Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hela]

Dear teachers,

A/ SUBJUNCTIVE:

1) Original stce:
I did not know the examination was important; I did not study for it.

Stce transformation: Are the following stces grammatically correct? If yes, what’s the difference btw them?

a) Had I known the examination WAS important, I would have studied for it.

b) Had I known the examination HAD BEEN important, I would have studied for it.

2) Original stce:
He cannot go skiing with them; he is too busy.

Stce transformation: Same question as 1)

a) They wished he would/could go skiing with them but he IS too busy.

- Why can we have WISH in the past = WISHED combined with the future and present form?

- Which mood/form do “would / could go” belong to? It is not the past subjunctive, so what is it?

b) They wished he would/could go skiing with them but he WAS too busy.

b) They wished (that?) he WENT skiing with them but he WAS too busy.

c) They wished he WERE not too busy so that he could go skiing with them.

d) They WISH he WERE not too busy so that he could go skiing with them.

e) They wished he HAD GONE skiing with them but he WAS too busy. (This stce does not correspond to the original one, does it?)

Which stce is closer in form and meaning to the original one?

B/ Prepositions:

A Road Accident

It was raining heavily as I was walking up the hill 1 towards / toward / to (?) the station at 6 o’clock 2 on a Saturday morning. 3 At this early hour there was not much traffic and there weren’t many people in sight. Just as I was crossing the road 4 near / on (?) the top of the hill, a car came round the corner. It was travelling very fast and the driver was obviously having difficulty in controlling it. Suddenly it swerved violently, skidded on the wet road, hit a lamp-post and turned over.
5 At once I ran 6 to / towards / toward (?) the car to assist the driver, but he was unconscious and there was a lot of blood 7 on his face. A young woman hurried 8 into / to (?) the station and phoned for an ambulance while I took care of the driver.

Are there other possibilities you can thing of ?

Thank you very much indeed.
Hela

[hela]

Dear teachers,

Here are some other questions about the sentences above mentioned . I get so confused sometimes! Correct / Incorrect?

1) Original stce: He cannot go skiing with them; he is too busy.

Stce transformation:

a) They wished he would not be too busy to go skiing with them.
b) They wished he would not be too busy NOT to go skiing with them (?)

c) They wished he would not be so busy and could go skiing with them.

d) They wished he could have gone skiing with them but he was too busy.


2) a) The police are looking for 2 men, one of whom has a scar on his cheek, in connection with a robbery that took place at a supermarket at 5 pm yesterday.

b) The police are looking for 2 men in connection with a robbery that took place at a supermarket at 5pm yesterday, one of whom has a scar on his cheek.


V/ Prepositions: 4) near is OK / at is OK? / on is WRONG?
7) over is WRONG ? / all over = ?
into is OK? or to / towards = ?

Thank you very much indeed!
Hela

[hela]

Dear teachers,

About my prepositions again, would you accept IN for 8 ?

= The woman hurried IN the station ...

All the best,
Hela

[bud]

Hi Hela,

I am by no means a grammar pro, but I'll try my best with your questions.

1) Yes, they are both correct (as far as I know) and they have the same meaning. Sometimes you have a choice of more than one verb tense. For example, often you can choose the present perfect or the simple past to say the same thing: "I've already eaten" or "I already ate."

2a) I don't think that sentence is correct because of "is." It should be "was." -- It makes sense that you can have more than one tense in a sentence, in this case the past and future. After all, there was a future at that past time, right? In the future, there will have been a past, etc. -- In this sentence, I think would is the past form of will and could is the past form of can. Both would and could have a lot of uses, so they can be quite tricky.

b) They wished he would/could go skiing with them but he WAS too busy. (I'm not sure about this one. An alternative: "... would/could have gone...")

b) They wished (that?) he WENT skiing with them but he WAS too busy. (I'm not sure... If it is correct, adding "that" is ok.)

c) They wished he WERE not too busy so that he could go skiing with them. (I'm not sure. An alternative: "... could have gone..."

d) They WISH he WERE not too busy so that he could go skiing with them. (No. You need "wished.")

e) They wished he HAD GONE skiing with them but he WAS too busy. (This stce does not correspond to the original one, does it? -- To me it does. "Was too busy" implies that he could not go.)

