English Language Learners

Mistu4u

03:12

Good morning Folks!

Mistu4u

04:47

@snailboat, What is the difference between a NP and a Predicative complement? In the examples, you cited, I can't differentiate them.

Everyone confuses you with "he" :-D

do you disagree with @snailplane when he said the verb bowed can be used transitively and in this case, it has a direct object? — EnglishLearner Apr 5 at 20:38

Anonymous

10:10

@Mistu4u Hehe, yeah :-/

Anonymous

@Mistu4u Which context are you talking about?

Anonymous

Predicative complement is a function. NP is a category.

Anonymous

A NP can have the function of predicative complement

Anonymous

So can an adjective.

Anonymous

For example:
> I am *green*.　　← *green* is an adjective, and its function is PC
> I am *a frog*.　　← *a frog* is a NP, and its function is PC

Anonymous

10:13

(I should really get into the habit of writing an NP like most people do, but mentally I always pronounce it as noun phrase rather than en pee)

Anonymous

Contrast predicative complements with objects. Object is another type of function

Anonymous

> I hit *the ball*.　　← *the ball* is a NP, and its function is object
> *I hit *green*.　　← *green* is an adjective, and an adjective can't function as an object

Anonymous

Oh, I forgot SE Chat doesn't let you use italics on multi-line messages...

Anonymous

An object is also a kind of complement.

Anonymous

It's important to separate category from function.

Anonymous

10:19

Otherwise, everything gets kind of confusing.

Anonymous

11:13

@Mistu4u When you call an NP a predicative complement, you're describing what that NP does. It acts like a predicate, giving you information about the subject.

Anonymous

Most verbs don't take predicative complements, though. The most common one that does is be

Anonymous

Take a look at the following list:

Anonymous

An appendix on Wiktionary titled English copulae

Anonymous

You'll notice these fall into a few broad categories

Anonymous

And you'll notice that the PCs taken by these verbs can be nouns, but they can also be adjectives; this makes PCs syntactically quite different from objects, which can't be adjectives. (I'm repeating the point I made earlier.)

Mistu4u

12:52

I play Football. So "Football" here functions as an object but it's not an NP.

But my question is "Is it even possible to write a sentence where there is no object"?

Anonymous

13:04

@Mistu4u It functions as an object and it's a noun phrase.

Anonymous

Object is a function. Noun phrase is a type of phrase; NPs can have object function.

Anonymous

NP is what it is. Object is what it does.

Mistu4u

@snailboat Yeah, that part I understood.

Anonymous

@Mistu4u Lots of sentences have no object.

Mistu4u

I didn't say it NP because I think Phrase consists of more than one word!

Anonymous

13:06

That's the traditional requirement, but it's not a very useful one

Anonymous

Because if you say "a phrase is two or more words"

Anonymous

Then you have to say "a noun or noun phrase" everywhere

Anonymous

It's much easier to just say "a phrase is one or more words"

Anonymous

Because then you can just say "a NP" instead of "a N or NP" all the time.

Anonymous

So in linguistics, a phrase can be a single word.

Mistu4u

13:08

Okay.

Anonymous

But now that you explained that I see why you said what you did

Mistu4u

yeah

Anonymous

"I play football." Even if you decide not to consider football a noun phrase, it's still an object.

Anonymous

So you're right.

Anonymous

The following sentence has no object: "I'm sleepy."

Mistu4u

13:10

So the sentences which end with adjectives, are only sentences witout an object?

Anonymous

@Mistu4u I'm afraid that's not correct.

Mistu4u

Like "I feel high", "I die occasionally"

adverb is possible

too

Anonymous

You're right, neither of those has an object.

Mistu4u

"I left him"

Is "him" object?

Anonymous

Yes

Mistu4u

13:12

okay

Anonymous

One note: it's easier if we talk about clauses than sentences in this case

Anonymous

Since a sentence can have multiple clauses, it makes it more complicated to talk about

Mistu4u

@snailboat here in lies my problem. I forgot about "Phrase and Clause" :/

Anonymous

In any case, a clause doesn't have to have an object, or indeed anything following a verb

Mistu4u

Can you give any link to good articles?

Anonymous

13:13

Hmm.

