English Language Learners - 2015-02-08 (page 1 of 3)

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Anonymous

12:41 AM

Our friend, Law Area, has posted 56 of the 265 questions on the Unanswered Questions list

Anonymous

That's just over 1 in 5

Anonymous

2:59 AM

Out of the 50 most recent Unanswered Questions, if I exclude questions asked in the last two days (because they may not have had a chance to be answered), Law Area is responsible for about one half

Good evening @snailboat :-)

Anonymous

Good morning, Man from India! :-)

yes, and I am late to wake up :-( catch you later...

Anonymous

See you!

4:30 AM

I was thinking about this question: Why in the sentence - You have done it right way - in is optional, but in the other sentence - They grinned at her in a friendly way - in is not optional?

1

Q: differences between way & in a way

I am wondering when to use "way" and when to use "in a way". For example, 1: I told you we should have done it my way! 2: They grinned at her in a friendly way. 3: Do it in the right way. 4: Do it the teacher's way. Thank you very much!

Is it because of abjunct and complement?

3 hours later…

Anonymous

7:13 AM

Good question!

Anonymous

By the way, if you look those terms up, make sure you spelled it 'adjunct' and not 'abjunct'

8:50 AM

@Man_From_India I think done it the right way is better than done it right way.

The omission of in is interesting. It makes me think of He will call again (on) Thursday (at) 3 p.m.

"I fished [around] [in my pocket] [for my keys]." -- I wonder which of the bracketed parts are complements, if any.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Fish around is a phrasal verb (looks like an intransitive verb-particle idiom)

@snailboat Good morning! Isn't "around" a prepositional phrase on its own?

Anonymous

Can we figure out precisely what sort of thingy fish around is?

oh, it's a particle

Anonymous

9:02 AM

Well, many things we'd call particles are intransitive prepositions

D'oh

Anonymous

You can fish around for something, and you can fish around in something

The key thing is that [fished around] is a single constituent, I guess.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Well, you can make that argument

2

Q: Is "fished" a transitive verb in "I fished around in my pocket for my keys"?

In English it doesn't sound natural to say "I fished a fish." You would say "I caught a fish." However, in the instances where I can think of using fish as a verb, it must take a preposition (around, for, in, about). I went fishing in the lake good I went fishing the lake not good Does "fish"...

prepositions transitive-verbs

Anonymous

9:03 AM

CGEL does not treat "phrasal verbs" as constituents (Geoffrey Pullum argues that they are not constituents and therefore "phrasal" is an inappropriate term)

Anonymous

@CopperKettle The answer is no

@snailboat So I said, but I tangled the terminology a tad in my answer

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I think your analysis is reasonable

Anonymous

You can call all three bracketed thingies PPs

even "around"?

Anonymous

9:04 AM

Yes

Anonymous

An intransitive preposition constitutes a PP by itself

yes, a complement-less PP

Anonymous

I went home.　　←　　home is a PP

Anonymous

However

Anonymous

Before I say for certain what the syntax of fish around is, I'd want to look at some examples and try to reason through it

Anonymous

9:05 AM

I am just giving you off-the-cuff analysis :-)

(0:

Anonymous

So I could be jumping to the wrong conclusion

Anonymous

Fish around can occur with an in-phrase, or with a for-phrase, or with both

Anonymous

But can it occur without either?

We can dump "in my pocket" so it must be not a complement. "I fished around for keys"

Anonymous

9:07 AM

Fished around inside also occurs

Anonymous

> Jack walks over to a utility shelf, fishing around until he finds a bag of rock salt

Anonymous

Here we find it without an in-, for-, or inside-phrase

Anonymous

It seems like we can treat all of those as omissible

as adjuncts

Anonymous

We can find other prepositions, too, when they make sense:

Anonymous

9:08 AM

> This is when I plunge my arm into the ice hole, up to my elbow, fishing around on a ledge for the transponder, and come up with a fistful of treasure.

Anonymous

> Lula throws her car keys under the front seat and goes around to Beany's 67 dark blue Thunderbird convertible - fishes around under the T-Birds front seat for the keys - finds them - jumps in and takes off.

