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linky123
Joined: 12 Feb 2009
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 Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:37 am Post subject: Grammar question. |
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I know this sentence is wrong but can anyone tell me why? What grammar rule is it violating?
"Except for the climate, I'd like the country."
** thank you for correcting my spelling.
Last edited by linky123 on Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:51 am; edited 2 times in total |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:43 am Post subject: |
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It's "grammar".
You're welcome. |
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Thiuda
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Religion ist f�r Sklaven geschaffen, f�r Wesen ohne Geist.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:28 am Post subject: Re: Grammar question. |
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| linky123 wrote: |
I know this sentence is wrong but can anyone tell me why? What grammar rule is it violating?
"Except for the climate, I'd like the country." |
Your sentence is a future unreal conditional sentence, so the structure of it needs to be If it weren't for the climate, I'd like the country, that is, the subordinate clause needs to be in the simple past in order to agree with the main clause. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:57 am Post subject: |
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I don't see how this could be a 'future' unreal conditional, I'd have said
'If it weren't for the climate, I'd like the country' is talking about the present.
Personally I don't see any problem with the sentence as it is. What makes you so sure it's wrong? |
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Thiuda
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Religion ist f�r Sklaven geschaffen, f�r Wesen ohne Geist.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:41 am Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
I don't see how this could be a 'future' unreal conditional, I'd have said
'If it weren't for the climate, I'd like the country' is talking about the present. |
No, would is used to indicate the future in conditional sentences. Read the page that I linked to in my previous post.
| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| Personally I don't see any problem with the sentence as it is. What makes you so sure it's wrong? |
I think the sentence is wrong, because clauses must contain a subject and a predicate. In the OPs example, the dependent clause does not contain a verb. From a prescriptive perspective his sentence is therefore wrong, as he is expressing what I take to be a conditional, i.e. If..., then... It is possible that some might consider the original sentence fine in day-to-day usage, it is certainly intelligible, but I am unfamiliar with it. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:19 am Post subject: |
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The original sentence is wrong.
Correct the sentence as follows:
If it weren't for the climate, I'd like the country. (as per Thiuda)
or
Except for the climate, I like the country. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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I'm afraid I have to disagree with you both
Firstly 'would' is not exclusively used to indicate the future in conditional sentences. It can be used to indicate the future with an action verb such as
e.g. if I won the lottery, I would buy a car'
but it can also refer to the present if used with a state verb such as 'like, love be, etc..'
e.g. If I were a woman (now) I would like romantic comedies (now)
Without the exact context it's difficult to be precise aboout the sentence the OP quotes but it's quite possible to use the unreal form of 'would' in an answer without combining it with a conditional 'if'
e.g. A: Who would you invite to your wedding if you got married?
B: Except for John I would invite everyone
or
A Do you think you would enjoy a holiday in the UK?
B Yes I think I would like the country, except for the climate |
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Thiuda
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Religion ist f�r Sklaven geschaffen, f�r Wesen ohne Geist.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
Without the exact context it's difficult to be precise aboout the sentence the OP quotes but it's quite possible to use the unreal form of 'would' in an answer without combining it with a conditional 'if'
e.g. A: Who would you invite to your wedding if you got married?
B: Except for John I would invite everyone
or
A Do you think you would enjoy a holiday in the UK?
B Yes I think I would like the country, except for the climate |
You provide some nice examples. In the sentences you provided except functions as a conjunction, so in your first example, which consists of only one clause, except connects two noun phrases. In your second example there are two (coordinate) clauses, I think and I would like the country except for the climate. Both of these contain verbs and again except functions as a conjunction connecting two phrases.
I amend my initial answer: If the OPs initial sentence is meant to be a conditional, then it is wrong for the reasons that I explained above - lack of verb. However, the sentence the OP provided initially is grammatically correct, except functions as a coordinating conjunction.
Thanks Edward. |
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Hawkeye Pierce
Joined: 22 Jan 2010
Location: Uijeongbu
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:21 am Post subject: |
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| Thiuda wrote: |
I amend my initial answer: If the OPs initial sentence is meant to be a conditional, then it is wrong for the reasons that I explained above - lack of verb. However, the sentence the OP provided initially is grammatically correct, except functions as a coordinating conjunction.
Thanks Edward. |
Edward,
I'll agree with you that "except" is a conjunction. The Merrriam-Webster online dictionary lists "except for" as a compound preposition:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/except+for
There isn't a real difference in my opinion. The difference is how much one wants to parse the language. In more formal usage �but for� can be used in place of �except for�.
The original sentence is subjunctive:
" I'd like the country except for the climate."
We use the subjunctive to discuss hypothetical situations, but the conditional form need not be employed. Luckily in English, the subjunctive doesn't have a special conjugation like in other languages with unique irregular verbs, etc.
I had a difficult time understanding the subjunctive in my high school foreign language class until I was reading the Lord of the Rings. When told of some bad news, one of the characters exclaims, "Would that I had known!" (Faramir on the death of Boromir, perhaps?) Upon reading the sentence, I realized that we do have the subjunctive in English, but we don't use it very much. I am told that some in the U.K. still use this construction. Tolkien was a professor of English at Oxford, where he contributed to the Oxford English dictionary. So the grammatical correctness of the sentence is undeniable.