Mistu4u

English Phrase and Clause only as of now :-P

Anonymous

Wikipedia has a rather detailed article. I haven't read all of it

Anonymous

Clause

In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammar unit that can express a complete proposition. A typical clause consists of a subject and a predicate, where the predicate is typically a verb phrase – a verb together with any objects and other modifiers. However the subject is sometimes not expressed; this is often the case in null-subject languages, if the subject is retrievable from context, but it also occurs in certain cases in other languages such as English (as in imperative sentences and non-finite clauses). A simple sentence usually consists of a single finite clause with a finite verb...

Mistu4u

Thanks, I will read it :-)

Anonymous

You probably don't need to read all of that article.

Anonymous

13:16

Have you considered A Student's Introduction to English Grammar?

Mistu4u

why?

@snailboat Nah!

Anonymous

Oh, okay

Anonymous

Well, clause is a relatively simple concept. In general, a clause is a subject and a predicate.

Mistu4u

Another Cambridge I see.

Anonymous

Kim is an actor. ← one clause

Anonymous

13:17

Pat is a teacher. ← one clause

Anonymous

Kim is an actor, but Pat is a teacher. ← two clauses (in one sentence)

Anonymous

So you can see why it would be easier for us to talk about clauses a lot of the time than sentences

Mistu4u

Ah! it's like atomic Simple Sentences.

Anonymous

Yes, it's just like that.

Anonymous

In some grammars, the term sentence is used where I would say clause, but I'm trying to avoid that terminology

Anonymous

13:19

In general, I've been trying to stick to the terminology in CGEL where I can, because I find they have fairly good rationales for their decisions

Anonymous

(When I started posting on this site, I wasn't doing that.)

Anonymous

I apologize for causing confusion when I use different terminology than you expect!

Mistu4u

Frankly, when you first entered the site, I did not give much attention to you. But slowly I discovered that "his" (pun intended) comments has got some potentials. Then I saw your profile and took interest in your comments. How silly of me! :-P

Anonymous

My profile doesn't say much, I don't think

Anonymous

I've struggled somewhat trying to decide what kind of answers I want to write on ELL.

Mistu4u

13:27

Yeah, that's true but checking the profile you first do when you like someone's posts/comments.

Anonymous

I have trouble telling sometimes which sorts of answers people find helpful

Anonymous

There are too many other factors that affect score for me to tell based on that

Anonymous

Like, if you look at my ELU profile: english.stackexchange.com/users/28567/snailboat

Anonymous

One of my answers ended up at 46, not because it was a great answer, but because I posted it early and the question was popular

Mistu4u

That question was indeed sarcastic :-D

Anyway why did you delete this one. This is a great answer IMO.

ell.stackexchange.com/a/5013/91

Anonymous

13:34

Well... StoneyB was describing it from a very different framework, and I wasn't really sure how to respond to his questions. He wanted John Lawler to analyze it

Anonymous

Syntactically, a preposition phrase can't be an object

Anonymous

And I don't have any concept of semantic direct object or semantic indirect object

Anonymous

I feel those are syntactic roles that are orthogonal to semantic roles (patient, recipient, etc.)

Anonymous

That answer was, by the way, supposed to be based on McCawley's analysis presented in The Syntactic Phenomena of English

Anonymous

Which I've been abandoning in favor of CGEL recently :-)

Mistu4u

13:36

Who's John Lawler? Is it something funny like Chuck Norris?

I have been seeing this as funny in ELU.

Anonymous

StoneyB was asking me if I'd analyze it a certain way, and I didn't want to step outside the analyses I was familiar with because I was afraid I'd come to a wrong conclusion, so I asked a linguist for help, but I never ended up really coming to a satisfactory conclusion

Anonymous

so I never posted anything in response, and decided to delete my answer

Mistu4u

I see.

Anonymous

John Lawler is a linguist who posts on ELU

Mistu4u

Is he like a great wise person?

Anonymous

13:39

Well, you can identify linguists to some extent by what they believe, and I think John Lawler falls into the "generative linguistics" camp.

Mistu4u

Well his profile says a lot about him. It's like a CV.

Anonymous

Not all linguists believe the same things--unfortunately there are a number of overlapping and contradictory schools of thought

Anonymous

He does know an awful lot about English.