Anonymous

> He fished around behind the counter, laid a brown handbag on the scarred wood, put a woman's wallet down beside it.

Anonymous

So it seems like the following PPs are whatever makes sense, and aren't selected for specifically by fish around

So "fished around" has to have at least one "complement"

Anonymous

No, we found examples without any

9:10 AM

ah

Anonymous

> Jack walks over to a utility shelf, fishing around until he finds a bag of rock salt

Anonymous

> He fishes around, finally pulling a small pager-like item from his underwear.

I see! Will revise my answer, calling them adjuncts

Anonymous

I'm taking examples from COCA

Anonymous

If you'd like to say fish around is a single constituent, as a phrasal verb, I don't think there's really anything wrong with doing so

Anonymous

9:11 AM

That's the analysis John Lawler keeps repeating

I see - but if I see [around] as a separate constituent, it's a complement surely

Anonymous

Yes, that's right

Adjunct of place [in my pocket], adjucnt of purpose [for my keys] - whew!

@snailboat thanks!

"She smiled [at me]." We can say simply "She smiled".

But "at me" seems necessary in some sense.

Anonymous

Necessary how?

She can smile just staring into the window, with no recipient.

That's a different smile

purposive

"at me" is an oblique object probably

Anonymous

9:20 AM

You know, there's something called the conative alternation

Anonymous

> He kicked the door.
> He kicked at the door.

Anonymous

Some verbs take at, some verbs don't, and some verbs work both ways

Anonymous

The at one is the conative one

@snailboat I do learn some bad words here!

Seeing fish around up there, I'm thinking of look around.

9:22 AM

@snailboat So the door is an object even with "at"

Anonymous

> The mouse nibbled a piece of cheese.
> The mouse nibbled at a piece of cheese.

Anonymous

> *She smiled me.
> She smiled at me.

Apparently, Macmillan says look around is a phrasal verb, too.

"She smiled me" reminds me of Being John Malkovich

Anonymous

> He touched the table.
> *He touched at the table.

9:24 AM

@CopperKettle A milder "She laughed at me"?

@DamkerngT. No, in this movie some heroes could get "inside" the mind of John Malkovich and command his body. "She smiled me" would not be ungrammatical in that context.

How did he use "She smiled me" in the movie?

@DamkerngT. Nobody used that in the movie, I just recalled the movie upon reading this sentence (0:

Ahh

I thought they were twisting the language just for fun!

@snailboat Thank you! But is "a piece of cheese" technically an object with "at", I wonder.

Anonymous

9:29 AM

When it's stuffed away in an at-phrase, it's no longer a direct object

Anonymous

A piece of cheese has the same semantic role in both examples

Anonymous

But syntactically it has two different roles

Anonymous

Just as with the dative alternation:

Anonymous

> I gave her a cake.

Anonymous

> I gave a cake to her.

Anonymous

9:31 AM

Again, her plays the same semantic role in both examples

Anonymous

But syntactically, in the former it's an indirect object, while in the latter it's the complement of a preposition

Yes, indeed, but "to her" is a complement. I see.

Anonymous

Yes

Anonymous

Now, in traditional grammar, where they mixed these ideas together

and a predicative complement too I guess

Anonymous

9:32 AM

They would have said her was an indirect object either way.

I remember some people call her in to her an object of preposition.

Anonymous

Yes, that's fine as well

Anonymous

In either case, her has the semantic role of recipient

Linguists should get together for some Nicene Council and unify their creeds

nods -- nods

Anonymous

9:34 AM

But I would prefer to say complement of a preposition

Anonymous

Rather than object of a preposition

I think the terminologies might get standardized in just a few years ahead.

Considering that there is something equivalent to SAT in the UK now, and it includes grammar tests for native speakers.

Poor native speakers, to learn all this jargon.

Anonymous

Seems unlikely

Hehe! They have to, now!

