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marmaduke
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
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 Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:09 am Post subject: Some Grammar Questions |
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I'm teaching a writing class and while I usually don't have a problem with identifying when a sentence is wrong, I sometimes can't give a proper explanation for why it is wrong. I've been trying to study and relearn all of the grammar rules since I arrived here, but a few things have escaped my grasp.
A student wrote:
"The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love each other to keep their lineage pure."
If you take out "each other," it sounds much better. Was it incorrect to begin with, and if so, why?
The same student also wrote:
"Why is to succeed and to earn fortune not easy enough for Jane?"
This sounds a bit awkward too. I would rewrite it as "Why is succeeding and earning fortune not easy enough for Jane?" or maybe "Why is it, that to succeed and to earn fortune is not easy enough for Jane?" (I'd leave in enough because of the context from the earlier sentences). Any comments on this would be appreciated. Thanks. |
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Biblethumper
Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Location: Busan, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:46 pm Post subject: Re: Some Grammar Questions |
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| marmaduke wrote: |
A student wrote:
"The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love each other to keep their lineage pure."
The same student also wrote:
"Why is to succeed and to earn fortune not easy enough for Jane?"
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Whom (the relative pronoun) and other are both functioning to replace the same noun, someone, that is why the sentence sounds awkward to our modern ears. (In the King James there would be nothing wrong with it.)
Someone should be changed to those, since the people are plural and thus would marry more than one person as a group.
The second sentence is not incorrect, but it is indeed awkward. I cannot figure out why either. |
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pcs0325
Joined: 21 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:28 am Post subject: |
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The second sentence remains awkward because it's missing an article in the original and in all the corrected cases.
Though still not what a native might say, the corrected, "Why is to succeed and to earn [a] fortune not easy enough for Jane?" works fine. |
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jitter
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 9:14 am Post subject: |
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Sentence 1
The way I parse this, The student has given the verb 'marry' has two objects, one after the other:
1)'someone whom they did not love'
then
2)'each other' (reflexive pronoun)
You can delete either, and land on your feet:
"The people were forced to marry each other to keep their lineage pure."
"The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure."
Maybe the student thinks that the verb is 'to love each other', rather than 'to love'.
Sentence 2
apart from the missing article thing, this is odd because although we do say
[noun] is [adjective]
in cases like
[the teacher] is [drunk]
we don't usually do that when we use the infinitive as a noun:
[to drink soju] is [pointless]
instead, we usually use a preparatory 'it' as the subject:
it is pointless to drink soju.
Sentence 2 can be flipped in the same way.
"Why is it not easy enough for Jane to succeed and to earn a fortune ?"
You might also want to delete the 'enough',
which is usually used when there's some kind of condition (like 'big enough to fend for himself')
"Why is it not easy for Jane to succeed and to earn a fortune ?"
It's semantically odd to wonder why it is not easy for someone to earn a 'fortune', which means an unusually large (and, implicitly, hard to obtain) amount of money...
"Why is it not easy for Jane to succeed and to earn a living?"
..and by the same token, nobody ever said life was easy:
"Why is it so difficult for Jane to succeed and to earn a living?"
Answer:
"Because her E-2 expires next month" |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| jitter wrote: |
| "The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure." [/b] |
This is still wrong unless "the people" were all marrying one person (since "someone" is singular). |
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jitter
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject: |
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| faster wrote: |
| jitter wrote: |
| "The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure." [/b] |
This is still wrong unless "the people" were all marrying one person (since "someone" is singular). |
True. Though if you say "The people were forced to marry people whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure", the repetition doesn't sound cool.
Maybe you can fix it by just saying
"People were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure."
To me, 'People' without the article 'the' can more easily be interpreted as meaning 'each individual'... |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:55 am Post subject: |
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| jitter wrote: |
| faster wrote: |
| jitter wrote: |
| "The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure." [/b] |
This is still wrong unless "the people" were all marrying one person (since "someone" is singular). |
True. Though if you say "The people were forced to marry people whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure", the repetition doesn't sound cool.
Maybe you can fix it by just saying
"People were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure."
To me, 'People' without the article 'the' can more easily be interpreted as meaning 'each individual'... |
The repetition of "people" is bad style, indeed, but article or not, "people" is plural in both use and meaning.
Here are some possible fixes that follow the conventions of grammar:
"People were forced to marry those they did not love to keep their lineage pure."
"People were forced into loveless marriages to keep their lineage pure."
"People were forced to marry without love to keep their lineage pure." |
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jitter
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 5:48 am Post subject: |
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| faster wrote: |
| jitter wrote: |
| "The people were forced to marry someone whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure." [/b] |
This is still wrong unless "the people" were all marrying one person (since "someone" is singular). |
Thinking about it again, though, are there any rules you can make about subject/object agreement in English?
A sentence like 'Those girls have a pretty face' sounds odd, as if they have only one face between them.
But it's fine to say 'most boys have had have a girlfriend by the time they are in high school' - Plural subject, singular object. |
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marmaduke
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the help. I should have caught the missing article and subject object agreement.
For the first sentence, she understood that "each other" is a reflexive pronoun, but I think she wanted to say something like, "The people were forced to marry other people, and they and the other people didn't love each other, but they had to marry to keep their lineage pure."
I agree with not using people twice in the same sentence. Could you write "The people were forced to marry others whom they did not love to keep their lineage pure."
| Quote: |
Thinking about it again, though, are there any rules you can make about subject/object agreement in English?
A sentence like 'Those girls have a pretty face' sounds odd, as if they have only one face between them.
But it's fine to say 'most boys have had have a girlfriend by the time they are in high school' - Plural subject, singular object.
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Couldn't you still fix the subject/object agreement in the second sentence by inserting "each?" It would be, "Most boys have each had a girlfriend by the time they are in high school." |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| jitter wrote: |
| But it's fine to say 'most boys have had have a girlfriend by the time they are in high school' - Plural subject, singular object. |
Uh... |
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jitter
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| faster wrote: |
| jitter wrote: |
| But it's fine to say 'most boys have had have a girlfriend by the time they are in high school' - Plural subject, singular object. |
Uh... |
D'oh.
'most boys have had a girlfriend by the time they are in high school' |
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