inversion w/i a clause

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heyiamhere
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inversion w/i a clause

Post by heyiamhere » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:49 pm

Hello,

Pls help me with some questions.

1.
I wonder whether it is possible to place "object" before subject within a caluse to empasize.
For example,
"Although him I hate, I ~"

2.Regarding the article "the,"

It is "the United States."
If so,
is it "the united states history" or "united states history"?
"history of the united states" or "history of united states"?
"the history of the united states" or "the history of united states?

Thanks

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Lorikeet
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Re: inversion w/i a clause

Post by Lorikeet » Fri Sep 02, 2005 3:55 pm

heyiamhere wrote: It is "the United States."
If so,
is it "the united states history" or "united states history"?
"history of the united states" or "history of united states"?
"the history of the united states" or "the history of united states?

Thanks
I live in the United States. In school we studied United States history--that is, the history of the United States.

I think that's what your question was about, but of course there are often situations we can come up with that are unusual in which you may hear something else, for example:

The United States history we studied in school didn't have the global perspective necessary to understand the modern situation.

heyiamhere
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Post by heyiamhere » Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:22 pm

Thanks :)

Then, why is it "United States history," not "the United States history?"
Is it because of the subject title history?
Then, "united states geology" is also the case...?

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:48 pm

"I hate all my teachers although John I hate the most" so I imagine you can say, though I don't care for it:
"Although John I hate the most, I hate all my teachers"

So your example seems possible though odd if by this time we know who he is:
John's a total :evil: :evil: :evil: . Although him I hate, I don't like any of them.

As for The US, look at it this way: You can't have "the" twice:
"The US Senator who I met ..............."
That "The" refers to "The Senator who I met" or Lorikeet's
"The ( US) history we studied in school "
So, though the US usually has "the" it doesn't when we need or don't need the "the" for another purpose. If you want to modify "History tells us that...." then you say "US history tells us that....."
It's the same for "US Senator Fred Brown" which you say when you would have said "Senator Fred Brown". It's as if the noun after US steals the "the" and decides whether to use it or not.

dullard
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Post by dullard » Mon Sep 26, 2005 11:36 pm

heyiamhere wrote:Then, why is it "United States history," not "the United States history?"
My guess: the full name of the country is "the United Stated of America." So, "the United States History" is ambiguous, about which united states are we refering? Whereas "United States" is a common alias for "the United States of America" and therefore "United States History" is [relatively] clear. Now ask me why there is no apostrophy to indicate the genitive in, "United States History!"

LarryLatham
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Post by LarryLatham » Tue Sep 27, 2005 3:37 am

It can be "The United States history", if the whole sentence is something like, "The United States history I studied in high school was quite different from the United States history taught in high schools today."

The is a determiner. Determiners work with nouns, often to help specify whether a speaker is referring to a class of things in general or a particular one of those things (or places, or concepts, or people, etc.), among other uses. In my sentence above, "the" works together with the noun "history". It tells you that I am referring to a particular U.S. history (the one I studied).

"United States history" most times refers to a general history of a named country. The noun there is history, not United States. Since United States, in this phrase, serves to describe what kind of history is meant, its function is adjectival. "The" is not used together with adjectives, so it can only work together with "history" here.

But when you say, "The United States", the noun there is "United States".

Does this help, or does it only muddy the waters? Or have I totally missed the point?

Larry Latham

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