Mistu4u

Well now you clarified it... I will try to follow his answers.

Anonymous

I think his thinking is more in line with the McCawleys of the world than the Pullums (one of the authors of CGEL)

Anonymous

13:41

But I'm sure you can learn a lot from John Lawler's answers

Anonymous

And besides his answers, he has a number of web pages and downloadable PDFs with information about English

Anonymous

Those are also helpful!

Anonymous

And before that, he posted on a USENET newgroup called alt.usage.english quite a bit

Anonymous

So he's helped educate a lot of people online about a lot of things related to English, and of course he was also a professor for years--I believe he taught both linguistics and ESL

Anonymous

(Are you supposed to say still is a professor? A retired professor is still a professor, I suppose.)

Mistu4u

13:45

"ESL"- English as Standard Language?

Anonymous

No, English as a Second Language.

Mistu4u

@snailboat yeah, I believe the same.

Anonymous

I don't entirely understand the difference between ESL and ELL.

Anonymous

As far as I knew, the term was ESL until I saw this site. One of the people on Area 51 said something like: the term ESL is out-of-date, and now people all say language learners

Anonymous

The terminology goes a bit over my head.

Anonymous

13:47

Of course, I'm learning about English myself, even though I'm a native speaker

Mistu4u

Were you there when the proposal was in "definition" phase?

Anonymous

I wasn't. I noticed the site after it went into public beta

Mistu4u

@snailboat I guess common native people don't think so minutely!

Anonymous

@Mistu4u Well, I can't speak for other people, just myself :-)

Anonymous

I don't know how other people think.

Anonymous

13:49

I do use English language dictionaries on a daily basis, and I think I have done so for most of my life

Mistu4u

hm.

Anonymous

But I've also talked to people who say things like "Huh? Why would you want a dictionary?"

Anonymous

Which to me is crazy. One of my goals in life is to own as many dictionaries as I can possibly manage. ;-)

Anonymous

Although I've gotten lazy since I found onelook.

Mistu4u

@snailboat haha.......Perhaps there is no term for such hobby in English

Anonymous

13:50

It's so much easier to look things up online and ignore my poor paper dictionaries :-(

Anonymous

@Mistu4u I don't know of one. You could say I'm a bibliophile, but that's not specific enough. (It's true, though. I love books!)

Mistu4u

I use COED while not in front of a computer (rarely) and use Wordweb Pro while in front of computer

Wow..learned a new word

Anonymous

Oops

Anonymous

I hit enter instead of backspace.

Anonymous

I have some silly dictionaries. I was really excited when I found a copy of the Kenkyusha Dictionary of English Linguistics and Philology

Anonymous

13:56

It's a dictionary of English linguistics terms, defined in Japanese

Anonymous

Unfortunately, it's now fairly out-of-date.

Anonymous

Both English and Japanese linguistics terminology changes over time :-(

Mistu4u

What's philology?

My dictionary says "The humanistic study of language and literature" It's not meaningful

Anonymous

It's a secondary term for linguistics

Mistu4u

VAGUE!!VAGUE!!VAGUE!!VAGUE!!VAGUE!!VAGUE!! && VAGUE!!

Anonymous

14:00

Umm... Most words ending in -(o)logy mean the study of something, like climatology (study of / science of the climate), criminology (study of criminals)

Anonymous

But philosophy and philology are a bit different.

Anonymous

Each contains philo- "love of", which you just learned as -phile in bibliophile "love of books"

Anonymous

So philosophy is the "love of wisdom" (sophos), while philology is the "love of words" (logos)

Mistu4u

Do you know what is the term for "study of mountains"?

Anonymous

Orology

Mistu4u

14:03

"study of birds"?

Anonymous

Hmm, ornithology‌?

Anonymous

Yep!

Mistu4u

yes!!

I was just playing around :-D

Anonymous

Those all use -(o)logy, though etymologically it was really just -logy

Mistu4u

I love to know these terms which end with specific syntaxes. like ending with "-phobia"

Hmm

Anonymous

14:05

In linguistics, syntax is the study of how things go together at the word level or larger. Morphology is the study of how things go together within a word.

