Language Overflow

yubraj sharma

01:33

Good Morning everyone !!!!

I knew a usefull English word in a dictionary which I didn't know before dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quibble

yubraj sharma

01:54

Quible over/about

Jude

05:43

Good Morning!

can someone help me with this sentences?

You know how it is important to make the day remarkable on someone’s birthday.

If you don’t want to be part of this, it’s totally fine. But don’t expect the vise-versa.  fair enough.

V.V.

06:37

How important it is to make someone "s birthday unforgettable. If you don't want to take part in it...vice-(here I don't understand the meaning )

Anonymous

07:15

I don't understand that sentence either.

mike

I'm not sure if vice-versa works in this fashion

Jude

I was trying to say; if you don't wanna give then don't expect to have in return

mike

07:31

If you don’t want to be part of this, it’s totally fine. But don’t expect any different on your birthday

QuokMoon

'then' should be omit in 'If' condition right ?

mike

then is not required.

QuokMoon

if you don't wanna give, You will never expect to have in return.

Is it correct way ?

I just added future tenses at second part.

mike

I would say 'you shouldn't expect'

Jude

07:50

thanks guys!

yubraj sharma

Could you share me reliable free offline dictionary for free ? I'm having difficulty with pronouncing words or phrases in Britain or American English. I wanted to install or download dictionary or software so went to play store and found
WordWeb Audio Dictionary - Android Apps on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wordwebsoftware.android.wordwebaudio&hl=en) But It's not available for free. I have found many online dictionary for free but not found offline dictionaries.

Damkerng T.

10:47

0

Q: Superfluous Error correction

Doctor Alex (A) /was an educated(B) /man of letters (C)/ no error (D) The above question was asked in my exam in which I was asked to mark the error in the given sentence from four options (A,B,C,D). I know the error, it's that educated here is superfluous with man of letters as man of lette...

I wonder from what century the test was.

mike

I couldn't get my head around the question

yubraj sharma

11:20

@snailplane Hi, @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

11:35

@yubrajsharma Hi!

I just drop in for a few moments. Going to go outside again soon.

Araucaria

11:54

@DamkerngT. Ah, just the man ...

This question needs a good answer before it gets closed!!! I'm working and cannot do it ...

1

Q: Are these sentences grammatically correct?,.,.,

Are these sentences grammatically correct and do both possess almost the same meaning? I wish I got good marks. I wish I had got good marks.

grammar difference

Any chance of your coming to the rescue?

Nudge, nudge ...

Damkerng T.

I upvoted your comments. We can vote to reopen it if it gets closed.

Araucaria

BTW, where's our resident chemist?

Damkerng T.

I haven't seen him for maybe almost three months already!

mike

Interesting question. I read that 'gotten' is an Americanism, yet we use I had gotten in Ireland ...

Araucaria

@mike Do you? I didn't know that. Is that in standard Irish or just in some varieties?

mike

12:07

I can only speak from experience, but it would be in common usage in english-speaking Ireland

Araucaria

@mike 'Americanism' is a bit of an odd way to term it really. The original form was gotten but it changed to got in new fangled English, but didn't change in standard American ...

Anonymous

To GloWbE!

Araucaria

@mike So maybe it's a Europeanism?

mike

ha - maybe :)

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/glowbe

mike

12:08

It's not something I put a whole lot of thought into until I saw that question earlier

but every source I've looked at states that it's not British English

which is what is spoken in Ireland

Araucaria

@snailplane How can we use that to check up on gotten?

mike

then again, we do have a history of bastardising language, so I wouldn't use Ireland as a benchmark for the rest of the English speaking world

Araucaria

@mike Yes, that's what I'd thought. In some varieties of Northern English they still use gotten or even gitten!

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=53093767

Anonymous

These are occurrences of the search strings per million tokens in each region.

Anonymous

12:12

Here is a list of the two-letter codes and what they mean:

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/dialects.asp#corpus

Araucaria

@snailplane I want to search had got versus had gotten, but I can't seem to do it properly ...

Anonymous

The problem there is that it will have a lot of the possessive have got idiom everywhere.

Anonymous

You can do that by searching for had got|gotten.

Araucaria

@snailplane but we don't use had got very much for the possessive, do we? Isn't it pretty much confined to the present perfect?