Which stce is closer in form and meaning to the original one? C with the modiification sounds best to my ear.

B/ Prepositions:

A Road Accident

1. All three work. My own preference is "toward," and the one I like least is "to."

4. "Near" works, but it is different than "on." If the narrator was almost at the top of the hill, then use "near." If the narrator was at the top of the hill, then use "at."

6. Similar to 1, but here I like "to" best. To me, it implies more of a distinct destination.

8. I'd use "into" if the phone she used was inside the station. I'd use "to" if the phone was outside the station. "In" doesn't work. To me, it implies that she was already inside the station when she began hurrying to a phone.



1) Original stce: He cannot go skiing with them; he is too busy.

Stce transformation:

a) They wished he would not be too busy to go skiing with them. (I don't think so.)
b) They wished he would not be too busy NOT to go skiing with them (?) (I don't think so.)

c) They wished he would not be so busy and could go skiing with them. (I don't think so... In these sentences, I don't think the "he would not be too busy" works very well.)

d) They wished he could have gone skiing with them but he was too busy. (This is probably the best of all.)


2) a) The police are looking for 2 men, one of whom has a scar on his cheek, in connection with a robbery that took place at a supermarket at 5 pm yesterday. (Very good sentence - but you shoudl write "two" rather than "2" - "5 PM" is ok.)

b) The police are looking for 2 men in connection with a robbery that took place at a supermarket at 5pm yesterday, one of whom has a scar on his cheek. (This is probably correct, but it is awkward because the modifying clause is so far from the thing it modifies. The first sentence is a joy to read, while this one is not.)


V/ Prepositions: 4) near is OK / at is OK? / on is WRONG? - Correct, but "near" and "at" have different meanings.
7) over is WRONG ? / all over = ? - Yes, "over" is wrong, but "all over" would work well.
into is OK? or to / towards = ? - See above. "Toward/towards" would work if the phone was in the vivinity of the station, but was not directly outside it.


Again, good job Hela. I know you have other open questions posted. I'll try to get to them tomorrow if I can.

[hela]

Dear Bud,

Thank you for answering my questions. If you wouldn'd mind would you please tell me the difference between:

1) to / toward / towards the station?

2) to / toward / towards the car?

3) at / on the top of the hill?

Thank you very much.
Have a nice day.
Hela

[hela]

Dear teachers,

As far as the use of the subjunctive is concerned I found in some grammar sites that the tense of WISH in a stce does not affect the tense of the verbs of the following clause.


A/ 1) I wished I knew (not had known) his address.
(I was sorry I did not know his address)

2) ‘I wish I lived (not live) nearer my work,’ he said.
He said he wished he lived (not had lived) nearer his work.

3) I wish (now) the motorway had been built elsewhere.

4) I wish they had/would have built the motorway elsewhere.

5) I wished (then) the motorway were built elsewhere.

6) I wish/wished I hadn’t spent so much money.
(I am / was sorry I spent so much money = past action)

RULE:
=> Wish or wished, only the time of wishing varies; the action denoted in the wish is past in relation to the time of wishing, however, in either case.

B/ This is why I am so confused about the answer to the question:

He cannot go skiing with them; he is too busy.
They wished ...

a) They wished he could go skiing with them but he IS too busy ?

b) They wished he could go skiing with them but he WAS too busy ?

c) They wished he could have gone with them but he was too busy ?

d) e) They wished he HAD GONE skiing with them but he WAS too busy ?

e) They wished he WENT skiing with them but he WAS too busy ?

f) They wished he WERE not too busy so that he could go skiing with them ?

g) They WISH he WERE not too busy so that he could go skiing with them ?

h) They wished he WOULD NOT BE so busy and COULD GO skiing with them?

i) They wished he WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN so busy and COULD HAVE GONE skiing with them ?


