English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

00:06

I'm thinking... it's not going to be easy to explain the nuance between "in" and "inside", especially when our answers do not agree with each other.

StoneyB

00:25

@DamkerngT. In many cases there is no difference. But "inside" and "outside" are more likely when you want to express a contrast between in and out: the two are divided by a barrier which encloses or protects what is inside and excludes or bars what is outside. There is a sense of penetration when passing inside, of escape when passing the outside. Political "insiders" are walled off from "outsiders.

Damkerng T.

01:06

@StoneyB Thank you for the feedback! I mentioned that because I noticed the different opinions on this sentence: The doctors found two bullets in/inside his body. -- Some seem to prefer in, while others seem to prefer inside.

StoneyB

01:39

@DamkerngT. I don't see anybody expressing a preference for in his body, just observations that inside has a narrower range of use. I think you and Alicja Z have put your fingers on a very important point: that in can usually substitute for inside, but often inside cannot substitute for in.

Damkerng T.

I might read it wrong, but I read this in jimsug's post and I think inside is not recommended (in that specific case):

> As for your specific examples: I find them all to be perfectly natural and idiomatic except for the last, The doctors found two bullets inside his body.

StoneyB

01:55

@DamkerngT. You're right. But even jimsug finds inside the heart or brain acceptable; and I think Alicja Z and user2617804 both answer his discomfort with inside the body. The distinction is context-dependent.

Damkerng T.

02:05

nods

hellodear2

07:43

@DamkerngT.

Awal Garg

10:02

We can just take the transcript of this room and make a best-seller novel :)

Specially the conversations between DamkerngT. and snailboat and Cerberus and Fantasier and a few more I don't know about...

Fantasier

Novel?

Awal Garg

Yup, a Novel.

Fantasier

How could those become a novel?

Awal Garg

I won't make one though, I have got lots of coding work pending :(

@Fantasier Ohh, well, we have quite a number of stories rolling out here everyday. :p

Riddle for everybody forthcoming:

> :):

^ look at the above emoticon. Is it smiling or sad?

Fantasier

That one is getting old :):

Anonymous

10:38

@AwalGarg Yes

Awal Garg

10:53

@snailboat what? smiling or sad?

@Fantasier u mean this has been asked before?

Damkerng T.

11:36

Oh, several people here.

Hello, everyone.

Before I forget it, I'd like to make a note on my idea about unified mechanics of language.

Conventionally, we separate grammar from vocabulary.

Now, this might sound a little silly, and it might already be obvious to many, but it just became clear to me, a moment ago.

Grammar and vocabulary are the same thing.

Here is my idea: Basically, both grammar and vocabulary are about learning the usage of each word.

This is rather obvious in English; I believe that it should work universally in any language. For a language that has a different definition of word, we can think of grammar and vocabulary as learning about the usage of each unit, where a unit is something equivalent to English word.

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Yes

Damkerng T.

Oh, I just learned a new nice metaphor, Gorilla vs. Shark.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. Yup

Damkerng T.

Hooray! I've got an agreement. :)

skullpatrol

Hip, Hip, Hooray! :D

Damkerng T.

11:55

Hi @skullpatrol!

5

Q: What is an elegant way to manage references in English which avoids repetition and is clear?

English is not my first language. Thus, every time I write an English sentence, my brain has to work at 100% efficiency, because there are so many things that I am not very sure of. For example, "If I create an English sentence like that, then can native English speakers understand the exact mean...

meaning

This question reminds me of the mechanism they (my cable TV operator) use to translate subtitles.

skullpatrol

@DamkerngT. Hi pal :-)

Damkerng T.

In my L1, both you and her can be translated into the same word, depending on the occasion. So, to avoid this, they started to use some strange mechanism to make the translation clear. It sounds odd to many people, but after a while, people seem to get used to it.

I guess that it will have some impacts to our language.

skullpatrol

Translation is always a messy business.

jimsug

@skullpatrol Yup. It requires much more than linguistic knowledge.

Damkerng T.

nods

skullpatrol

12:01

claps

Anonymous

12:16

@DamkerngT. The Japanese pronouns kare (often kare-si) "him" and kanojo "her" are relatively recently developments, coined in order to translate documents from English and other western languages with gendered pronouns

Anonymous

They became part of the language proper surprisingly quickly

Anonymous

Although they aren't used nearly as often as we use him and her in English

Damkerng T.

Oh, it happens everywhere!

