From: jcliu@four-lab4.Berkeley.EDU (James C. Liu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: some questions
Date: 15 Dec 92 18:16:48 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley Dept. of Nuclear Engineering
NNTP-Posting-Host: four-lab4.berkeley.edu

In article <BzA885.3B@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> cogsdell@mentor.cc.purdue.edu 
(tony c) writes:

>Yuji, 
>I am not at home and don't have my english Handbook but maybe I can help.
>(Naturalized citizen: US)

Uhh, Tony-san:  You'd better get your English book...I'm naturalized
too,  maybe more NATURALIZED...chotto chigau...

>>1)  Ann shrieked that there were cockroaches in the cavier.
>      (seems ok to me) 

It should be "Ann shrieked BECAUSE there were gokiburi in the caviAR"
The use of "that" as a conjunction to introduce the causal predicate
is incorrect.

>>2)  Tom shouted that the orange was poisonous.
>      (seems ok)

Yes.  It's okay.  But this is conditional on context.  If used as a
paraphrase statement...then it's okay.  Otherwise, see #1.

>>3)  John mumbled that he was a genius in mathematics, but he actually isn't.
>      (seems ok)

Parallelism problem here.  The predicate "that he WAS a genius" doesn't
jive with the statement that, "..he actually ISN'T."  Both should be
past or both should be present.

>>4)  Mrs. Farmer grunted that Mary broke the window.
>      (seems ok)

Yeah, this is okay.  But on a stylistic point...If somebody "grunts",
then you might rephase as "Mrs. Farmer grunted something about Mary
*breaking* the window."  This provides more atmosphere and description
to the sentence.  The use of "grunt" seems to imply irritation bordering
on the unintelligible.  You might rather use, "Mrs. Farmer complained
that..." or "Mrs. Farmer said..."

>>5)  I didn't know that cooking requires this much of time and energy!
>      (seems ok)

Superfluous and incorrect preposition.  Also parallelism in the tense of
"requires."  It should be, "I didn't know that cooking REQUIRED this
much time and energy."  No "of" and the tense on "require matches the
initial past tense ".. DIDN'T.."  The second parallelism is not strictly
incorrect.  As written, on the preposition is incorrectly extraneous.
But it is more fluent to use parallelism in progressive situations.

>>6)  I didn't know you have 3 kids.
>>     (seems ok)

Again, to have should match the past tense "DIDN'T"  It should read...
"I didn't know you HAD 3 kids."  Nothing wrong with the original
sentence except fluency.  She may still HAVE 3 kids, alive and well, BUT
in American English, the parallel construction is more fluent.

>In many cases the use of  ' that ' is optional.  I only whish I spoke
>japanese as well as you write english.
>
>'any english majors out there???

Shouldn't take an English major to analyze these sentences. 8-)

Jaa, James
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,talk.politics.guns