Mistu4u

So this is morphology, right?

Anonymous

Yeah, that would be.

Anonymous

I don't know. To me, it seems like the lines between the two are pretty blurry sometimes.

Anonymous

Like for example, -phobia is a suffix. It attaches to existing words and forms new words.

Anonymous

But then it came to be used as an independent word, a phobia.

Mistu4u

14:08

So, your point is?

This is not an example of morphology?

Anonymous

Uh oh. I have to make a point? I'm not sure I'm meeting the standard I'm being held to!

Anonymous

What point did I have?

Anonymous

I was trying to show that sometimes things cross the line between word-forming element and word.

Mistu4u

3 mins ago, by snailboat

I don't know. To me, it seems like the lines between the two are pretty blurry sometimes.

Anonymous

A better example of the lines being blurry would probably be a clitic.

Mistu4u

14:10

We are unsynchronized, I guess!

Anonymous

Like, for example, the apostrophe-s combination that we attach to noun phrases to show possession

Anonymous

If I say Mistu4u's, I'm add 's to your name like a suffix.

Anonymous

But it has a syntactic function, as though it's a word.

Anonymous

If I seem unclear, it's because I find this all very confusing.

Anonymous

There's a class of things in Japanese that people often call particles, but... they might be suffixes, or they might be clitics, or they might be independent words

Anonymous

14:13

People argue back and forth.

Anonymous

I'm afraid it's been too much for my poor little brain.

Mistu4u

@snailboat Seriously man, too much unclear :-D And I don't say "yes" when I don't understand something, so we better leave this discussion here.

Anonymous

An English example, as I am reminded by Wikipedia, is -n't

Anonymous

Ahh

Anonymous

Too much unclear!

Anonymous

14:14

I'll stop there then and won't try to explain :-)

Mistu4u

dim, hazy, blur, faint, obtuse, shdowy

:-D

Anonymous

My words lurk in the dark, hazy, faint, waiting to strike

Mistu4u

hehe!

One thing I must admit my vocab has significantly increased after joining this site

Too many words I have learned here from various posts

Anonymous

I'm struggling to remember a term right now that I should know well

Anonymous

Ahh, right, discourse marker

Mistu4u

14:21

What does that mean

?

Anonymous

Well, it's like when I said well at the beginning of this sentence

Anonymous

It didn't really mean anything

Anonymous

But I said it anyway ;-)

Anonymous

Discourse marker

In linguistics, a discourse marker is a word or phrase that is relatively syntax-independent and does not change the meaning of the sentence, and has a somewhat empty meaning. Examples of discourse markers include the particles "oh", "well", "now", "then", "you know", and "I mean", and the connectives "so", "because", "and", "but", and "or". In Practical English Usage Michael Swan defines a 'discourse marker' as 'a word or expression which shows the connection between what is being said and the wider context'. For him, it is something that a) connects a sentence to what comes before or a...

Anonymous

The reason I was trying to recall the term is because I think that's what see is in Listenever's question here:

Anonymous

14:23

2

Q: What do these 'see's mean?

"Wizards have banks?" "Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins." Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding. "Goblins?" "Yeah –– so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in...

vocabulary

Mistu4u

Yeah, as per the wiki entry, this is the right term.

Anonymous

But I'm not sure I can write a good answer about it. Maybe I could leave a comment instead

Anonymous

I think you could consider it a discourse marker, though I'm not really sure how to write an answer about it. — snailboat 7 secs ago

Anonymous

I looked up orology on Wikipedia.

Anonymous

Mountain research

Mountain research is an inter- and transdisciplinary field of research that regionally concentrates on the earth's surface's part covered by mountain landscapes. Focus It is generally focusing on the description and explanation of the human-environmental relationship in (positive) and the sustainable development of (normative) mountain regions. Hence, mountain research is situated at the nexus of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. Drawing on Alexander von Humboldt's work in the Andean realm, mountain geography and ecology are considered core areas of study; nevertheless i...

Anonymous

14:25

It has some really beautiful pictures.