I would be so grateful if you could make me understand (at last) how things work with the verb WISH!!

Best regards,
Hela

[bud]

Hi Hela,

"If you wouldn'd mind would you please tell me the difference between:

1) to / toward / towards the station?

2) to / toward / towards the car?

3) at / on the top of the hill?"

------------------

1.) Toward and towards mean exactly the same, and both are correct. Some prefer using it with an 's,' and some without. Most words with the '-ward' suffix work that way (backward/backwards, afterward/afterwards, etc.). It means movement in the direction of. 'To' means (in this case) in the direction of. I'm only guessing, but I think toward/towards is better because the focus of the statement is on the movement to a destination, not the destination itself.

2.) I think 'to' is best because the focus is on the destination, not the movement to the destination.

3.) My guess is that 'at' has more of a movement or relational aspect to it than 'on' does. I suspect it has a similar rationale to the issue in 1 and 2. The focus is more about the hill itself. When 'on' is used, the focus is more on what is on top of the hill.

Ex:
The mansion was at the top of the hill. (In my mind's eye, I picture the mansion and the hill.)

The picnic was help on top of the hill. (In my mind's eye, I picture the picnic much more than the hill.)

Just as I was crossing the road at the top of the hill... (I picture that the narrator has climbed the hill via the road and has now reached the top of the hill. Or maybe I see that the road goes up the hill, and at its highest point, the narrator crosses the road. But either way, there is some focus that there is more to the hill than just the top.)

Hope that helps. I'll leave your last set of questions to others. They're really beyond my abilities.

[hela]

Dear Bud,

Thank you for answering my questions.
Yes indeed, your detailed explanations on prepositions and modals helped me a lot.
I hope that some learned grammarian would read my questions on the subjunctive, and would give me some clear cut rules so as to understand this difficult chapter.

Thank you again for your help.
All the best,
Hela

[LucentShade]

I could tell you all about the Spanish subjunctive, but this English subjunctive stuff is a bit much. If it's any consolation, the English subjunctive forms a relatively insignificant part of the language as a whole; a few errors with it aren't going to obscure communication.

[hela]

Hello everyone,

If someone could have a look at my questions on the subjunctive that I asked a very long time ago, that would be nice.

Here is one more, do we sometimes need a subjunctive mood after the expression SO THAT ? In which circumstances does this happen? Would you please give me an example?

Many thanks,
Hela

[helen1]

Hi Hela,

I'm a little confused - could you paste the question you still need an answer to, to the bottom of this message as it appears Bud answered your original questions..... then I'll have a go at giving you an answer.

Merry Christmas

Helen.

[helen1]

Hi Hela,

I think I've found the posting you are missing an answer to, was it the 2nd May? - I hope so because that is the one I will now try to answer for you.

First a reposting of your question to help others:

[hela]

Thanks Helen,

Yes, this was the question I was referring to. I'll study your explanations and if I still need more, I'll come back to you.

Enjoy your holidays!
Hela

[hela]

Hello everyone,

Here I am again with questions on the subjunctive:

A/ Last time we saw that :

a) "It WAS high time we went" was correct, but what does it mean exactly? And is

b) "It WAS (high) time we had gone" correct ? If yes, what would it mean?

B/ Are the following sentences correct ? If not, why?

1) a) Iwould rather you told her the truth. (now or tomorrow)

b) I would rather you had told her the truth. (yesterday)

2) a) Tom would rather read than talk. (bare infinitive)

b) Tom would rather have read than talked ??? (perfect infinitive)

Would you have some better sentences with the infinitive forms, please?

Many thanks.

Kind regards,
Hela

PS: Can somebody tell me where, on the net, I can find plenty of :
- sentences with "so that" + indicative or subjunctive;
- exercises of "grammar in context" (on tenses and may other things) ?