Anonymous

12:14

Is it really?

Anonymous

So that's why you chose had.

Anonymous

The | symbol means "or" in this case.

Anonymous

The site's interface is rather hard to use unfortunately :-(

Araucaria

@snailplane Ah, that worked really well, there's a really clear divide!!

corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=53093767

Anonymous

To create a working link to a search, you need to create an account and then go to your history page.

Araucaria

12:17

@snailplane Oh, that sounds like hard work. But you should try that search, it's very interesting! (I just copied and pasted your "had got|gotten" into the box ... )

Anonymous

I will do it in a moment :-) My internet access is being kind of wonky.

Anonymous

I'm also going to set it to "per mil" (under options).

Anonymous

I think this link should work for everyone: corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=53093956

Anonymous

I did the thing I said about getting the link from my user history page. :-)

Araucaria

@snailplane That seems to back up what @mike was saying. "Had gotten" seems to put up a reasonable showing in IE although had got is still twice as common ...

Anonymous

12:27

Yeah, very interesting :-) One of the nice things about using this corpus is that you can look through the examples to see if they're genuine attestations, if you like. You can find a little bit of American English on UK web pages, for example, so there's always going to be some error. But it looks like in this case there's a real difference.

Anonymous

H&P write: "The preterite is certainly possible (She had got too much work to do), but it is fairly uncommon: have got occurs predominantly in the present tense." (p.112) ← I know for a fact I read this multiple times in the past, but I suppose it never really registered :-)

Anonymous

I need to grab Biber et al 1999 and see what they say about it.

Anonymous

I like it because it's a more corpus-based grammar and contains a lot of frequency information, but it is somewhat dated and of course we have access to a lot more (and larger!) corpora these days.

Anonymous

They don't talk about any varieties of BrE retaining gotten.

Anonymous

They do note that AmE conversation sometimes uses got. Their example: It could have got put in storage or something. (from their AmE conversation corpus)

Anonymous

12:39

It doesn't really work very well on its own as a grammar, though. More of a supplement.

Anonymous

H&P say it is "possible" but "fairly uncommon" to use had got to show possession, but Biber et al simply discuss it as a special use of the present perfect and don't mention an infrequent past perfect use at all.

CowperKettle

Center of Yekaterinburg

Anonymous

Wow!

CowperKettle

(0:

mike

looks beautiful

it's been a while since I was there - but it seems far more colourful now :D

user2684291

13:09

Is "themself" acceptable as an inflected singular "they"? It gets a red squiggly line of disapproval by my spellchecker, for some reason.

Damkerng T.

13:21

@CowperKettle Awesome! Almost CGI-ish. In other words, too good to be real!

@user2684291 I remember snailplane commented on that, but I can't remember the comment exactly.

user2684291

"Yes, if we want to give advice to learners, the safest advice is to avoid themself."

@DamkerngT. Thanks.

Damkerng T.

May 20 '16 at 8:21, by snail plane

@DamkerngT. Themself is still around in non-standard varieties! :-)

It's non-standard, then. :-)

user2684291

13:58

Can "hot under the collar" mean sexually excited?

Oh, perhaps it could be used literally with that meaning?

mike

it usually means angry or annoyed by something

Mick

"Hot under the collar" just means angry. Of course, you can have the hots for someone.

mike

I haven't seen it used in a sexual context

Mick

@mike Snap!

mike

:)

user2684291

14:02

I have just now, but I can't really say if the person is a native speaker.

mike

hot and bothered could perhaps be used in this way

0

Q: "Permission of translate" or "permission of translating"

Someone wrote: It seems this book is worth reading; however, I doubt it has the permission of translating and publishing in Iran. Which of the following is correct/incorrect and why? permission of translate and publish permission of translation and publish permission of translate and pu...

gerunds

none of the proposed sentences seem correct to me

user2684291

The OED: hot and bothered – in a state of exasperated agitation.

mike

amorous; interested in romance or sex. John gets hot and bothered whenever Mary comes into the room.

user2684291

By their comment history, it appears they are indeed a native English speaker (from a reddit thread that's NSFW if you decide to google it; don't judge me!): "Id hop on and google away and find awesome sites with girls sucking on ice creams with no shirts on and, oh boy, did that get little me hot under the collar."