In Thai, without context, saying "Did she know that?" can be in exactly the same words as saying "Did you know that?" :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. A curious case is the pronoun tā in Mandarin ("he", "she", "it")

Damkerng T.

To cope with this kind of phrases, they devised a mechanism. They decided to use another pronoun which is usually used for he (or him) for she (or her). And they use it rather mechanically. (In English, man can mean either male or female. This Thai word can be used for female too, but it's rare and usually unexpected.)

Anonymous

12:23

Tā is relatively generic in speech, but in writing the senses "he/she/it" are distinguished

Damkerng T.

A-ha! So they sound the same, but they are different words?

Anonymous

I wouldn't say they're different words, just that they're spelled differently in different situations.

Anonymous

(Someone else might claim that they're different words.)

Damkerng T.

That's very curious!

jimsug

@snailboat I guess we'd all need to agree on the definition of a word.

Anonymous

12:27

Evidence that it's mentally just one lexical item is in that Mandarin learners of English often have trouble with gendered pronoun distinctions

Anonymous

Likewise, I wouldn't say 貴方・貴女・貴男 are all different words in Japanese—I'd say they're all spellings of anata

Damkerng T.

I recognize that character for woman.

Anonymous

You mean character?

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes. I meant character.

So I guess they are he/she/it.

Anonymous

It seems odd to me to suggest that a blind speaker who has never interacted with hanzi would have only one pronoun tā in their mental lexicon, whereas it would be three words that are indistinguishable in speech for literate speakers

jimsug

12:30

Are we conflating the notions of word and lexeme, then?

Damkerng T.

方 looks like a character for the word work.

Anonymous

Word doesn't have a specific meaning. I used lexical item since it was more specific.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't understand what you just said.

Damkerng T.

But I might misremember it. I barely know Chinese characters.

Oh, I thought of the other character: 力.

Anonymous

Yes, that's right. 力 is lì "power/strength" in Mandarin, = ryoku/riki in Japanese.

Anonymous

12:34

方 is fāng in Mandarin, hō in Japanese.

Anonymous

(Sorry, I'm being inconsistent with my italics here. I'm lazy :-)

Anonymous

You might know 方言 (Mandarin fāngyán, Japanese hōgen), often translated "dialect"

Anonymous

Meaning more literally the speech of a place

Damkerng T.

No, but I can tell the second character.

Anonymous

Ah! 言 yán :-) In Japanese, gen/gon is the corresponding reading

Damkerng T.

12:37

Wind over mouth. :)

Anonymous

chineseetymology.org/…

Anonymous

If you take a look at the earlier forms, you'll see it is probably not a representation of wind

Damkerng T.

nods -- That page is lovely!

Oh, the font I have looks different from the one on that page.

Anonymous

The most common variations in 言 are in the topmost stroke, which can be flat horizontal, diagonal, or even vertical

Anonymous

I use a handwriting font, and mine reflects the common Japanese way of writing it with a short diagonal top stroke.

Damkerng T.

12:41

Which looks exactly like the one on that page. My font makes the first stroke look flat.

Anonymous

How does your font differ from the one used on that page, I wonder?

Anonymous

When I look at that page, I see a flat top line.

Anonymous

Maybe you have a font installed that I don't!

Damkerng T.

Eh? Oh, the one on that page is a text! I thought it was an image!

Anonymous

Unfortunately, I see Japanese glyphs on that page. My system is set up to use Japanese fonts, not Chinese, and unless a page forces a Chinese font and I have it installed, I'll see Japanese CJK forms instead.

Anonymous

12:44

Usually, I prefer that!

Damkerng T.

Anonymous

Sometimes I wish one font were sufficient for all of CJK(V).

Damkerng T.

By the way, that window has 201 tabs. :)

@snailboat I thought they share the same character sets in Unicode. (Maybe not in entirely, but a good part of it.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah. But a lot of characters look different, even though they're assigned the same code points.

Anonymous

Unihan has its downsides.

Damkerng T.

12:48

nods

Anonymous

Issues with browsers displaying the wrong language-dependent glyphs are very common.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Sometimes in happened in Thai too.

This is rather odd. How could a member for 13 days post a question on April 3?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Was it migrated?

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. The question was migrated.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Why couldn't I think of that myself? -- smacking my head -- Thank you!

Anonymous

12:56

There are also account mergers that might be able to account for that

jimsug

Slightly off-topic, but:

english.stackexchange.com/questions/173338/…

Anonymous

I don't really know how they work since I've never had to merge an account myself

jimsug

Does my comment seem... disdainful?