Anonymous

9:36 AM

I mean, seems unlikely that everyone will suddenly agree on a standard

Anonymous

But lately we've got more people on ELL turning to CGEL

Anonymous

So I no longer feel like as much of a heretic :-)

(0:

@snailboat I suppose, but at least they have to agree on something for the test, I guess.

Anonymous

Well, yes, but it's unlikely that the test will use a modern linguistic analysis

Anonymous

9:38 AM

That sort of thing is usually rather backwards

Anonymous

I remember, I took the SAT :-) And the ACT.

Hehe! That's something I've never taken!

Anonymous

Good for you! They're pretty silly tests

I guess you did very well.

Anonymous

itre.cis.upenn.edu/myl/languagelog/archives/001863.html

9:39 AM

I took EGE once - Russian Language, Russian Literature, and English Language

Anonymous

Yes, I did very well, though they aren't exactly difficult tests

Nice! I like it that they included Russian in the test, too.

Anonymous

I didn't have to study for them at all

@snailboat Yay!

@DamkerngT. EGE is a Russian test, that's why (0:

Anonymous

9:41 AM

But sometimes the tests require you to guess what the authors are thinking

@snailboat I wonder if other people will share the same idea. :-)

I got some 93% in Russian Language and 87% in English Language, and about 60% in Literature

@CopperKettle Wow!

87% is very high!

Anonymous

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4538

@DamkerngT. I only prepared for the Russian Language test though (0: I spent exactly one day preparing for English Language test

9:42 AM

@CopperKettle Nice! Like I thought, you did really well in your test, too!

..and I had to invent a lot when I wrote the LIterature test (0: I forgot all the books mentioned there (0:

@snailboat Oh, identifying sentence errors seems to be popular in this kind of test!

@CopperKettle lol

> Opposite to the opinion of several respected literary critics, Jane Austen does not make good taste or manners in themselves sure signs of virtue in her characters.

When we took the Russian Language test, we were searched with portable metal detectors.. it was really strict

For me, it's acceptable, but I kinda know that in GMAT it's unacceptable.

> So Q.C. wonders whether this question hinges on what he call "the subject agreement theory", whereby the opening phrase "Opposite to the opinion of several respected literary critics" should modify the subject of the following clause, Jane Austen.

> But it bothers him that this requirement would presumably not be imposed if the phrase were "Contrary to the opinion of several respected literary critics", and that other initial adjective phrases like "More important" are also often used as sentence-level adjuncts.

@DamkerngT. Seems a-okay to me too

9:45 AM

I think I kinda share the same feeling.

@CopperKettle Ah, perhaps a lot of cheating happens over there as well!

@DamkerngT. Yes, it was in the Mining University, in which were was a case of suicide of one of the teachers who was accused in helping to cheat

Oh, no!

ural.kp.ru/daily/26092/2992353

He could've been killed, an investigation was launched.

Hah! Who would kill him?

That's probably why they turned all the screws in terms of cheat-protection

@DamkerngT. He was suspected of helping the daugher of the consul of Azerbaijan pass exams

@DamkerngT. There are powerful ethnic mafias in Russia, based in Azerbainajn, Tajikistan etc

9:50 AM

Ohhh

> What used to be a two-part, three-hour ordeal, half math, half verbal, will now require students to spend 45 more minutes completing an extra writing section. The new section will consist of three parts - one an essay, the other two multiple-choice grammar and sentence-completion questions.

Hey, doesn't that sound like those proficiency tests aiming at ELLs?

And that was in 2005!

So, SAT is sort of like an English proficiency test too?

(I haven't really looked into SAT.)

So SAT now is one-third math, one-third verbal, and one-third writing+grammar?

Hmm... That's kinda confusing. I think verbal tests usually include sentence-completion questions. At least that's how it is in GMAT, iirc.

> In each test sentence, I could easily see one place where some people would identify an error. However, each of the possible "errors" is doubtful at best, and "No Error" is always one of the options. As a result, my decision about how to answer becomes a judgment about the linguistic ideology of the College Board, not a judgment about English grammar and style.
--[Ask Language Log: SAT "Identifying Sentence Errors" questions](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4538) Filed by Mark Liberman under Usage advice

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It also covers rudimentary mathematics

nods -- It looks like math is one-third of the test.