@mike All right, thanks.

yubraj

14:36

@DamkerngT. Good Evening!

I had asked about a offline Pronounciation dictionary for free, it seems no one has that

Damkerng T.

TANSTAAFL

yubraj

14:59

What do you mean please?

Damkerng T.

!!wiki/TANSTAAFL

Ellbot

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (alternatively, "There is no such thing as a free lunch" or other variants) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, and TNSTAAFL, are also used. Uses of the phrase dating back to the 1930s and 1940s have been found, but the phrase's first appearance is unknown. The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the nineteenth-century practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch" in order to entice drinking customers. The phrase and the acronym are central to Robe...

Mick

15:20

@yubraj There's some stuff on SourceForge. I've no idea how good it is, though (not needing an English pronunciation dictionary myself). This might be a good question to ask on Software Recommendations.SE.

yubraj

0

Q: How can I save some websites on my Google drive along with audio or videos?

I want to save some whole website pages of BBC Learning English along with audios or videos in my drive, just like as It is in BBC site. How can I do this ?

website

Cardinal

HI guys

I wrote something would you assess it?

yubraj

@Mick ok I hope someone will help me there !

Cardinal

> He rebuilt his life brick by brick from the bottom, years of efforts which culminated in a more independent person.

Mick

@yubraj Ooh! They won't like that on Stack Overflow.

Ellbot

15:26

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Truth

Mick

@Cardinal Years of effort, not efforts.

Nagendra

Hello! Can anyone please tell me if I can say "Priya is leading a happy life after her retirement from her service."? Is there any error in the sentence?

Mick

@Nagendra No errors, but it would be more idiomatic to say "after her retirement from service".

Anonymous

15:41

@user2684291 Out of curiosity, where do people say ice creams?

Anonymous

Australia and New Zealand, maybe.

yubraj

@Mick where should I ask the question?

Anonymous

@yubraj There is no SE site where that question is appropriate as written.

Nagendra

@Mick One more question. "What to speak of running, he cannot even walk". Does this sentence make sense?

Anonymous

For starters, you didn't include enough information to make it even remotely answerable.

Anonymous

15:44

You haven't told people, for example, that you don't have a computer and are using a phone.

Mick

@yubraj Super User or Software Recommendations. Stack Overflow is just for programming errors.

yubraj

Nods....I don't know how should I make my question detailed.

Anonymous

Don't post it like that on SU or SR. No one will be able to help you.

yubraj

Ok....I'll be detailed a bit.

Mick

@Nagendra Not really. I'm not sure what meaning you want to convey. "Why speak of running when he cannot even walk?", perhaps?

yubraj

15:49

@Mick Sorry. I'm confused. Which question are you talking about? About dictionary or what ?

@snailplane and you too

Anonymous

Mick is responding to someone else.

yubraj

@snailplane No

Anonymous

Oh.

Nagendra

@Mick I was aked to find the error in the sentence. I know that I can say Not to speak of running, he cannot even walk. But I'm not sure of whether this is grammatical or not.

Anonymous

I'm sorry, keeping up this conversation is taking too much mental effort. I'll be back later.

yubraj

15:51

@snailplane No, he has pingeg me.

Mick will respond me. I hope!

Mick

@Nagendra "Not to speak of..." is better. I cannot tell you if it is grammatical. I'm no expert.

Damkerng T.

@Nagendra I find it a bit strange that Not to speak of ... comes first.

I'd prefer He can't even walk, not to speak of running.

Or a similar phrase.

@yubraj Strange. It's 7 hours already, and nobody posted anything, not even a comment, not even a vote!

I've heard that things go pretty fast on SO.

But FWIW, I agree with Mike and snailplane.

Nagendra

@Mick I've many doubts like this. Can I ask here? Are you feeling any disturbance?

Mick

@Nagendra I always feel disturbances. Ask away.

Damkerng T.

Oops! Sorry for typing your name wrong! @Mick

Nagendra

16:05

@Mick Thank you. What does the sentence "Information technology not geared towards universal education would be a self-contained contradiction" mean? Is it grammatical?

@DamkerngT. Can you please tell me why it seems strange? Any grammatical error?

Mick

@Nagendra There's not much point asking me "is it grammatical" questions, since I stopped studying English 50 years ago. It looks OK although it is rather laborious. Too many long words.