Anonymous

The phrasing "where are you getting these/this from" could be seen as having a bit of a negative connotation. I was surprised when I read the following comment, though.

jimsug

@snailboat I certainly didn't mean it that way, I suppose I should've hedged it a bit more. May I ask or something. I suppose I overestimated how thick-skinned people on the internet are :P

Damkerng T.

12:59

I'm still trying to understand what that "long i" means. :)

jimsug

@DamkerngT. That's exactly what I mean

Well, not really

Well, actually

the long I he refers to is actually a diphthong, right?

Anonymous

Well, people on the internet misunderstand stuff all the time. They infer tone of voice, often incorrectly, in ways that are unpredictable to me

jimsug

Unless the name for the grapheme, "I", is something else.

@snailboat Yeah, this is true. But I'm not really into modifying my language habits so as to accommodate all possible inferences.

Damkerng T.

Calling I (pronounced "eye") as a "long i" confuses me.

Anonymous

@jimsug I'm not telling you to.

jimsug

13:01

@snailboat Sorry, not implying that you were, making a comment on your comment. (It just happened again! :P)

@DamkerngT. Agreed. Maybe if I knew what the frame of reference for the rest of his vocalic inventory was, I might be able to help? Alternatively, I could just couch the entire answer in IPA terminology and let him deal with it.

Damkerng T.

> Would you call it the 'soft' letter i? As in the long A, short A and soft A? Do we also have long I, short I and soft I?

I'm trying to guess. I guess that both "soft A" and "soft I" mean the schwa.

And the OP seems to mix up English letters with the IPA symbols.

> I have looked at many web sites about the letter i and none talk about the ee sound of the letter i. Why?

jimsug

Not to mention the biggest thing - which I probably should've asked about first - which is the actual variant he's learning.

Looking at

English phonology

Like many languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (though not identical) phonological system. Phonological analysis of English often concentrates on, or uses as a reference point, one or more of the prestige or standard accents, such as Received Pronunciation for England, General American for the United States, and General Australian for Australia. Phonemes A phoneme of a language or dialect is an abstraction of a speech sound or of a group of diff...

Damkerng T.

Probably, he found "seed" transcribed as /sid/.

Anonymous

When I was in grade school, they taught us (a little bit of) American dictionary notation, where we find "short I" ⟨ĭ⟩ /ɪ/, as in bid and "long I" ⟨ī⟩ /aɪ/, as in bide. I didn't learn about IPA until I was older.

jimsug

I've forgotten that most English speakers on the internet at this time are likely American.

Anonymous

13:06

I don't know what a "soft vowel" is, and I imagine neither does the OP

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ahh... That's good to know. Did they teach "short A" and "long A" too?

Anonymous

I have noticed that people make up terms to describe pronunciation which appear to make sense to them, but fail to actually communicate anything to other people

jimsug

I mean, I suppose there's something to be said about websites making language learning accessible to the masses.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Probably. I can't remember what they are.

Fantasier

I'm struggling to figure out what the ee sound is. He said as in 'pronunciation', but the i there is [ɪ], just as in 'incorrect'.

Anonymous

13:08

It was in the second grade of my useless primary school, where my teachers lied to me on a near daily basis out of ignorance

jimsug

@Fantasier Yep. another diphthong, strikes again.

So for instance, I imagine that he got his terminology from a website like this one

really-learn-english.com/…

Damkerng T.

I'm sure that pointing the OP to a page having basic information about IPA would help.

Anonymous

Soft, eh?

jimsug

I think the real issue is that the website doesn't make it clear that in English, the letters don't actually represent sounds.

Damkerng T.

Oh, maybe I don't want to really-learn-english. :)

Anonymous

13:10

Aw, they don't have a page about "hard A".

jimsug

Or at least, a one-to-one correspondence with sounds, and vice versa.

Anonymous

What's the use of calling a vowel "soft" if you're not going to have hard ones, too?

jimsug

Even worse: their long A is actually short A plus short I

Damkerng T.

Besides, I don't think that that "soft A" in bath is really soft.

jimsug

unless their pronunciations of say, pain, make are intended to be quasi-Canadian.

Damkerng T.

13:15

What does their "short A" sound like?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't think it's soft, but I also don't think it's un-soft. I don't ascribe any level of softness to it.

jimsug

I'm not really willing to answer that question without more context - if the OP wants to learn Canadian, I'm not in a position to advise him.

