Talk:English grammar/Archive 1

message: I might be wrong, but doesn't the present perfect tense describe something that occurs before the past/imperfect? If so, the flowchart should be revised/removed. --24.126.30.46 03:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The present perfect tense is for something that, as of now, has been completed.  The past perfect (imperfect in other languages) is for something that was ongoing at the time (in the past) being talked about.  The best way to think about it (imo) is to separate tense and aspect from each other.  (I won't be editing the article just now, I'm too tired to think.)  Neonumbers 11:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question regarding the Flowchart 

message: I edited this because:
In British English, shall denotes simple futurity in the first person, and will denotes simple futurity in the second and third persons.
No, it doesn't - evidence has been provided that this is no longer generally believed, and probably never was, except by prescriptivists. So describing it as a prescriptivist rule isn't POV: whereas stating it as a general truth is.
In British English, adherence to the rule has declined in some places ...
It has declined generally.
although use of shall remains the norm for expressing the simple future in the first person.
See above. It remains in first person questions or suggestions. Something like "Shall I let the cat out?" is common, but you won't find many people saying "I shall let the cat out". Tearlach 17:45, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnote #3

message: English speakers will prefer the use of "they" (3rd. plural) when a person's gender is unknown or irrelevant to context -- they may prefer it but this is clearly incorrect as it will cause a number disagreement.  Where does it say in this article that "he" is the correct pronoun? --Daniel C. Boyer
:If the gender is unknown, the pronoun "one" is the appropriate pronoun to use. -- R'son-W
:: I'm not too sure that I agree with that, I don't often use the word "one" as a pronoun, save in formal writing, but when I do, I tend to use it as a singular pronoun in either the first or third person, or both. I don't recall having ever used it as a gender neutral third person singular. I think that perhaps there should be a paragraph on the word "one" in this context though. -- LupusCanis
: there's also a number disagreement with the pronoun "you". It's not incorrect. -- Tarquin
::But isn't "you" both singular and plural?  Where does the number disagreement come in? -- Daniel C. Boyer
:::Well, technically, Daniel's right about "you".  I believe Tarquin may be referring to the fact that historically, "you" was plural and "thou" was singular: "you are" and "thou art".  It's entirely possible that "he/she" and "they" are undergoing a similar sort of shift; it's too early to tell.  For more info, check out the singular they article.
:::: Wikipedia is descriptivist, not prescriptivist. We should describe linguistic trends as they occur, rather than pass judgment on perceived errors. The singular "they" and generic "you" are extremely common and deserve mention. Binadot/talk
:If you'll look at the opening paragraph of the article, you'll note that its intent is descriptive, not prescriptive.  I also am inclined to disagree that it is "incorrect"; from a descriptivist point of view, correctness is defined by usage.  Certainly, from a prescriptivist point of view, using "they" instead of "he" or "she" is incorrect.  In fact, strictly speaking, the correct pronoun should be it; the fact that traditional prescriptivists prefer "he" and modern prescriptivists prefer "s/he" or "he or she" is also a demonstration of the occasional arbitrariness of prescriptivist rules.
:Though, in the long run, good prescriptivists have clarity of writing as their goal.  Their source data should be descriptive information about the language in question, with decisions of "rightness" based on what is the usage most in line with descriptive data that will produce the clearest written text, which lacks the sorts of contextual cues found in daily usage.  Or at least, so it would seem to me.
:(The fact that 19th-century grammarians mistakenly thought that Latin was a good model for prescriptive rules of English grammar is an entirely different discussion.  *grin*)  --  pgdudda
Fowler notes that "they" / "their" can be used in non-grammatical constructions, but that this arises because there is no suitable alternative ("his" to mean "his or hers", or unwieldy "his or hers" itself). "they" as a singular pronoun has been used by writers since the 16th C so we're in good company. :) Tarquin
::Would it make sense, then, to separate out descriptive and prescriptive grammar?  If some user is consulting this page for correct rules of written English, then such high-minded issues may be confusing.  The last thing that the English teachers and tutors of the world need are students citing descriptive rules as rules rather than usage tendencies.  Both types represent valuable knowledge, but this comingling is paying service to neither.--Smallwhitelight 19:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Getting back to the original subject, a good argument can be made that "they" is not just a third person plural pronoun, but also a third person singular gender-unknown pronoun.  It wouldn't be the only such word to serve two different but similar purposes in the English language.  If you accept this, then the use of it in sentences such as "I asked for the manager, but I don't think they will help me" is fine, so it is correct for both descriptive and prescriptive grammars.  If a little controversial. this site has a list of historical uses of the form, focusing on the work of Jane Austen, but also including many others, including the King James Authorised Bible, and Shakespeare. JulesH 21:20, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Equally, one could argue that "he" is not just a third person singular masculine pronoun, but a third peron gender-indeterminate pronoun, similar to the French "ils", used both for refering to groups of males and mixed groups. 80.255 13:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The new 2002 edition of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language strongly supports the long-standing validity of singular "they". . Tearlach 23:29, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Usage of "they"