Damkerng T.

@Nagendra It's perhaps as strange as "nuts to soup" to me. I suppose it's fine. It just presents information in an unexpected order.

Nagendra

16:21

@Mick @DamkerngT. Thank you.

yubraj

@DamkerngT. Yes ! I don't know what to do now.

Damkerng T.

@yubraj Remember that you always have a poor man's way to work around the problem. It's not perfect, but if $4 is too expensive for you, I'd say it's a reasonable solution.

@Nagendra I hope it helped!

yubraj

Nods....

Damkerng T.

Hi MorganFR, I couldn't figure it out either but it is true. When I say Bull and bear market, smartphone can convert it to written word but not when I say "bull" only. — user47183 5 mins ago

It's another comment showing that people these days do trust machines.

yubraj

@DamkerngT. My this question stackoverflow.com/questions/41459034/… is different than that of previous. I'm here asking about creating a document by saving website pages along with audio or videos of BBC in my Google drive or docs. I hope you'll help me.

Damkerng T.

16:34

I hope someone out there can help you out.

If you look long enough, you may find someone or something that can solve almost any problems for free. The problem is it probably takes too long.

yubraj

No one has viewed my question yet. Not even a comment!

Damkerng T.

I wonder why. I don't really use SO, though.

yubraj

Umm...

I find BBC Learning English website quite helpfull.

Damkerng T.

@yubraj I think their podcasts are freely downloadable.

yubraj

Yes !

Damkerng T.

16:40

Okay, good! So what's the problem?

If the audio clips or podcasts are the main thing you really want, I wonder if you really need the web page.

Mick

@yubraj Your question has received one downvote and one upvote, which is surprising.

Damkerng T.

@Mick Oh, I see. I can't see the votes over there.

yubraj

But I wanted to save some website pages on my Google drive along with audio or videos associated with them.@DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

@yubraj I think you're going to make it harder than necessary.

Normally, people would just save a web page for "reading" offline.

yubraj

@Mick I don't know if I asked this question in right place or not.

Damkerng T.

16:45

In your case, if the video or the audio clips are downloadable (because the site seems to gear towards the learners), you can download them separately from the text.

yubraj

Yes ! I want to save them for offline too.

Mick

@yubraj Your best bet is to look for suitable browser extensions. There are extensions for Firefox that claim to do what you want, but I don't know how well they work (or whether they will save to Google Drive).

Damkerng T.

I still don't understand, why Google Drive?

yubraj

I haven't used Firefox yet, on my mobile I am using crome right now. @Mick

Damkerng T.

Chrome has its offline feature built-in.

Though I don't think it will save anything to Google Drive.

Nor will it save video and audio clips together with the web page.

I'm pretty sure this will turn out to be another XY problem.

(You're asking about X, when your actual problem is Y.)

yubraj

16:50

@DamkerngT. In google drive I will be able to save them permanently on my drive. It will also provide offline reading. My mobile device won't be out of storage. These are the reasons.

Damkerng T.

@yubraj Offline, on Gmail? Hmm...

yubraj

I mean on my drive !

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

So ... I guess that you have a phone that can connect to the internet (via a free wi-fi network), and you have a computer that also can connect to the internet, but you can't use it for anything else but Gmail?

yubraj

I don't have computer. I have android mobile only. Yes, these days I'm browsing through wifi

Damkerng T.

Oh! So your "drive" means Google Drive?

Why not just bookmark the page?

yubraj

16:57

Yes ! Google drive.

Bookmarking ? I will again need to be online.

Damkerng T.

Wouldn't it be the same with Google Drive?

yubraj

Google drive also provides offline reading.

Damkerng T.

Yes, I know that. But what's the point of saving those files to Google Drive, then?

Do you think offline reading with Google Drive doesn't take up any space of your mobile phone?

yubraj

Because I would view them later from anywhere I go, It wouldn't matter if I lost my mobile. Space ? I think it may take space of my phone if i made them for offline.

But I'm only going to make some of them offline.Not All...

Damkerng T.

Well, I suppose you can save those files to Google Drive, if you really want to. I'm not sure if I really understand why you want to save them in Google Drive when saving them directly to your phone is also perfectly possible.

yubraj

17:11

Ok...6 GB used out of 15 GB.