@DamkerngT. Short A Sound (cat, fat)

Awal Garg

@snailboat ah, I get it. You are avenging me for deliberately trolling you by crude trolling, right?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Oh, I'm sorry, was it not a yes-or-no question?

Damkerng T.

@jimsug Ahh... then short A plus short I would sound weird, to me I mean.

Awal Garg

13:16

@snailboat ok, you know, Damkerng once told me how to avoid being trolled :)

jimsug

@DamkerngT. Actually, that's true. But I'm not sure it's e

Awal Garg

^well, u r kidding me?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Yes or no.

Damkerng T.

@AwalGarg I did?

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. yeah, you did, don't you remember? Shh

jimsug

13:17

@DamkerngT. Again, I'm applying my own accent to it automatically...

Awal Garg

@snailboat no, it was "choice 1" or "choice 2"

Damkerng T.

@AwalGarg Okay, if it's useful for you, then it's good.

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Oh, okay.

Awal Garg

@snailboat so, you weren't avenging?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Actually, I'm on bad terms with Grice today.

jimsug

13:18

@snailboat @DamkerngT. relevant:

languagehat.com/a-soft-a

Awal Garg

@snailboat wut? Didn't quite get that.

Damkerng T.

@jimsug Thanks for the post. I agree with the author--just saying something rhymes with something is much better, if we don't want to be too technical.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. With vowels though, you have to be very particular. Or at least, you need to say that it rhymes for speakers of X variant.

Damkerng T.

Ah, that's quite true.

Awal Garg

and once you delete that, delete both of these requests as well. (I think I can do that myself... maybe) And this as well :P

Damkerng T.

13:26

Oh, the messages went to Hades!

Woosh!

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. Hope they stay there :)

Damkerng T.

21 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

> By now I have owned some forty books.

21 hours ago, by snailboat

Yeah, but it's treating ownership in a very unusual manner.

21 hours ago, by snailboat

It sounds like a short-term experience. You go in for ownership, but only for a brief time, after which you part with each book.

I'm trying to bring back the discussion about own.

Awal Garg

bye-- power off cut shut down dead.... bye jim!

Damkerng T.

It's curious to realize that short-term experience is the default interpretation. I agree with that, but I can't tell why.

Or what is the cause of that default interpretation.

I mean, do we have other similar verbs that would work this way?

> She's been there over half a day by now.

This is continuous.

> He's been to Frankfurt six times by now.

This is not continuous.

> By now I have owned some forty books.

Neither is this.

Anonymous

13:44

Do you remember the little hierarchy of lexical aspect I mentioned before?

Damkerng T.

I'd like to ask this as a question on ELL, but I think it's still not a good question.

I'm afraid I don't. Please refresh my memory a bit.

Anonymous

If we divide verbs into static vs. dynamic, and dynamic verbs into punctual vs durative, and durative verbs into atelic vs telic

Anonymous

Pardon, my internet is making it hard for me to get messages through, I'm having to click retry a lot

Anonymous

Where punctual = takes place in a point in time, while durative has duration; and atelic have no well-defined endpoint, while telic do

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think I followed that.

Anonymous

13:47

(Well, a lot of people would say we should use these as characterizations of predicates as opposed to individual verbs)

Damkerng T.

But how could I apply these concepts to my examples?

Anonymous

> The flag is red.

Anonymous

This predicate has a static interpretation. It expresses a state.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

> She marries Tom.

Anonymous

13:57

This predicate has a dynamic interpretation. It expresses an occurrence.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

States are very easily expressed in the simple present. We say things like "the flag is red" all the time.

Anonymous

But occurrences resist the simple present: "She marries Tom" isn't something we'd often say.

Anonymous

Another distinction is in whether the progressive aspect is appropriate:

Anonymous

> *This flag is being red.

Anonymous

13:59

> He is playing tennis.

Anonymous

Static, dynamic. State, occurrence.

Damkerng T.

The concept of stative verbs is very helpful for learners to handle the progressive aspect.

Anonymous

So, given that I said state-occurrence is the top level distinction, and the other classes are mostly types of occurrences

Damkerng T.

But I'm not sure about how it could be involved in the perfect aspect.

Anonymous

What sort of lexical aspect do you think there is in "I own forty books"?

Damkerng T.

14:01

Static.

Anonymous

> *I am owning forty books.