I like what he said about the test.

I think I sort of always feel something like that all along.

Anonymous

When I took it, it was one half.

Obviously, you took it before 2005! :-)

Anonymous

It covered math through a 10th grade level, but advanced students were generally a couple years ahead

10:02 AM

Oh, why did they stop at the 10th grade?

Anonymous

That's around when you take the test.

Anonymous

Besides, you can't make it too hard. It's supposed to be easy so everyone can be proud of their kids scoring high

Oh, I thought students would take it at grade 12.

lol

Anonymous

They've been progressively making it easier over the years.

@snailboat (0:

Anonymous

10:04 AM

@DamkerngT. By your final year of high school, you've already taken your tests, applied to colleges, and probably even know where you're going

Ahh... that's different here. (Or at least it was.) We wouldn't know where we would go even after graduating from our high school.

In my days, we had all-included big test for people who wanted to get into a university.

Anonymous

Uh-huh?

I gathered that it was similar in Korea and Japan.

So, it was sort of like a DOA test. :-)

Huge pressure for students.

@DamkerngT. Prior to EGE, in Russia each university held a battery of its own homegrown admission tests

Ah, I think that's the situation we currently have in Thailand.

10:08 AM

Some universities still do that using different schemas

We borrowed the idea of SAT (it's called O-NET and A-NET here), but most universities found that the O-NET results are unreliable so everyone has their own test.

You usually have to pass three exams in EGE to get into a uni, but if you want to enter the Moscow State University's Biology Department, for instance, you will have to pass additional tests, and very severe ones

nods

@DamkerngT. I like the idea of a general cross-country unified test. But in southern Russian republics, the results get rigged a lot.

Aww... I guess it almost happened here, too.

I don't really know if it has ever happened, but I hope not.

Anonymous

10:12 AM

@DamkerngT. In the US, schools all calculate GPA (grade point average) different ways

Also in some far-off Siberian nooks, where the tests are delivered by helicopter. Officials delivering the tests were bribed, so that some people knew in advance what questions there would be

One of my ex-teachers was the head of the test result department.

Anonymous

Like, some schools have weighted classes where you get an extra full point just for taking that class (A = 5.0 instead of A = 4.0)

Anonymous

And some schools weight classes even more heavily, A = 6.0

Anonymous

So when you apply to colleges

Anonymous

10:13 AM

They make you enter in all your grades individually and calculate the GPA their own way

Anonymous

And ignore how your high school calculates it

@snailboat Ahh

@CopperKettle It's probably not any better here.

One suggestion was to generate tests on-the-spot, with a computer algorithm picking random questions from a large database just before the exam

Sounds like a good idea!

But it was not realized, not yet at least

10:17 AM

Oh, you'd need a lot of computers, then.

Well, we have a lot of computers, they are used for monitoring. Each test room is fitted with cameras, all streams are stored in digital storage etc.

nods

There are 5 000 registered observers who watch the streams

Hah! That's a lot!

How many test takers are there in each exam?

2 or 3 persons per room, as far as I can remember. Plus some additional folk in the building.

10:55 AM

Hi !

11:11 AM

Hello!

Any news?

What news?

New questions in ELL

0

Q: "while they wait" - why not "while they are waiting"?

Here is a sentence that is on my textbook. Customers can now sit down comfortably while they 'wait' for their number to be called out. In my opinion, conjunction 'while' is compatible with continuous verb tense, so I think is is more right way to use 'are waiting' than 'wait'. Or is there a...

> Customers can now sit down comfortably while they 'wait' for their number to be called out.

I think it's quite likely that the writer is a non-native speaker. [... sit down comfortably while they ...] is curious.

How long can we sit down?

No idea

11:18 AM

Maybe I'm wrong, because I'm a non-native speaker, but sitting down for hours sounds rather odd to me.

What is the right then?

In my mind, sit and sit down are different.