Anonymous

> Mountain research, formerly also known as orology ( from Greek oros ὄρος for 'mountain' and logos λόγος)—not to be confused with orography—, is increasingly denominated montology; a term that was already included into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002.[1] On the one hand, the term montology received criticism due to the mix of Latin (mōns, pl. montēs) and Greek (logos). On the other hand, however, this is also the—well accepted—case in several, already established disciplines such as glaciology or sociology.

Anonymous

I guess orology may not be the best term.

Mistu4u

Wow...so many "-logy"s.

Actually the orology question came in an aptitude paper which my friend faced.

Anonymous

Oh? Did I get the answer right? :-)

Mistu4u

Yeah, of course :-)

Surprisingly some companies put more importance in English than Maths!

And that's how they get rid of most candidates.

And in group discussions.

Anonymous

14:36

Fun fact: I never heard anyone say maths until I was in my twenties.

Anonymous

Here in the U.S., we say math or mathematics, but practically never maths

Mistu4u

Oh, no, no "math" only "maths" here :-)

Anonymous

Yeah, Indian English in general is pretty close to British English, isn't it?

Mistu4u

@snailboat Too close! But the Westernization (read Americanization) has started reducing British effect but can't deplete it because the root is still located in UK English.

BDW is "maths" a british usage?

Anonymous

Yes, I believe so

Cerberus

14:39

Hi.

Anonymous

Hello!

Anonymous

We're discussing maths.

Mistu4u

Hope your sleep is over! :)

Cerberus

@Mistu4u How does this Americanization manifest itself?

Anonymous

Here's how I learned the term maths: vimeo.com/13497928

Cerberus

14:40

@snailboat Oh, that's very...mathematical.

Mistu4u

@Cerberus Well America is itself the "Eldest brother of the World"! It does not need to be proved.

:P

Cerberus

Hmm how do you mean "proved"?

Mistu4u

It needs no evidence, that's what I mean, pretty much clear as daylight.

@snailboat, I don't see much difference between US and UK English other than British use "reckon" too much and sound Couch as Cauch :D

Anonymous

@Mistu4u I say reckon!

Cerberus

@Mistu4u But I meant, in which things do you see it happening?

Anonymous

14:44

Oh wait. No, I don't. I just checked.

Cerberus

Haha.

I thought Americans did say reckon?

Anonymous

Well, sure, other Americans.

Anonymous

I checked my logs from the last ten years and the only time I said it online was when I was discussing the Stepped Reckoner.

Anonymous

Stepped Reckoner

The Step Reckoner (or Stepped Reckoner) was a digital mechanical calculator invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz around 1672 and completed in 1694. The name comes from the translation of the German term for its operating mechanism; staffelwalze meaning 'stepped drum'. It was the first calculator that could perform all four arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Its intricate precision gearwork, however, was somewhat beyond the fabrication technology of the time; mechanical problems, in addition to a design flaw in the carry mecha...

Cerberus

Oh, that's funny.

Mistu4u

14:45

@Cerberus well, it is everywhere in fact so much substantial that I can't mention an example now!

:P

Cerberus

So reckon used to mean calculate, as in the other Germanic languages.

@Mistu4u Umm right, right, very convincing.

Mistu4u

@Cerberus I reckon that's how Americans use it

Anonymous

Etymonline says:

Anonymous

> Intransitive sense "make a computation" is from c.1300. In I reckon, the sense is "hold an impression or opinion," and the expression, used parenthetically, dates from c.1600 and formerly was in literary use (Richardson, etc.), but came to be associated with U.S. Southern dialect and was regarded as provincial or vulgar.

Mistu4u

But Americans face most problem while driving in London

because there "left" is right and "right" is wrong!

Anonymous

14:52

@Mistu4u Or Japan!

Cerberus

But the literal sense calculate is now rare, isn't it?

Children don't reckon in primary school.

Mistu4u

@snailboat Or in India too :P

Anonymous

@Cerberus Right, I think it's rare / obsolete for most speakers.

Cerberus

Or most of the British Empire...

Anonymous

Let's see...

Cerberus

14:54

@snailboat Right. So the English name for that German calculator was likely made up centuries ago.

Anonymous

15:09

@Mistu4u I've heard that driving in India is quite different from driving in the US.

Anonymous

15:26

0

Q: Can we add such an arrangement that questions are displayed in the chat room as soon as a new question is posted?

