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Results tagged with english
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user 482
A Germanic language, which originated from England, and is considered the leading language in international communication. For non-linguistic questions about the English language, visit one of our sister sites English Language & Usage or English Language Learners.
12
votes
Accepted
Why can you say "I am not sure whether it's raining" but not "I am sure whether it's raining"?
NPIs interacting idiomatically with syntactic constructions are not uncommon in English. …
- 10.1k
3
votes
White - Whitening, Light -?
It used to be very common in English, but it only appears on a few words in Modern English. … English is full of them. …
- 10.1k
11
votes
Accepted
Why does English use different prepositions for different units of time?
Actually, the metaphors are all coherent, so there is a logic to it.
As Colin explained in his comment, and as discussed in this post,
Months and larger measures are Containers -- 3-Dimensional: i …
- 10.1k
6
votes
Can one noun phrase follow another in English?
Every finite clause in English must have a subject.
That's Rule One. …
- 10.1k
1
vote
Contingent grammaticality
There's a problem around constructions like that with most American English speakers. … (UK English speakers may claim to speak elsewhise, but pay attention to
what they actually do say, rather than what they claim they "always say"). …
- 10.1k
1
vote
Why can 'notwithstanding' be positioned before or after the object without changing meaning?
Third, the etymology of this particular with- prefix does not come from the preposition with meaning 'together', but rather from a different preposition we no longer have in English that meant 'against …
- 10.1k
1
vote
"there" and "everything" in linguistics is a "pronoun" or "noun"?
(This is normal for English sentences)
If it's pronounced with stressed there, it refers to the location of an apple, presupposed to exist in context. … But if you think of English grammar as word + word, you're sunk; grammar has little to do with words -- it's all constructions. …
- 10.1k
1
vote
Accepted
Does "Inchoative Construction" mean constructions with intransitive inchoative verbs?
The best example of inchoation (in ko A shun) in English is the verb get, which is the causative and the inchoative form of be:
He is tired (stative) ~ He got tired (inchoative) ~ They got him tired ( … Since be and have constitute almost all the non-modal auxiliary verbs in English, that makes get very useful in all kinds of idioms that use those auxiliaries. …
- 10.1k
4
votes
Is the active vs passive voice distinction, a property of the verb or sentence itself?
So don't worry about English Voice. There isn't any, just like there isn't an English Perfect Tense or an Inceptive Aspect or a Benedictive Mood. … And even in English, there are constructions that are similar to Passive, like Her book is selling well, which is an example of the Middle Alternation, a different thing in English. …
- 10.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Did 'the' in 'the which' mean anything?
Where Romance languages have qu-words in their grammars, English has wh-words. … Germanic languages), PIE dental *t became dental stop t- in Latin and dental fricative th- in English. …
- 10.1k
6
votes
Do modal auxiliaries in English never change their forms?
Yes, modal auxiliary verbs do not inflect, hence they never change their form.
may, shall, will, and can are formed from present stems
might, should, would, could, and must are formed from past stems …
- 10.1k
7
votes
Accepted
In which varieties of English is it common to front predicates as in "Bought a nice house, h...
All the varieties I know. I don't think it's regional, or varietal; it's just conversational, a sort of syntactic equivalent of Fast Speech Rules.
I suspect it's just an afterthought tag for Conversa …
- 10.1k
2
votes
Are there papers/books about complex sentence formation in English?
It looks like you'll have to learn enough English syntax to do what you need. … A book, by Beth Levin (1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations), on governed cyclic rules, with both a verb index and a verb class index. …
- 10.1k
6
votes
Accepted
Is there a term for when words that sound like antonyms are actually synonyms?
Transitive seed is one of those zero-derived verbs that can be either
Privative -- 'remove seeds from X' -- He seeded the pepper before slicing it.
or
Provisional -- 'provide X with seeds' -- …
- 10.1k
5
votes
Accepted
Are English homonyms distinguishable by pitch profile?
English does not distinguish words by pitch profiles like Chinese does. … As we all know, however, English spelling emphatically does not represent the sounds of modern English, so this is a lost cause. …
- 10.1k