

But around a hundred years ago, the great Otto Jespersen realized that, apart from being intransitive, they're just like prepositions.

Anonymous

20:33

Now, in English we have transitive verbs and intransitive verbs.

Anonymous

The question is: why don't we call intransitive verbs 'adverbs'?

Anonymous

Well, that'd be silly, right?

Anonymous

They walk and talk like transitive verbs. Just like them, 'cept for the transitivity part.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I'm calling myself "adverb" from now on.

Anonymous

But we're doing exactly that with prepositions! We call home an adverb in traditional grammar, but it's not really like the class of adverbs.

Anonymous

20:35

More to the point, we're making the adverb category even more heterogeneous than it already is by lumping these intransitive prepositions in there.

Anonymous

Calling them adverbs is silly. That's exactly what you'll find in dictionaries, though.

Anonymous

And one reason people are resistant to calling them prepositions is the shape of the word. Pre-position.

Anonymous

Huddleston & Pullum argue that we should call all words in this class prepositions whether they come before or after their complements, or whether they take them at all. We should ignore the etymology the same way we do with adverb, they say.

Anonymous

But although this isn't a particularly new idea, people aren't especially keen on it.

Anonymous

They're even less keen on using the term adposition.

Damkerng T.

22:44

There's no real "right" and "wrong" here. All three of your versions are fine. It's just that your second one would be more likely to use simple past. Come to that, in most contexts a native speaker wouldn't bother pointlessly using present perfect have registered rather than simple past. But again, that's no reason to say the more complex phrasing is "wrong" (or even "not so good"). — FumbleFingers 46 mins ago

Why do learners usually think there's only one correct way to say anything?

Is it because of the way we make the tests?

Damkerng T.

22:58

Hmm... actually the question is not a bad one.

StoneyB

23:24

@snailboat My problem with calling home a preposition is that it cannot be characterized as either transitive or intransitive. Transitive prepositions construct PP by taking an oblique. Intransitive prepositions construct PP without taking an oblique. But home in the sense in question is quite obviously a PP constructed using only an oblique, without the expected preposition.

Transcript for