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alffy
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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 Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Peeping Tom wrote: |
| antoniothegreat wrote: |
just because people say a certain thing doesnt make it correct. how many people do you know use double negatives? we all know it is incorrect to say "i didnt tell hiim nothing." yet so many people do. |
I tend to view things from a descriptive point of view. The prescriptive rules of English teachers have their place, but if their rules (and even they disagree) go into realms of sounding unnatural, I prefer sticking with the natural expressions. After all, when grammars were first made they usually were based on one dialect. |
| antoniothegreat wrote: |
you make some good points, but i disagree with some of your assumptions. first, you say that their are opinions of grammar. i dont agree. there is a defined rule set for grammar. their are no opinions in grammar. there are different rule sets, like maybe american grammar versus british grammar, but there are no opinions. that is almost like saying your opinion of math. no, it is either right or wrong.
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Hi, I don't intend to extend the debate, only make a few comments. I am not currently an English teacher, nor am I as versed in the rules of grammer as you people clearly are, but I am an Anthropologist that has done a little bit of study regarding language evolution/acquisition, as well as have studied history of "Modern" Britain so I have accessed numerous texts of "modern" English that I felt I needed a translator to understand.
I believe Peeping Tom has a point regarding rules of grammer being determined by the spatial and temporal applications of the language. Antoniothegreat, you actually make this point quite succinctly in your above quote (by the way, Tom indicated the rules set by dialect, not opinion)- you point out the different rules of grammer based on spoken dialect (American, British, etc.). This also applies to temporal dialects as well -"modern" English from the 16th century is different from the 18th century, is different from today (just read a good version of the King James' Bible to see a shift in spelling and grammer in the centuries since its translation).
Effectively, what I am saying is that as cultural norms, precepts, and structures change, so does the application of language, including its grammatical rules. Language is a constantly evolving cultural communication/information medium. Rules tend to be reactionarily applied to accommodate/formalize the communication process. So, in practical terms, everyone here is correct- those applying the "true" grammatical rules are adhereing to the proper forms of the language, while those using newer, more "correct sounding" rules are, in effect, establishing the new rules (assuming of course they are ultimately adopted by the culture/dialect).
Just my two cents, thanks for listening.
By the way, I say "Yea dude, ya got me!" But I wouldn't suggest teaching that (nor will I when I come over to teach). |
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poet13
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
Location: Just over there....throwing lemons.
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| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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| if you have creditors, "may I ask who's calling please", or a simple, "who's asking", is probably the way to go. |
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xeno439
Joined: 30 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Peeping Tom wrote: |
| antoniothegreat wrote: |
just because people say a certain thing doesnt make it correct. how many people do you know use double negatives? we all know it is incorrect to say "i didnt tell hiim nothing." yet so many people do. |
I tend to view things from a descriptive point of view. The prescriptive rules of English teachers have their place, but if their rules (and even they disagree) go into realms of sounding unnatural, I prefer sticking with the natural expressions. After all, when grammars were first made they usually were based on one dialect.
In French double negatives is the norm. Linguistically speaking, there is nothing incorrect about double negatives, but I'll agree that, for the time being, it sounds less learned to used double negative in English, and thus I wouldn't encourage any of my students to do it.
| antoniothegreat wrote: |
in your example, i think technically we should say "is that she?" as "she" and "that" are the same, they are both the subject of the sentence. but again, it sounds akward to hear an "i, he, she, we, or they" (subject pronouns) at the end of a sentence, so we use the object pronoun. |
The "technicality" of whether we should say "he/she/it" depends on the speaker's opinion of grammar. As mentioned above, I prefer the natural sounding solution. Also as I mentioned before, the subject and predicate nominate position are syntactically different, thus there is no need to view them as the same thing.
| antoniothegreat wrote: |
again, that is why we dont say "not I" in Little Red Hen.
I am not 100% about become, but I would think that doesn't use a predicate nominative. when i say "she became me" "she" and "me" are not the same thing. they are not both the subject. they are definitely different. you can clearly mark them grammatically, who became? she became (she is the subject). what/who did she become? she became me. me is the object. when using "to be" this become a bit akward. i think you can't use "become" to justify using an object pronoun for "to be" |
Do a quick search on the internet if you don't believe me. "Believe" (as well as "seem" and "remain") take a nominative predicate, just like "be." In Korean, "become" (되다) does not take an object particle either.
As far as I'm concerned, the problem lies in the fact that prescriptive English grammar (as well as other European languages) was originally based on Latin. In Latin, as far as I know, the predicate nominative has the same case endings as the subject. As a result, some English grammarians thought/think that we must follow the same rules, regardless of the fact that English is a different (in fact, Germanic and not Romance) language. As I mentioned, French (which IS a Romance language) uses the dative case pronouns in the nominative predicate, so it is by no means a linguistic rule set in stone. And since in English people tend to naturally use the dative case pronouns in nominative predicate positions, it seems more correct to me than a grammarian trying to impose Latin grammar rules on English. |
English, French, African click language: A double negative is a positive by logic. If your intent is to make a positive statement, than using a double negative is grammatically correct, however, very inefficient. |
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