CowperKettle

0

Q: Derivation of the variance of the sampling distribution of the mean - one unclear sentence in an explanation

From OnlineStatBook: I don't understand the meaning of Since the mean is $\frac{1}{N}$ times the sum, the variance of the sampling distribution of the mean would be $\frac{1}{N^2}$ times the variance of the sum, which equals σ2/N. I only recently started refreshing my knowledge of stat...

variance

Trying to re-learn statistics

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle :)

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. I feel myself dense

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Because you're full of statistics now! :P

I guess it must be fun.

yubraj

We take tea or have or drink tea? @DamkerngT.

Mick

17:26

@yubraj Take tea is very old-fashioned. Drink tea is fine. Have a cup of tea (or just "a cuppa") is usual in BrE.

Damkerng T.

@yubraj How coincidental! I'm having my tea!

yubraj

Nods....Have take drink all work.....except' take' is old fashioned!

Damkerng T.

I just checked out the BBC Learning English website on my phone. I can see why it's a problem. @yubraj

mike

good evening/very early morning

Damkerng T.

If I click to play a video on BBL Learning English, it will redirect me to Google Play to download and install their app.

yubraj

17:33

What about meal ......dinner ? Having and taking ?

Damkerng T.

@mike Good evening!

@yubraj have or eat

yubraj

@DamkerngT. Yes ! That's also a problem!

Damkerng T.

Fortunately, they make their videos available on YouTube as well. I think you're better off viewing those videos there.

yubraj

Umm....Nods..

Mick

Have or eat. "Take" is rarely used for eating and drinking. One can "take refreshment", however. That is still idiomatic.

Damkerng T.

17:35

There are too many ways to view YouTube videos offline, both on desktop and mobile. It's a bit gray-area, but I'm sure you can find a good offline YouTube viewer out there.

youtube.com/user/bbclearningenglish

Pronunciation: Assimilation of /d/ and /b/

►

Really? speeb-boat?

I think that's misleading.

Even though the assimilation is true, I'd say it's still a /d/.

yubraj

Oh

Damkerng T.

I'm okay with telling a learner that it's "spee' boat", but "speeb boat", I'm not sure what we'll get after telling a learner that and having them pronounce it back to us.

There are a few organs involved in making a /d/ sound. Focusing only on the mouth and the lips, the parts that we can see from the outside, ignores what happened inside of the mouth.

And definitely ignores what's going on in the vocal tract.

I don't like this kind of stuff. When it looks pretty good, it looks pretty trustworthy, it looks pretty believable, and yet it's misleading.

Mick

I entertain fond hopes that foreigners will learn to speak English better than the English do. This is not to be allowed, apparently.

Damkerng T.

To challenge the idea in the video, let's say I named a new chat bot "Speebbob". I'm pretty sure that virtually all native speakers wouldn't hear the /d/ sound when another native speaker reads this name.

Nagendra

He is the Shakespeare of India or He is a Shakespeare of India. Please tell me which is correct?

Damkerng T.

17:43

Of course, it would be different if I named the bot "Speedbob".

@Mick Apparently.

Or to hear some sounds in English better than native speakers.

But is it really impossible?

mike

@Nagendra: the would be correct here

yubraj

D and t are not pronounced by them.But They may have pronounced silently.

Damkerng T.

Oh! I just recalled this! @Mick

It's quite possible that many foreigners can pronounce some phonemes in Thai better than Thais.

Isn't that mind-boggling? :-)

yubraj

Speed boat becomes spee boat.....Assimilation.

Nagendra

17:59

Thank you, Mike!

Damkerng T.

The example hadn't been beautifully contextualized. — Jim Reynolds 4 hours ago

Haha!

Anonymous

@yubraj Write speeb boat :-)

Anonymous

The /d/ isn't missing at all. It's assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant. What does "assimilate" mean? It means "become like; become similar to"

Anonymous

18:15

If you pretend the consonant is gone, you'll get the wrong pronunciation out of people.

Anonymous

Oh, I see, I just recapitulated the discussion I didn't read, but in reverse :-)

user2684291

@snailplane "Out of curiosity, where do people say ice creams? Australia and NZ, maybe." Are you alluding to the fact that it's not normally (in other Englishes) a count noun?

