Korean Job Discussion Forums

[livinginkorea]

So I was Doing an article with my Kepco class(company) and after the article I normally pick 6 words to put into sentences for the class. After that they try to make sentences hemselves and then I give them a sheet with some example sentences that I make up myself. Their English is very good but sometimes the questions that they ask me have me stuck. Of course the higher the level the more difficult the questions!!!

One of the words that they had to put into a sentence was criticise. They understand the word, no problem there. They can put the word into a sentence, no problem there. The problem is in one of the sentences that I gave to them which said,

"All you ever do is criticise me".

I think it's a perfectly ok sentence, got it out of my electronic dictionary. However one of my students says that it should be,

"All you ever do is TO criticise me".

He said that after the "be" there should be TO so what do I do? Which is right? I think that the first one is but mabye the second one is ok as well? How do I explain it to them?

[manlyboy]

J.B Clamence will know. Wait for his/her post before taking my advice.

"All you ever do is criticise me".

First of all, this looks like a reduced clause. Without the reduction, it would read "All that you ever do is criticise me". It looks problematic because it appears to have 3 verbs, and only two nouns, and no connector.
Three verbs: do, is, criticise.
Two subjects: you, all.
If I remember correctly, when a base verb immediately follows "to be", it grammatically functions as an adjective. So, criticise is technically not a verb here. We therefore have two subject-verb combinations. You = do & All you ever do = is.
"All you ever do" is a noun clause which requires a verb. (A noun clause is a group of words that function as a subject.)
The connector is "that", which doesn't appear in the sentence because it doesn't have to. It has been reduced. Here's how reduced clauses work:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=27344

Your student probably thinks that criticise should be preceeded by a preposition so that it will function as an object and not a verb, but it is not functioning as a verb in this case. Grammatically it is functioning as an adjective.

J.B Clamence. Am I wrong, or am I really wrong?

[jazblanc77]

Your student is so wrong, it is just WRONG!


By way of contrast, with the grammatical subject ALL (plus an adjective clause), the bare infinitive is much more common:

"All you ever do is complain about the neighbors"


*Quirk et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Longman, 1985).

Biber et al., Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999).

Collins COBUILD English Grammar (1990).

[J.B. Clamence]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, manyboy. I appreciate that. (And for the record, I'm a "he".) Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much I can add to this thread other than my best guess, because I'm not familiar with this particular rule.

As for your explanation, you are correct that there are several clauses in the sentence. For example, you correctly identified "all (that) you do" as a noun clause. You are right that the "that" has been dropped as it is unnecessary. You could call it some kind of reduction. As for "criticize" being an adjective, I'd have to disagree with that. It's still a verb, and the subject is "you". I guess once upon a time, people used to say: "All that you do is you criticize me." That sounds weird now because people don't use the "you" twice.

But I think if you wanted to explain why we shouldn't use "to" in there, you could write that sentence to show that there are two noun clauses: "All that you do" and "you criticize me", and the verb "is" acts as an equals sign (=) to show that the two describe the same thing. The second noun clause includes a subject (you), a verb (criticize), and an object (me). Then we take out the words "that" and the second "you" because they are unnecessary. Then we have "All you do is criticize me." But if we lok at the original sentence: "All that you do is you criticize me," we can easily see that the word "to" has no place in the sentence".

That's my best guess, anyway.

[some waygug-in]

I wouldn't be able to explain it to the student either, but what has been said above seems to be about the best that you can do.

This is the kind of thing Koreans do all the time, and then because we (native speakers) have trouble explaining it, they assume that we don't know what we are talking about. It's frustrating when it happens, especially when they pop these obscure phrases out of the blue and ask for a grammatical analysis.

Then they try to argue with you because they assume you are wrong. (because you can't explain it)

But I bet you will know how to explain it next time. That's one good thing about experience.

[livinginkorea]

Thanks guys, I'm only in my first year and I have loads of adult classes so I am kept on my toes with these grammar questions. The higher the level of English the more difficult the question!!!

So I'm wondering is there any good grammar good that I can buy to help me learn all this stuff? I have two grammar books called

English Grammar in Use by Murphy and

A - Z of English Grammar & Usage by Leech etc.

They are good grammer books but I need a book that I can really use to learn grammer especially like the example that I posted earlier. Any ideas?

Many thanks again lads

[danielcraig]

[J.B. Clamence]

I think Michael Swan's Practical English Usage is one of the best grammar guides out there, if not the best. It's also the recommended grammar guide for a lot of CELTA courses.

[ajuma]

Collins CoBuild English Usage isn't exactly a grammar book. It's usage. It tells HOW words are used (arranged alphabetically) and how they are NOT used and why. It's my "bible!"

[ladyandthetramp]

[matthewwoodford]

Do any of these grammar books already mentioned get technical e.g. explain what a participial clause is? Basic English Grammar is great but you need more to cope with those tough adult questions.