Anonymous

There are a lot of distinctions related to lexical aspect besides just whether the progressive is possible.

Anonymous

A lot of constructions force one sort of interpretation or another.

Anonymous

If you'll recall the earlier example:

Anonymous

> We won't leave till six o'clock.
> *We will leave till six o'clock.

Damkerng T.

14:04

That makes sense.

Anonymous

In the first example, leave expresses a punctual occurrence, one that takes no time. But till is an NPI in punctual predicates (it can't appear in positive punctual predicates), so we can't interpret the second predicate with a punctual sense, so it instead sounds durative. And that's probably nonsense.

Damkerng T.

I can't make sense of *We will leave till six o'clock.

(It will work if we change leave to stay.)

Anonymous

So you can see lexical aspect plays a fairly large role in English, not just in whether the progressive is possible

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, because stay is durative.

Anonymous

Compare:
> We won't leave before six o'clock.
> We will leave before six o'clock.

Damkerng T.

14:08

Both of them make sense.

Ah, I think I got a little idea...

> I've stayed here until now.

Doesn't make sense, does it?

Hmm... actually, it doesn't sound that bad (to me).

It's just like it misses something. (Maybe something like "for three hours", not sure.)

22 hours ago, by snailboat

"I lost my old book collection, so I set a goal for replacing it. I'm trying to collect a hundred books by next year. I own some forty books so far."

I think this one surprised me because I expected a perfect tense with so far.

22 hours ago, by Cerberus

For some reason, own really wants to be "timeless" unless there is a forcing reason not to.

Hmm...

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I've bought 40 books so far. ← buying something is a punctual occurrence. It means "I bought a book" occurred 40 times in the past, and we're still in the resulting state (of owning books). ("So far" implies I will buy more in the future.) But owning something is a state; we say "I own 40 books" or, if we don't anymore, "I owned 40 books"

Awal Garg

14:24

@snailboat Why don't we add once - "I once owned 40 books"?

Anonymous

@AwalGarg That's fine, sure.

Damkerng T.

It sounds like "I own some forty books" doesn't go along well with "so far".

Awal Garg

recording in history, a point of mine was considered fine by great snailboat!!!!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. "I own some forty books so far" is okay. It means you will probably increase that number in the future.

Anonymous

Please, no obsequiousness, feigned or otherwise.

Damkerng T.

14:26

A-ha!

Awal Garg

@snailboat or maybe, it means you are collecting books!

Anonymous

@AwalGarg This is also true.

Awal Garg

again recording in history, a point of mine was considered fine by great snailboat!!!!

@snailboat what does that mean?

Damkerng T.

But if we explain it on the stative basis, then how can we explain, "She's been there over half a day so far"?

Wouldn't that call for "She is there over half a day so far"?

Which one is more natural?

> He's owned that car for three years already.
He owns that car for three years already.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Has owned.

Anonymous

14:31

But:

Anonymous

> He has owned that car for three years already.
> He has owned that car.

Anonymous

The former has a continuative interpretation, which requires a duration adjunct

Anonymous

The latter does not have a continuative interpretation--he doesn't own that car anymore

Awal Garg

doesn't the first one suggest that he is now going to sell or send to car to someone? or it is destroyed now? something like that sense of departure...

Anonymous

The first one doesn't imply he's going to stop owning the car.

Anonymous

14:33

The first one means he got the car three years ago, and he still owns the car

Anonymous

The second one means he got the car at some point in the past, but he no longer has it.

Awal Garg

no, it doesn't, but at the first sight, it suggested me so if I try to compare them...

Anonymous

But the second one is still strange; we'd usually say "He owned that car." rather than "He has owned that car."

Awal Garg

ohh, I meant from the original ones of Damkerng

3 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

> He's owned that car for three years already.
He owns that car for three years already.

^ this

Anonymous

@AwalGarg Damkerng's first sentence is the same as my first sentence.

Damkerng T.

14:34

That's what I was about to say. :)

Awal Garg

nods

but comparing between the two of you two?

Anonymous

See, nod isn't a state, so "I nod" is unusual.

Awal Garg

@snailboat ok ok, I nodded.

1 min ago, by Awal Garg

but comparing between the two of you two?

Damkerng T.

I suspect that this might sound natural to you @AwalGarg, *He has been owning that car for three years.

(To hint that he will continue to own that car. Right?)

Awal Garg

It still gives me a sense of departure... I dunno why?

