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Man_From_India

00:24

@Catija that explanation seemed strange to me too :-)

@V.V. it might be, I'm not very sure about it. But so far sailplane or any one doesn't give a reason, I won't look deeper into that compound structure :P I would take "them all" in "Collect them all" as Compound Pronoun.

6 hours later…

Man_From_India

06:47

A: Are focusing adverbs exceptions?

Apart from Pre-Head and Post-Head modifiers there are some External Modifiers that a Personal Pronoun can take. One such modifiers are Focusing Modifiers (realized by adverbs like alone, only, also etc.) The syntactic constituent that the modifier -only - modifies is the Personal Pronoun - I or ...

CowperKettle

07:43

I feel bad that I did not press Damkerng into giving me his postal address. I would have sent him a card.

5 hours later…

userr2684291

12:14

@GhotiandChips Almost invariably who. However, I would expect whom if the sentence read "...with whom we played". Of course, that would be a more formal variant.

ColleenV

12:27

@snailplane I was looking at this question and from what I've found, it seems like a question of passive versus active voice, but the answers are focused on the timing of the action. Would you unconfuse me please ? :)

Q: I am being hungry

We are being robbed. Being is mean right now happening. Can I say "I am being hungry"?

I was looking at this when trying to figure out better tags than grammar: learnamericanenglishonline.com/Green%20Level/…

userr2684291

12:50

@ColleenV The asker is mixing apples and oranges.

@ColleenV The passive of Someone is robbing me is I am being robbed (by someone). A present simple of to be: I am happy; a present continuous of to be: I am being happy. With happy, this works, but with hungry it doesn't. This is, I assume, because we don't need to make the distinction between being hungry now and generally being hungry.

We always construe it as the former, i.e., I'm hungry means "I'm hungry now".

EngFan

Hello !!

userr2684291

13:06

@ColleenV So their question doesn't really follow. They've seen some construction which they know nothing about, and they're asking about something that looks like that construction. I don't know what to tag that with.

EngFan

I am trying to reach her since an hour

userr2684291

@EngFan Hey, suh.

EngFan

userr2684291

@EngFan No.

EngFan

I am trying to reach her for an hour

Man_From_India

13:26

@ColleenV I too am not very sure, but I would use tag: "verb", "predicator", "Gerund-Participle" etc.

I'm not sure if those tags are available.

The question doesn't seem to be one that needs Active-Passive discussion.

@EngFan for is better suited here.

userr2684291

13:57

@EngFan No.

I've been trying to reach her for an hour.

ColleenV

@Man_From_India Yeah, I wasn't happy with the ones I chose, but the videos on active/passive gerunds was the closest thing I could find.

It still seems like the difference between "Something is being done to me" and "I am in a particular state of being" to me

Passive/Active is probably the wrong terminology there

Man_From_India

14:19

@ColleenV I think I have read something about "have" in "i am having a a red pen" in Quirk et al. I can't remember the portion. But I think that is similar to our current problem.

userr2684291

@Man_From_India Do you disagree with what I said above?

Catija

@ColleenV Amusingly, I could actually find a use case for "I am being hungry"... in the sense of being = acting.

Anonymous

14:41

@Man_From_India Possessive have is stative.

Anonymous

Adjectival predicates are likewise generally stative.

Anonymous

The progressive construction be V-ing is a stativizer, taking a verb which is not stative in meaning and turning it into a stative expression.

Anonymous

Therefore possessive have and adjectival predicates both generally don't appear in the progressive construction.

Anonymous

Verbs which are usually stative in meaning can, of course, appear in the progressive construction if they have some dynamic meaning added to them.

Man_From_India

15:03

@Catija the same thing Quirk et al says on page no. 200 sec. 4.28

@snailplane Quirk et al on page no. 199 sec. 4.26 (c) discusses brifely about it.

> At that time she was having regukar singing lessons.

Anonymous

15:16

@Catija That's the lexical be described here: pages.uoregon.edu/tpayne/UEG/…

Anonymous

It most commonly has a volitional meaning.

Anonymous

So you have to come up with an interpretation for be hungry which is compatible with volitionality, that is, something you're doing on purpose.

Anonymous

And in that meaning be is dynamic rather than stative, so it's compatible with the be V-ing progressive construction.

Man_From_India

15:58

@snailplane Today while browsing Quirk et al, I was surprised that it listed copular be as lexical verb, but judging the way CaGEL did to distinguish auxiliary from lexical verb, I came to conclusion that copular be should be an auxiliary verb, and not a lexical verb.

Your linked article did help me in this regard. It backed my judgment and also demystifies the reason behind the claim of copular be to be a lexical verb.

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