A ha

A dictionary says otherwise (that they're the same): macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/sit-down_1

Sit down phrasal verb.: same as sit

Hi @DamkerngT.

11:20 AM

U mean sitting comfortably without down

hello @Hanaa

Hi @Man_From_India!

Hello!

@Hanaa I'd be more comfortable with that.

I am sorry I couldn't be part of the discussion that I wanted to start :-) I became a little busy :-(

11:21 AM

That's okay. :-)

I missed a lot of things in here lately.

Not to mention questions on the main site. :-)

@DamkerngT. hmm...so does there any good information regarding that?

Sorry, about what?

one sec

Gotta go

Bye

1

Q: differences between way & in a way

I am wondering when to use "way" and when to use "in a way". For example, 1: I told you we should have done it my way! 2: They grinned at her in a friendly way. 3: Do it in the right way. 4: Do it the teacher's way. Thank you very much!

11:23 AM

@Hanaa Have a nice afternoon!

Thx!

Hehe!

@Man_From_India I think it normally is either right or the right way.

I was thinking about this question: Why in the sentence - You have done it right way - in is optional, but in the other sentence - They grinned at her in a friendly way - in is not optional?

> You've done it right!
You've done it the right way.
?You've done it the right way.
They grinned at her in a friendly way.
?They grinned at her a friendly way.

I marked some of them with question marks. If I were more sure, I would've marked them with *.

I think the right way is a fixed expression.

And adding in in front of it would sound odd with a class of verbs (do is the main one, I think.)

A fixed expression - that sounds possible.

11:27 AM

> You ain't walk right!

I was thinking that a right way as an adjunct

I think that's plausible.

But interestingly

(Now I'm a bit confused between adjunct and complement myself. After reading snailboat's examples.)

In the sentence They grinned at her in a friendly way. the part in a friendly way is an adjunct.

My problem is when the preposition is coming and when the preposition is not coming?

11:29 AM

I suppose so.

I mean how to decide whether to include preposition or not :-)

First guess: When it's about accomplishment, in is usually dropped.

@DamkerngT. I am so sorry...it's probably for my silly questions :-P

@Man_From_India Nope. It's my own confusion. Don't worry. :-)

@DamkerngT. ah a bit better feeling now :-)

11:31 AM

Hehe!

Hmm... the is also curious.

hmmm i first didn't notice about that...but yes it's

Second guess: the more common the phrase is, the likelier the in will be dropped.

Hmm...

this can't be true unless the commoner means a set expression. I mean that is what I think

> a) He did it the way a happy person would do it.
b) He did it in the way a happy person would do it.

Now I feel fine with both. a) is preferred, I think.

If I read it the first is more fluent...but when I try to analyse it using grammar...i think both are fine

I think long back I had asked similar question in Linguistic SE

11:37 AM

Nice!

and I remember I also asked for this particular examples in a comment, but no explanation came there :-(

let me check it

Aww

I mean the specific answer was given, but when I commented on that answer using these examples, no further comment came :-(

Here you go...almost similar

1

Q: Phrases and clauses used as an adverb, and hence don't take a preposition

He had been in precarious situations his entire life. I know here in this sentence his entire life is used as an adverbial phrase and, hence there was no need of placing a preposition before that phrase. This sentence is just an example, and there are many such sentence like this where some...

grammar theoretical-linguistics clauses adverbs phrases

> The answer to this question has (again) to do with the argument vs. adjunct distinction. Often the term complement is used in place of argument, although the argument notion is more clearly defined.

An interesting opening!

Yes I have always problems with these two

Anonymous

11:41 AM

I'm sorry my examples were confusing!

@snailboat Not your fault. That, I'm certain of! :-)

Anonymous

You should put of at the beginning or the end of that sentence

His entire life is an adjunct?

@snailboat Thanks!

Anonymous

In what sentence?

11:44 AM

> He had been in precarious situations his entire life.

I think it's an adjunct.

But is in precarious situations a complement?

(I ~~guess~~ think it is.)

hmm it's

Anonymous

Yes, his entire life is an adjunct there

Indirect complement

Ok

Anonymous

Yes it's a complement

Yay!

