Re: ``Ken and I being on the radio together''

On Jan 28, 7:35 am, Adam Funk <a24...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-01-26, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

Would you go so far as to say that the infinitive and the present
tense forms (apart from the third-person singular) are the same thing
(except for _be_, of course)?

In English grammar, those two terms don't serve much purpose. English
verbs have five forms, and one of them serves as both a verbal noun
("infinitive") and a simple non-3sg timeless verb.

Are homonyms the same word too?

I had in mind not only EFL but also teaching English grammar (in a
moderately prescriptive sense) and writing skills to native speakers
in high school.  It's useful to distinguish verbal nouns from verbal
adjectives functionally, even if they have the same surface form.

Why? They already _know_ the difference between "him eating" and "his
eating," because they know the language. There's no reason to label
them with labels from 2000 years ago.

Maybe we should stop teaching English in high schools, abolish usage
guides, and just tell everyone to transcribe whatever comes out
naturally!

Maybe we should teach Starndard English according to the facts of
Standard English and not according to the facts of Classical Latin.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ireland Acts And Yurp Twitters.
    ... :>:I suspect that you inhabit a separate reality from the rest of us. ... :>:irregular verbs of German, ... :> significant additions from other languages (like the Old English ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • Re: Parse "sooner"
    ... multi-word verbs. ... years older than Quirk et al.'s. ... straightforward English and an implied ellipsis. ... And its usages are inconsistent. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Most hated neologisms/incorrect usage
    ... What was wrong with "to take a tour", and in what way can one ... language mavens have deplored the way English speakers convert nouns into verbs. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Are "semi-creoles" widespread?
    ... Darkstar> probably not hard to learn. ... Darkstar> isolation in verbs is rather rare (Mandarin, English, ... dialects I am thinking of always preserve the 3-way person/number contrast. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Writing about Asian varieties of English - any help improving grammar is appreciated!
    ... I'm currently finishing my term paper in English ... It's about different past tense marking in Singapore ... spoken less frequently in Hong Kong than Cantonese. ... verbs". ...
    (sci.lang)
Quantcast