Anonymous

14:37

So: "He owns that car." "He has owned that car for three years already." Both of these express his current state (owning the car), but the latter says how long it's been since that state began.

Awal Garg

sure they do.

I think, when I compare two statements with similar meanings, they automatically take different forms

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. When you use own in a progressive construction, you force the listener to reinterpret it as non-stative, as a durative activity

Damkerng T.

I should have added that asterisk to mark it as ungrammatical.

Anonymous

That is, he's been in the process of actively owning it. And it's unclear what this means.

Anonymous

The slang own does have a non-stative interpretation available

Awal Garg

14:39

^ yes, you got my point right! Thumbs up.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I read it from somewhere that this usage is common in the Indian English dialect.

Awal Garg

@DamkerngT. no, its not.

Anonymous

And since people know that slang word, even if they don't use it, using the progressive there might suggest the slang reading

Damkerng T.

Ah, okay, then.

Awal Garg

maybe you read - *He's been owning... But that too, is very very casually used only.

Anonymous

14:40

@DamkerngT. Indian learners of English do often mix the progressive aspect with stative verbs

Awal Garg

@snailboat add a some in front of it :)

Anonymous

But I'm not sure about that particular example

Anonymous

@AwalGarg I don't need to. It's not a statement about all Indian learners of English.

Awal Garg

btw, why do we need the do in that sentence?

Damkerng T.

I mean, according to what I understand, in InE, He has owned that car for three years. suggests the termination of the ownership.

Anonymous

14:41

I would have to add all to force that interpretation

Awal Garg

@snailboat ok.

Anonymous

@AwalGarg In my sentence?

Awal Garg

@snailboat yup.

Damkerng T.

To suggest the continuation, usually it would become, *He has been owning that car for three years.

Anonymous

> Indian learners of English do often mix the progressive aspect with stative verbs

Awal Garg

14:42

@snailboat yeah, right...

Anonymous

Here, do is not needed. It could be removed and the sentence would remain grammatical

Anonymous

However, it serves a useful purpose, which is something called emphatic polarity

Awal Garg

@snailboat ahh, I was confused a bit. I thought it might be a symbol of inforcement...

Anonymous

It emphasizes that the sentence is affirmative rather then negative.

Awal Garg

ok, got it.

continue;

Damkerng T.

14:45

I think I still don't know which one sounds better:

> She's been there over half a day so far.
She is there over half a day so far.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Has been.

Damkerng T.

Is the "is" version wrong?

Awal Garg

bye guys and girls. Have a healthy discussion. And if you invent something new, give me a party...

Anonymous

Yes.

Damkerng T.

Bye!

@snailboat Thanks!

So, this makes me wonder, what makes "be" different from "own"?

Or it's about the time expression?

Anonymous

14:48

Yeah, she is there doesn't permit modification by over half a day so far. Um, describing be is really complicated because it has so many possible interpretations

Anonymous

You'll notice it's not always stative: "She's being stubborn!"

Anonymous

I need to look some things up to describe this particular example

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes. Let's focus only on the stative be.

Anonymous

The motional be has its own properties and only appears in the perfect

Damkerng T.

Because I tried to compare the stative be with the stative own, and it appeared to work differently.

Anonymous

14:50

But that's a little different: "She's been to Paris." "*She is to Paris."

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Oh, this stuff is hard.

Anonymous

7 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

> She's been there over half a day so far.
She is there over half a day so far.

Anonymous

Hey! It got an extra > when I linked to it :-)

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

14:53

> She has owned that book for over half a day so far.
> *She owns that book for over half a day so far.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

The first one requires the duration adjunct ("for over half a day") to appear in the present perfect as a state

Anonymous

It looks to me like they behave the same way here

Anonymous

I had to rule out some of the other uses of be for it to make sense in my head, though :-)

Damkerng T.

But when we replaced the time duration with the progress (in number of books), we can't use the present perfect anymore.

> She owns over forty books so far.

Anonymous

14:57

> She has owned over forty books for over half a day so far.　←　This is possible, but getting slightly silly :-)

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

> She's owned that old car for three years so far.

Anonymous

> She's owned that old car for three years.

Damkerng T.

Is collect durative?

Anonymous

As in "I'm collecting stamps"?

Damkerng T.

14:59

Yes, or books, or cars.

Anonymous

I think it's dynamic, durative, and atelic.

Damkerng T.

So I could say, She's collected three cars so far.

(Sorry for the confusion.)

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