Anonymous

@user2684291 Yeah. In AmE, people don't typically say ice creams. We typically treat ice cream as a non-count noun and say something like two scoops of ice cream or a pint of ice cream.

Anonymous

We treat it as a count noun sometimes when there is a natural unit you can order at a restaurant, the same way you can ask for two waters at a restaurant even though water is typically not a count noun.

Anonymous

But if someone says they looked like ice creams, I have no idea what that means.

Anonymous

18:18

What's an ice cream? I have no idea what to picture.

user2684291

Right.

ice cream

Noun: ice cream ‎(countable and uncountable, plural ice creams)

(uncountable) A dessert made from frozen sweetened cream or a similar substance, usually flavoured.
Strawberries are particularly delicious with ice cream.
(countable) A snack consisting of ice cream on a stick, in a cup or in a wafer cone.
Can I have some money for an ice cream, Mum?

Anonymous

Wiktionary sez: "A snack consisting of ice cream on a stick, in a cup or in a wafer cone."

user2684291

Yeah, maybe he was referring to their being stick-shaped... I haven't provided the rest of the context, but I think his future realization may be obvious, now that I said that.

Also, he uses "realise" in his post, but that may not mean much.

Nagendra

Anyone please tell me what's the difference between "He is acting very strangely" and "He is acting very strange"?

Anonymous

I think it's clear he's not from the U.S., anyway.

Anonymous

18:24

@Nagendra The meaning is more or less the same, so the only difference I can see is grammatical.

Anonymous

They're both grammatical, but the grammar is different.

Nagendra

Can you please explain the difference in grammar?

Anonymous

Yes. I can do so later.

Anonymous

I'm going to go eat :-)

user2684291

7

Q: "He acted strange(ly?)"

It would make sense if both of these sentences were grammatically correct; but is anything different between them meaning-wise? He acted very strange when I told him about the missing amulet. He acted strangely about the whole deal. What difference is there between using an adverb here...

meaning word-choice adverbs

Nagendra

18:28

I've seen a question related to this on ELU but couldn't understand the answers.

user2684291

Welp.

Nagendra

@user2684291 I was talking about the same!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Bon appetit!

Hmm... I've never thought about act carefully before. I suppose it's sort of "copula-ish".

Half-way between be and do, I suppose.

Oh, no! The latest(?) episode of 'Bull' is about self-driving cars! -- It's here, peep!

Ah, right! It was on air in the US just a couple days ago.

Damkerng T.

19:28

1

Q: Can we use how many times the way it's been used in the first sentence?

She's talking on the phone about how her neighbor died, as if how many times she's talked about the incident so far isn't enough. She's talking on the phone about how her neighbor died, as if the number of times she's talked about the incident so far isn't enough. Is the first sent...

meaning grammaticality

I think however could fix the first sentence, but I'm not that sure.

(either sentence sounds a bit contrived to me anyway)

> ORIGINAL: She's talking on the phone about how her neighbor died, as if how many times she's talked about the incident so far isn't enough.

> FIXED: She's talking on the phone about how her neighbor died, as if however many times she's talked about the incident so far isn't enough.

user2684291

19:47

@Nagendra Right.

From what I've garnered, when followed by an adjective, the verb acts (heh) akin to "is" and its ilk. My interpretation:
1. "He acts strange." ≈ "He is strange."
2. "He acts strangely." ≈ "He behaves in a strange manner."

Anonymous

20:04

@user2684291 Right. In the former we have an ascriptive predicative complement (a complement to the verb which predicates semantically on the subject, ascribing a trait to it, as in an ascriptive copular clause), and in the latter we have a modifier of the verb.

Anonymous

In the former, the adjective is describing he. In the latter, the adverb is modifying acts.

Anonymous

But in this case it works out to about the same thing semantically.

Anonymous

John Lyons (1966) gives this example, though:

Anonymous

> 3. She smells nice.
> 4. She smells nicely.

Anonymous

In example 4, nicely describes how good she is at smelling. She smells quite nicely, and clearly has some practice as a smeller.

Anonymous

20:06

In this example pair, the two examples don't end up with the same meaning.