Some folks here hang around in the chat room pretty well like Snailboat, Cerbeus and myself. So I guess it becomes problematic for any of us to know when a new question is posted to the site. I saw such a feature in Movies.SE chat room where a bot Movie-Reel displays the question in the chat room...

discussion chat

Anonymous

We can. I kind of, somewhat, just a little bit despise the feed, though. Just me personally.

Anonymous

I know other people like it.

Feeds

snailboat has added Mistu4u to the list of this room's owners.

Anonymous

Does anyone else want to be a room owner?

Anonymous

@Mistu4u You can turn the feed on and off now, if you like.

Feeds

15:34

snailboat has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

Anonymous

I set it to the 'ticker' version of the feed, but you can change it to post actual messages in the chat history.

Anonymous

15:57

@FumbleFingers: all gerunds can be nouns, but some are happier being nouns than others. — Peter Shor 15 hours ago

Anonymous

I like this a lot. Gerund happiness! Although it doesn't make any literal sense

Mistu4u

16:13

@snailboat How?

@snailboat Okay. Thank you. I love this facility actually.

Anonymous

16:40

@Mistu4u Well, people post videos. youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

Anonymous

I don't know if driving is really like that, but people keep telling me it is.

Anonymous

There are lots of people from India in the tech industry around here, so I've had lots of Indian coworkers. I've never been to India, though

Mistu4u

@snailboat Actually I can't see it because the data charges here are very high and in India internet charges are quite high despite huge demand. So I don't really see videos unless it is very important.

I feel you point towards jam in road and all............

Anonymous

17:00

Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realize that about data costs

Anonymous

Hey, that reminds me: I saw you edit a long string of periods into a question title, and it looked to me like the site automatically replaced it with a Unicode ellipsis!

Anonymous

I hadn't seen that before.

Mistu4u

Oh..Don't be.. how would you know!

Which edit are you talking about?

Anonymous

It'll take me a minute to find it since I'm typing this from my phone.

Mistu4u

okay. You are typing very fast from your phone.

Anonymous

17:09

Well, I was typing at a computer earlier :-)

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/posts/11075/revisions

Anonymous

The SE chat works okay from my phone, but unfortunately I can't easily reply to individual messages.

Mistu4u

@snailboat, Yeah you are quite right. It happened.

Anonymous

@Mistu4u Did you do that on purpose?

Mistu4u

@snailboat No, no... just casually

Anonymous

17:22

I noticed because it only converted it to the Unicode '…' on my computer. On my phone, it remained '.................'

Anonymous

Sequences like '.................' are widely considered "incorrect"

Anonymous

Following convention, an ellipsis should be three dots. No more, no less. (Sometimes there's a fourth dot if you've used an ellipsis to replace the words at the end of the sentence, in which case the fourth dot represents the period that ends the sentence. But that's a matter of style, and not everyone uses the four-dot version.)

Anonymous

You can feel free to use as many or as few dots as you'd like, of course. I just thought you might want to know what the usual convention is, if you didn't already :-)

Mistu4u

17:53

@snailboat No actually I didn't know... Thank you.

In casual chat we happen to use ... to show continuity. Like this one is going on and on and on and on and on and on and on.................................................and on :)

Anonymous

@Mistu4u Using sequences of two dots or four or more dots is very common among English speakers, but it's regarded as, I think, uneducated usage

Anonymous

(That's not really a fair assessment. I know people who could not reasonably be called "uneducated" who use dots that way. But I know people who say that's the impression they get when they see it.)

Mistu4u

:-(

Anonymous

Oh no! Did I make you sad or happy?

Anonymous

I'm letting you know not because I care how many dots you use, but because it seems like the kind of thing non-native speakers might want to know so they can manage how others perceive them.

Mistu4u

17:58

Using sequences of two dots or four or more dots is very common among English speakers, but it's regarded as, I think, uneducated usage

- :-(

Anonymous

It is. So is ain't, but I say that now and then ;-)

Mistu4u

(That's not really a fair assessment. I know people who could not reasonably be called "uneducated" who use dots that way.

- :-)

But I know people who say that's the impression they get when they see it.- :-(

Anonymous

It's all about using what's appropriate for a given situation.

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