The subjunctive is also used for wishes invoking the almighty:
�(May) God bless you!� and not the normal present tense �(May) God blesses you!�, etc.
Now I'm off the The Swamp to visit the still.
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:58 am Post subject: |
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| You guys have got to make things a bit more simple, I trust you don't try explaining things to your students the way you do on this forum. Quit using terminology like 'parse', 'predicate', 'subjunctive' 'dependent clauses' or 'coordinating conjunctions.' I teach teachers but still wouldn't dredge up antiquated terminology like this for my explanations. It belongs in the old Latin learning classrooms from the 60s. I know this is an English teachers' forum but I think you put a lot of newbies off reading about this stuff and that's bad for the profession. Read up about it all by all means, then try putting it in your own language. That's my advice |
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kabrams
Joined: 15 Mar 2008
Location: your Dad's house
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:02 am Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| You guys have got to make things a bit more simple, I trust you don't try explaining things to your students the way you do on this forum. Quit using terminology like 'parse', 'predicate', 'subjunctive' 'dependent clauses' or 'coordinating conjunctions.' I teach teachers but still wouldn't dredge up antiquated terminology like this for my explanations. It belongs in the old Latin learning classrooms from the 60s. I know this is an English teachers' forum but I think you put a lot of newbies off reading about this stuff and that's bad for the profession. Read up about it all by all means, then try putting it in your own language. That's my advice |
I think subjunctive is a beautiful word. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:32 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I think subjunctive is a beautiful word |
Actually that's true, it is beautiful, I shall be using that one later in bed myself tonight |
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Thiuda
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Religion ist f�r Sklaven geschaffen, f�r Wesen ohne Geist.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:44 am Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| You guys have got to make things a bit more simple, I trust you don't try explaining things to your students the way you do on this forum. |
That depends entirely on the student to whom I am explaining a certain grammatical point. While I agree that such terminology doesn't help much in a basic conversation class, in a graduate level English education class it is quite acceptable. Even in conversation classes I ensure that students are familiar with the parts of speech, and are able to define phrase and clause.
| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| Quit using terminology like 'parse', 'predicate', 'subjunctive' 'dependent clauses' or 'coordinating conjunctions.' I teach teachers but still wouldn't dredge up antiquated terminology like this for my explanations. It belongs in the old Latin learning classrooms from the 60s. |
Being able to use and understand linguistic metalanguage isn't just for grammar geeks, it provides students with the conceptual tools necessary to consciously grasp the structure of the target language. I find this to be especially important for adult learners of a language, because they need to make more of an explicit cognitive effort to learn the language, in contrast to pre-pubescent learners of a language for whom language learning is a more implicit task.
Most of the individuals that I teach, uni students, pre- and in-service teachers, have little or no trouble grasping the concepts that we've used in this thread, provided that they are introduced to them in an appropriate manner and they are cognizant of the purpose of metalanguage.
| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| I know this is an English teachers' forum but I think you put a lot of newbies off reading about this stuff and that's bad for the profession. Read up about it all by all means, then try putting it in your own language. That's my advice |
I provide links to pages which explain the terms that I use when providing what I think are the answers to questions. I don't think I need to simplify any further than that, because, as I said above, the point of linguistic metalanguage is to allow us to discuss linguistic structures/phenomena in a precise and accurate manner. |
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jugbandjames
Joined: 15 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:18 am Post subject: |
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I don't think "Except for the climate" is a clause. It just looks like a PP to me, with "except for" being a compound preposition. So, you've just got a prepositional phrase introducing a main clause with a modal verb. Prescriptively, it's probably incorrect because if you take out the optional PP, you're just left with the clause "I would like the country" which doesn't seem to represent a complete thought. Descriptively, I think it's fine. I'm sure people use constructions like this all the time, and if you saw it in a newspaper most people wouldn't think twice about it.
| Quote: |
| You guys have got to make things a bit more simple, I trust you don't try explaining things to your students the way you do on this forum. Quit using terminology like 'parse', 'predicate', 'subjunctive' 'dependent clauses' or 'coordinating conjunctions.' I teach teachers but still wouldn't dredge up antiquated terminology like this for my explanations. It belongs in the old Latin learning classrooms from the 60s. |
Just because you simplify it for students doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to understand what's really going on. If you understand the grammar, it makes it easier to teach it, in my opinion. Plus, it's fun, like doing little puzzles. And since when are dependent clauses and coordinating conjunctions antiquated terminology? They're not. You probably don't want to bust those terms out on a class full of 7 year olds, but don't newbies post these questions because they want someone with more experience to help them? If you don't know what a coordinating conjunction is, and you're teaching English, then you should probably watch a couple episodes of school house rock and get caught up on where I was when I was 9.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkO87mkgcNo |
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machinoman
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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Wow. Well played, edwardcatflap. I completely disagreed with you at first, but you are right. Its fine the way it is. In fact, I myself have never lived out in the country, but I'm damn sure I would enjoy a simpler life for a week or so.
Except for the climate, I'd like the country. |
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