Nagendra

@user2684291@snailplane Yes. I got it. Thank you.

user2684291

20:26

@snailplane Enviably well explained. ^^

Word of the day: cucumiform

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The reason that doesn't work is because the /d/ is still around. It's just assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant ("anticipatory coarticulation"), which in this case means the airflow stops at the lips because the two gestures overlap somewhat. It doesn't mean the original tongue gesture from the /d/ isn't also articulated, but it may not be audible. What is audible, though, is the rhythm. We end up with a geminate /bb/ rather than singleton /b/.

Anonymous

It sounds like we're mostly on the same page here. But I can't agree with saying spee', because that implies a singleton /b/.

Anonymous

20:42

I think the best way to explain it is to tell someone how to articulate the gestures individually, and then to explain how they can overlap and what happens in the mouth.

V.V.

Two questions. 1 Can all copula verbs take an adverb?2. Are there many non-copula verbs which can take adjectives? How to recognize them?

Anonymous

@V.V. Each verb takes its own kind of complementation. Many linguists would prefer to reserve the term "copula" for the verb be only, which has its own unique grammar.

Anonymous

But many verbs take a "predicative complement" (or e.g. "subject complement"), and adjectives can function as predicative complements.

Anonymous

That's one way we can distinguish between objects (which are nouns and cannot be adjectives) and predicative complements (which can be nouns OR adjectives).

Anonymous

And verbs which take P.C.s are the verbs some people are calling "copula verbs".

Anonymous

20:45

Each verb chooses which sorts of complements it takes. Some take P.C.s, and some don't.

Anonymous

That's one of the basic ideas behind the term "complement".

Anonymous

On the other hand, we have "adjuncts" which are not chosen by those verbs.

Anonymous

There's a silly joke some people tell. They say you can make any sentence funnier if you add "in bed" to the end of it.

Anonymous

The reason that works grammatically is because "in bed" is an adjunct. You don't need to carefully pick a verb which allows that sort of modifier. You can add it to pretty much anything.

Anonymous

And adverbs can generally function as adjuncts. You can stick a lot of adverbs onto pretty much any predicate.

Anonymous

20:48

So you can add an adverb to just about any verb, which means that yes, all "copula" verbs can appear with adverbs.

Anonymous

In "She smells nicely" (which is a silly thing to say, of course) the adverb nicely is an adjunct modifying the intransitive verb smells.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I think so. I'm okay with the explanation in the video in general. It's just that I think they simplify it too much and probably look at the issue mostly from a native speaker's point of view. I daresay that writing it as "speeb boat" can be misleading. (I think I saw both "spee boat" and "speeb boat" in their transcript.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I definitely think that writing speeb boat by itself is not a complete description of what is going on.

Anonymous

You need an explanation to accompany any transcription :-)

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Anonymous

20:52

And as for the second question, if a copula verb is defined as a verb which can take a predicative complement, then a non-copula verb is one which does not, so we'd have to think of some other function an adjective can have that a verb can take as a complement. I don't think there is one, so I think the answer is no.

Anonymous

But we have examples like this:

Anonymous

> 5. The passengers arrived safe.

Anonymous

> 6. The passengers arrived safely.

Anonymous

Here, arrive is not a "copula verb" in that it does not take a predicative complement.

V.V.

Copula verbs have different meanings with adjectives and adverbs, and they become non-copula with adverbs.Did I get it right?

Anonymous

20:54

Safe is instead a predicative adjunct.

Anonymous

@V.V. If you give it an adverb instead of an adjective, it's not doing the thing that "copula verbs" do – it's not taking a predicative complement. It's being modified by a manner adjunct (or such).

Anonymous

In He acts strangely, the verb act is not semantically linking he to a complement. Rather, strangely is an adjunct of manner describing acts.

Anonymous

The "copula" word in "copula verb" comes from Latin and means "linking". When we say "A is B", we're linking A to B in some way.

V.V.

Thanks, that's clear. Arrived safe is not.

Anonymous

In The passengers arrived safe, the adjunct safe (sometimes called a "secondary predicate") predicates on the subject the passengers.

Anonymous

21:00

Arrive is not a "copula verb" and doesn't take a predicative complement.

V.V.

No, what I don't understand is how it's different from"acted"

Anonymous

The difference is whether it's a complement or an adjunct.

Anonymous

Let's take a look at a couple example pairs:

Anonymous

> 7a. He acted strange.
> 7b. *He acted.
> 8a. The passengers arrived safe.
> 8b. The passengers arrived.

