Teacher Discussion Forums

It's the "if you have a good question or problem" bit that's the killer. I'm afraid the stuff that I do is more like lexicographic drudgery than the exciting gunfights, clifftop chicken car chases, blowpipe assassinations, bubbling jacuzzis and high-stakes gambling that proper linguists get up to.

I've got his PhD dissertation ("The Language of the Chinese Secret History of the Mongols"). I think the only academic I've ever emailed was Victor Mair, and unless they're still active (actually teaching somewhat in a department, rather than just being an Emeritus Professor or similar) and you're e...

It isn't my fault if Chinese linguists or linguists of languages other than English aren't writing about this stuff (but I haven't checked so hold that thought LOL). I doubt though if my Chinese would be good enough to read in Mandarin about exophoric ellipsis anyway. But if I were to struggle throu...

I only have the Second edition of Halliday's Introduction to FG, but here's to hoping the newer editions (Third, and now Fourth) in collaboration with Matthiessen have made it more comprehensive, up-to-date, and above all more readable and accessible (often having a second author really helps in tho...

Well, being able to realize that what's missing is stuff like 'here' or 'is' or 'has been' is to me more a matter of general knowledge of (the English) language. Linguists may call it 'exophoric ellipsis' and to do with 'situation(s)', but it is really just about systematic regularities and unsurpri...

It might be good if you gave some examples to help people respond. Cos it's a bit hard to know quite what exophoric ellipsis in medical reports looks like. (If it's something like 'the patient' or their name being ellipted, i.e. there just being notes like Blood pressure 160/105 , then surely the me...

Ah, the -s of the https is what's causing the problem (i.e. your plain http: works fine, Justjust! Thanks LOL). You'd think the university would alter the URL for that link! (The old bookmark that I'd made began with https, and that as I say is what the university's link still is). Little things lik...

Hello again JJ! :) 'Go' isn't transitive (right?) so I don't see how there can be a direct object in any analysis. What you're looking at here is a catenative construction, that is, a catenative verb ('go', or in this context, its present progressive form 'am going') followed by a catenative complem...

Well, I don't see anything in either website about needing to change Simple past into Present perfect LOL. So I'm not quite sure where you got the idea that that examples like 'I'm sorry I'm late, I missed the bus' are wrong. I guess you were just misreading or overapplying the rule. (That happens s...

Just thought I should offer a few more examples, such as: I('ve) lived in China for 2 years, so I'm fluent in Chinese. Note how I can use either Simple past or Present perfect in the first clause (as you doubtless already know, the former simply suggests I no longer live there, while the latter form...

Heh, you're welcome, JJ! I'm just sorry I didn't have time to (re)write my thoughts a bit more clearly and succinctly is all, but my above answer will have to do for now.

(More, or rather less lol) duplicate post answered here:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=11165

Although the underlines in your subsequent examples appear to help support the quoted rule, the "present result" could apply to both or either (i.e. just one of) of the Present perfect versus Simple present clauses (and obviously most of the given Present perfect clauses in or by themselves would so...

Try researching terms such as the following: abbreviated language, block language, ellipsis, headlinese/newspaper language, minor sentence, non-sentence. Then take your pick lol.

Note that the term 'reduced' is usually reserved for reduced/participial relative clauses.

Noticed this messy sprawl of an article in the Guardian today (why do I get the feeling that e.g. Honey's Language is Power is a more informative read, especially regarding the shaping role of linguistics on language-educational debate, even though it comes to the opposite conclusion: that a standar...