11:46 AM

In precarious situation is an indirect complement

To know if it's an indirect complement, I will need to know what an indirect complement is first.

It is preceded by a preposition but i am not sure

So a complement beginning with a preposition is an indirect complement? That's easy!

@snailboat

But that question was answered that way. It's fine. But if we apply that same argument in these situation, it creates confusion. (Why in the sentence - You have done it right way - in is optional, but in the other sentence - They grinned at her in a friendly way - in is not optional?)

11:49 AM

@Man_From_India I can't find anything related to our in in that answer.

Yes...that is similar...that answer says why in can be omitted in the sentence You have done it the right way

I must've missed that!

Bcz the right way is a fixed expression

As @d

As@DamkerngT. said

But a sentence like, You've done it the way Smith would've done it, works, too.

hmm sure it does

11:53 AM

Adverbial phrase

Not prepositional one

Tweet tweet

I don't know why, but when I tried to come up with X did it (in) a Y way. I always inserted in into the sentence.

hmm it's a bit confusing :-(

Yes

> It is therefore a great pleasure, after one has fruitlessly pondered over a truth and has later been able to prove it in a roundabout way, to find at last the simplest and most natural way to its proof.

> ..., only we're doing it in a different way.

obviously both are possible...I see

12:01 PM

> It's easy to do it in a cursory way.

I think these would sound odd without in.

(And I still can't find it a * way on Google Books.)

This is also possible, I guess

|He had never done it (in) his entire life

That's a different phrase!

Actually I am still stuck with that adjunct idea :-)

°_°

Oh, found some counter-examples (to in a Y way).

> And we went to that meeting, and similar things: design versus what the community wanted, and can we do it a different way?

Completely optional, perhaps.

12:04 PM

hmmm can't say it that way

If it was optional

then in this sentence - They grinned at her in a friendly way at is also optional

but if we drop at, a friendly way would be hanging

Not at. I don't think that at is optional, but maybe in is.

How could that be a solid reasoning? :-O

Which part of the reasoning?

In a y way or a way. both r correct?

I mean, I think it's rather clear that They grinned her is ungrammatical.

12:08 PM

I mean at is not optional, but in is. I understand from the example sentence it seems so

Oh my mistake

it should be in, not at

I will edit that one

can't edit :-(

Too late! :-)

Happens to me sometimes as well. :-)

yes...i think u got it, we can drop in

Yes. I judged it based on the evidence in a corpus.

but if we drop in, then a friendly way will be hanging. It will not be connected. And then the sentence without in will be incorrect

Let's see... if anyone has ever used her a friendly way before.

Only 8 results on Google, and it's unclear who wrote them.

12:11 PM

hmm...it adds to the confusion :-(

> When it happens that you have an appointment with someone, receive him pleasantly without aloofness, asking of him a friendly way what he desires, and if it is in your power speak to him kindly for the human soul cherishes a kind word.

> Annals of Saint Joseph - Volume 64 - Page 92

that is also possible i guess

nods

coming after 10 mins

Be back later (maybe in half an hour or a bit longer than that).

12:23 PM

:-) sorry for being AFC

hi

12:44 PM

We don't need people who treat us with smart brains but we need people who treat us with pure hearts.

Is that stc correct?

@DamkerngT.

@Hanaa To me it seems correct

ok

how is ur study going?

i have finished yesterday

ohh that's great!!! When r u going back to ur campus? on Monday morning?

12:51 PM

tomorrow morning by the will of Allah

ok

What do u work @Man_From_India? if you don't mind answering this question.

@Hanaa Grammatically, yes, it's correct. Meaning-wise, I think the word choices might be a little awkward. (I'm not sure about treating someone with smart brains; treating someone with pure hearts seems to make sense for me, though.)

ok

@Hanaa That's no problem, though I am not comfortable with answering it in public room like this, but I will say I am with MNC. Currently I'm in a break :-( Probably planning to do something else.

12:58 PM

yes

good luck although i don't know what MNC is

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