From: briand@tekig5.pen.tek.com (Brian D Diehm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: question
Date: 10 Nov 92 01:13:01 GMT
Distribution: alt

I'd say number 4 is wrong, especially in the context of the other ways to
express the idea. Number 1 is odd but probably acceptable.

"Dawn" is a tricky word. Used as a noun, dawn means sunrise, or daybreak. Thus,
"the day began to dawn" is not precisely correct but is common idiom.

But "dawn" as a verb means "the begin to understand." Thus, a
common expression is "It began to dawn on me that ..." which means "I began to
understand that ..." This is common enough that a listener would key on the
verb usage of "dawn" as he or she heard sentence 4 begin, expecting to hear
"It began to dawn on him (me) that..." When the sentence ended, the listener
would then be in the position of trying to make sense of a sentence fragment.
It would require a conscious shift of understanding to make sense of the
sentence.

Note that the verb usage of "dawn" has nothing to do with daybreak.

>Also choose *one* wrong sentence from these: 1 It doesn't concern me.
>                                             2 I don't concern it.
>                                             3 It has nothing to do with me.
>                                             4 I'm not concerned with it.

In this one, number 2 is the wrong one. Again, number 4 is odd usage but still
acceptable; normal speech would say "I'm not concerned with that."

The reason number 2 is wrong is that it assigns "concern" to another object:
the sentence says that "it" is concerned, not you. You are the one who has
the human attribute of concern, and in this case about "it."

>And the same from these: 1 This book is easy to be read.
>                         2 This book is easy to read

Well, number 1 is wrong. Period. But you're going to ask me why, aren't you?
As a native speaker, I can say that number 1 just sounds wrong. But to say
just what is wrong requires some thought.

A trap here is that "read" can be pronounced "reed," as in the verb "to read."
The same spelling applies to the past tense of the verb, but is pronounced
"red": I read the book last night. You could have a sentence "I read the book"
with two different meanings and pronounciations:

I read[reed] the book. Meaning, I am currently in the act of reading the book.
I read[red] the book. Meaning, I was in the act of reading the book at some
time in the past.

The infinitive is to read[reed]. There is no case where you say "to read[red]." Thus, sentence 1 must be "to be read[red]."

"To read[reed]" is an infinitive verb form. You cannot modify an infinitive
unless it is the active verb in the sentence. The active verb in the sentence
(the sentence predicate) is the word "is," as in "the book is easy." Verb con-
jugation is on the infinitive "to be": "it is." The words "to read[reed]" are
not the object (predicate) of the sentence, therefore they must be left in the
infinitive form.

As a side note, an old rule in English is that infinitives must never be
"split," meaning that an adverb must never appear between the "to" and the
verb. By this rule "To boldly go where no man has gone before" is incorrect;
it must be "To go boldly where no man has gone before." Or, even "Boldly to go
where no man has gone before." Unfortunately, that last is definitely
archaic and no longer used, and "to go boldly" sounds to the ear of a native
speaker very (overly) formal. "To boldly go" is the only thing that sounds
right nowadays, and so the rule to never split infinitives is more and more
being called into question. Evolving usage is yet another trap for the
non-native student of English.

Finally, note that the only "acceptable" splitting of an infinitive is with
an adverb. You can't conjugate or otherwise modify a verb in an infinitive,
and you can't place other parts of speech there.

-----

These are difficult questions. In the first two cases, it takes a native
speaker some thought to figure out which *one* sentence is wrong, because
two sound a little off in each case. And in all three cases, a native speaker
has to think a while to understand just *why* the wrong one is wrong. Native
speakers would just "know." But to be grammarian enough to be able to state
why they are wrong requires some thought.

If these are test questions or homework questions, you're getting a *solid*
education. My hat is off to you!

-Brian
--
Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 19-286
Beaverton, OR   97077