Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:19 am

1. If, as you say, sophisticated, your words, writers choose to omit relative adverbs, would that mean that writers who choose not to do so are unsophisticated?

2. Would you advise omitting such adverbs at every opportunity? If so, why? If not, why not?

1. It doesn't mean that, but you seem to have interpreted it that way.
That's you, not me.

2. I will not advise anything at this juncture. I don't have complete
clarity on it at the moment.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:55 am

It doesn't mean that, but you seem to have interpreted it that way.

What does it mean, then?

2. I will not advise anything at this juncture. I don't have complete
clarity on it at the moment.

Nor do many people. So, at the moment, we agree that it cannot be confirmed that "relative adverbs" are redundant, right?

Miss Elenious · Post by **Miss Elenious** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:56 am

"metal56"

And how about "consist of"?

May I ask what is ungrammatical about 'consist of'?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:31 am

Miss Elenious wrote:"metal56"
And how about "consist of"?
May I ask what is ungrammatical about 'consist of'?

Some say the "of" is redundant and that it should be "consists + noun/s".

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:46 am

What does it mean, then?

As if you don't know.
Those writers who blue pencil extensively, are extra-cautious, careful to the last letter, refer the best of usage guides etc. They will probably write the relative adverb at first and edit it off on second thoughts. They are also probably professional writers.

So, at the moment, we agree that it cannot be confirmed that "relative adverbs" are redundant, right?

Yes, but the point is open to doubt and I am open to suggestions if experts say so.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:20 am

Yes, but the point is open to doubt and I am open to suggestions if experts say so.

"Experts" would be who exactly?

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:32 am

"Experts" would be who exactly?

Those who know more than I do.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:30 pm

Anuradha Chepur wrote:
"Experts" would be who exactly?
Those who know more than I do.

People like me?

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:11 am

Perhaps.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:47 am

Anuradha Chepur wrote:Perhaps.

Most of the adult native speaking population?

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:45 am

Yes, iff most of the adult native speaking population have a linguistic aptitude (if not formal linguists), know what relative adverbs are, have done a bit (if not thorough) research in that area, and know what they are saying.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:25 am

Anuradha Chepur wrote:Yes, iff most of the adult native speaking population have a linguistic aptitude (if not formal linguists), know what relative adverbs are, have done a bit (if not thorough) research in that area, and know what they are saying.

Not really? To me, an expert native user is someone who can give you the information below, when you ask questions about why they use relative adverbs in some situations but not in others:

My questions to an adult native speaker and the replies:

M56: Which would you commonly use and why?

1.the day on which we met was...
2. the day when we met was...
3. the day we met was...
4. the place at which we met was...
5. the place where we met was...
6. the place we met was...

Native speaker: 3 and 5

M56: Interesting. Could you say why you choose not to use the relative adverb "when" in 3 but then you use the relative adverb "where" in 5?

Native speaker: Not really, no. I know it's rather illogical. Those are just the two forms that I am most likely to say in everyday conversation. I might use the other forms in some contexts.

Something to do with 'the day we met' sounding clearly (to me) that I met another person on that day, rather than us both meeting the day.

Whereas 'the place we met' sounds (to me) as though we met a place. Which is odd as that's not something I'd ever say. Perhaps 'day' sounds very abstract and not something you could meet, whereas 'place' is a more solid 'thing/object', and you can meet some of those, so I resist just saying 'the place we met'.

.....................

To me, that is an expert user. I'm betting that if most nonnative speakers were asked the same questions, they'd probably give their reason for certain usage as "because the grammr and style books told me to" or "because sophisticated writers and other experts do it that way".

To me, the native speaker above demonstrates more expertise than any so called sophisticated writer or style guide.

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:31 am

But the style guides, are written by native speakers!
The website I quoted from is that of an American native speaker.
The point we are discussing is actually a 'second thought' redundancy, and they are not as glaringly redundant as the other more popular redundancies.
Also I suppose they get noticed mainly in written composition.
Some consider them as redundancies, and I am just curious to know more.
Thanks for your inputs, but also ask your expert friend to edit stuff containing or omitting those relatives.
I am also looking for deeper syntactic studies in that area, if a syntactic slot is really there for those relative adverbs, or
they are inserted outside syntax.
Actually, in a random browsing I stumbled on something of that sort somewhere, though I wasn't focussed on it then.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:29 pm

But the style guides, are written by native speakers!
The website I quoted from is that of an American native speaker.

And sounds like many other style guides. So, do you think the opinion in your style guide is a personal one, or is it just another precriptivist mouthing words he/she has read in other guides?

The point we are discussing is actually a 'second thought' redundancy, and they are not as glaringly redundant as the other more popular redundancies.

You seem to have decided that they are redundancies, but you cannot explain in which context they should be labeled as such.

I am also looking for deeper syntactic studies in that area, if a syntactic slot is really there for those relative adverbs, or
they are inserted outside syntax.

Are all modifiers occupying slots that are not really there for them? You should be looking at deeper semantic and pragmatic studies. Doing that, you might complete your learning.

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:34 am

So, do you think the opinion in your style guide is a personal one, or is it just another precriptivist mouthing words he/she has read in other guides?

I suspect readers might get bored if we are dragging this thread on, but I don't think being a descriptivist means you have to be cynical about and ban all style-guides, etc. Prescriptivsm and descriptivism, I think there is some of each in the other and neither is absolute.
The writer is not making any absolute statement, but giving the readers a choice to omit those relative adverbs if they want to. I don't think the opinion in the sytle guide is just a presciptivist mouthing of what the writer read in other style guides. The writer must have read a lot of real time samples, who knows. Just for fun I searched a bit on these forums and found these:

1..http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... n&start=15
lolwhites:

Metal, the reason I teach RP to my students who study Phonetics is that they are English Language/Literature specialists, some of whom want to be English teachers in the future.

2.http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... ason#30805
lolwhites

Note I'm not saying there's any reason she should be, but the problem may not be with SE.

3.http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... ason#29858
fluffyhamster

The main reason I'm opposed to the extra form is that it would increase the price of any dictionary I'd buy, with (at present at least) no

4.
fluffyhamster (define, please thread)

as the node is not the only place one could start from (it is however I fear where many students might all too soon finish - 'Ta teacher, that was very informative'. That is, I sometimes wonder

5. sally Oslen

Some people learn from the bottom up so you can start at a place they can see is the beginning or is simple and add on for them. A review of what they have learned will help build up their idea of where they have been.

6. sally Oslen

Since our course is only worth one credit, it is one place we can be a little strict.

7. Jotham

The place I saw the most evidence of racism was on college campus, where people would eat in the cafeteria in racially separated groups, and where racial ephithets or accusations of racism were

8. Lorikeet

(This is the place I can plug my site, http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried ) I currently have a rather low class--the next semester up from zero. A lot of them like to practice vocabulary. There are a lot of links on this page: http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/call/extraactivities7.html