Anonymous

(Note that although I put a star next to 7b, it's not actually ungrammatical, because we can interpret 7b a different way. But I wrote that to show that strange is an obligatory complement in this use.)

Anonymous

21:04

Hmm, maybe I should come up with some different examples to make it a bit less confusing.

Anonymous

> 9a. She seems happy.
> 9b. *She seems.

Anonymous

This example pair might be a little clearer. Happy here is a predicative complement, and it's obligatory. If we leave it out, the sentence seems incomplete.

Anonymous

But in example 8, The passengers arrived is a complete idea on its own.

Anonymous

We can add the adjunct safe, but it's not an essential part of the sentence.

Anonymous

We don't need safe to "complete" the sentence semantically in 8a.

Anonymous

21:08

So it's not a "complement".

Anonymous

It's something extra we can add on if we want to.

Anonymous

Whereas happy is an essential part of the predicate in She seems happy.

Anonymous

Those are two of the core ideas behind the complement–adjunct distinction. Complements are selected by their heads, and they "complete" the constituent they're part of.

V.V.

I see, acted can be both. In different meanings.acted on the stage is different from "performing an action"

Anonymous

But arrive can express a complete idea on its own without an adjective to describe the condition of the subject on arrival.

V.V.

21:16

But the function of an adjective is the same,right?

Describing the subject?

They arrived safe.--they were safe.

No, I am wrong, not the function, but the meaning

Anonymous

The adjective is predicating on the subject either way.

Anonymous

Secondary predicates are generally either depictive or resultative; they can predicate on a subject or an object.

Anonymous

This page has some examples: www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay/bcg/II-Pred.html

Anonymous

We can call them "predicates" whether they're complements or adjuncts . . .

V.V.

Snail, you are worth a thousand books and a million of teachers. Thank you very much.

I hope to hear about your pets one day as well.

Anonymous

21:26

The reason they call them "secondary" predicates is because you already have a "primary" (first) predicate in the sentence.

Anonymous

> The passengers arrived.

Anonymous

This is the basic predicate. Arrived predicates on the subject, the passengers.

Anonymous

> The passengers arrived safe.

Anonymous

Now we have a second predicate, which also predicates on the passengers.

Anonymous

This predicate is an adjective in adjunct function, so we might call it a "predicative adjunct".

Anonymous

21:27

@V.V. They're asleep right now :-)

V.V.

Are they all safe?

Anonymous

Yes :-) They're sleeping safe and sound.

V.V.

And the fluffy?

Anonymous

Also asleep :-)

Anonymous

The hamsters won't wake up until the evening. The lighter colored hamster sister tends to wake up a bit earlier, sometimes as early as eight or nine in the evening. The darker colored hamster girl tends to sleep a bit later.

V.V.

21:30

How many pets are there now?

Anonymous

Five :-)

V.V.

What will they do at night?

Oh, it's late. Gone to bed. Good night!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Oh, they're nocturnal, I suppose!

@V.V. Good night!

user2684291

22:08

According to thehamsterhouse.com/hamster-info/hamster-sleep/…, they're crepuscular. :>

Damkerng T.

23:17

0

A: What does "heaving the clips" mean?

For your phrase heaving the clips home heaving - pulling clips - physical means of attachment home - secure firmly The scene is on a ship in heavy seas here, and in heavy seas, everything needs to be tied down, otherwise it will fly around (as what happens below deck later in ...

Hmm...

I wonder if he got the right kind of clips.

But it looks like he's read it, so maybe he got it right: "The scene is on a ship in heavy seas here, and in heavy seas, everything needs to be tied down, otherwise it will fly around (as what happens below deck later in the story)."

As for me, the first kind of "clips" I was thinking of would look like these:

They are (dog) clips on a watertight door.

Damkerng T.

23:39

3

A: "First time in" or "first time to"?

Is this your first trip to Sydney? Is this your first visit to Sydney? Is this your first stay in Sydney? How is your first experience of Sydney? What is your first impression(s) of Sydney? All generally mean Is this your first time in Sydney? Either of your questions may be as...

Sometimes his answer really surprises me.

Is this your first time to (come to) Sydney? -- Hmm... in what dialect(s) of English?

Transcript for