message: This is something I always have problems with in writing.  Is it, say, childrens' or children's? Sheeps' or sheep's?  If there's some rule about these words, could it be added to the article, or at least mentioned that there isn't a rule if there isn't? Thanks much. ^_^ --Sparky the Seventh Chaos 17:15, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
I've always been taught that you put the apostrophe after because your dropping the second s.
So for apples, the incorrect plural is: apples's. Then you drop the last s and get apples'.
ie. the only reason we do that is to correct the problem of 2 s's. Therefore, when the plural does not end in s, you treat it as you would a singular.
Children's and Sheep's.
But I'm no scholar, so I'm not willing to edit the article and say this.
--EatMyShortz
:For children, it is children's; for apples, it is apples'. Without consulting a handbook, I'll say that if the word does not end in "s," whether that word is singular or plural, you add an apostrophe and an "s."  If a word (s or p) ends in "s," you simply add an apostrophe.  There are exceptions to this rule.  Like proper names and words from Greek where adding the extra syllable would make the pronunciation awkward:  Diogenes' not Diogenes's.  Though this doesn't actually seem to be an exception, does it?--Smallwhitelight 19:46, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is preferred within Wikipedia articles? Is there an accepted format, or will certain articles contain both?--Elliskev 16:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plural possesives of plurals that don't end in s? 

message: I visited the "Learning English Online" external link and noted that one of their lessons on gerunds contained a very glaring spelling mistake i.e. "They are afraid on loosing the match"! There are also other grammatical and spelling anomalies scattered across the site. May I propose that this link be removed? User:203.116.59.24
:I'm sure that the match was tied up for good reason; perhaps it had dangerous pyromaniancal tendencies and kept escaping from its matchbox. Most people would be afraid to loose it under such circumstances. 80.255 14:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  External link: Learning English online 

message: A while back, I decided to work on a rewrite for this article, but never got round to finishing it. If anyone would like to use the material that I put together to improve this article, you can find it at user:garzo/lala#English grammar. Let me know if you find it useful.
No signature on previous comment. The article you link to is, like this one, hooked almost solely on word classification. Tony 02:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free source material for this article 

message: Most of this section is trivial and badly written. Paradoxes and Slang have little to do with the rest of the article - Paradoxes, I believe, should be entirely taken out, while Slang should be rewritten. It's not a bad category, I think, though it should be put elsewhere in the article, but the current content of it is trivial rubbish. External links should remain. Rarr 14:42, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Other topics in English Grammar

message: :I write regarding the disputed template.  May I ask, exactly what is disputed?  I cannot find a discussion on this page that is active, showing that there isn't a dispute over anything.  The disputed template is meant to be used when there is an active dispute, which there is none.
:Because of this, I suggest the template be removed until a thread on the topic is started.  I won't do it as I've never edited this article before, but I am interested to know what the dispute is about.  Neonumbers 11:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed template

message: Whoever called "I am asleep" a paradox had probably never heard of lucid dreaming.  Also "No one wrote this." could possibly be a true statement (Does "this" refer to the sentence? Are we quoting a spoken statement?).  I've replaced these with a real paradox. Jimp 05:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paradoxes 

message: Can someone tell me why active vs passive, and person, impact on the decision of which tense to use? Tony 01:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  whacky flow-chart 

message: The section talks of noun phrases and verb phrases and the example given for "simple modifiers precede the noun phrases" shows "Fred's sister ran quickly to the store".  It might be helpful to readers to note that the noun phrase can also take precedence over the verb phrase, with the verb phrase turned to a simple adverb appended afterwards.  "Fred's sister ran to the store quickly." expresses the same and appears a less unusual construct than the original example.  Any comments?  CraigRorrer 09:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Word Order 

message: Since there is consensus that this entire article needs to be rebuilt, let’s focus first on the outline necessary to do this.  I suggest that the primary areas center on proper English grammar, as we learned in school and found in respectable print publications and periodicals.  I also suggest that we separate this entirely from “everyday” grammar usage.  For example, vague references should be its own category in the formal/literary group and colloquial “you/they” usage have a corresponding category in the latter group.  Sound like a good way to start? CraigRorrer 06:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regroup and Rewrite 

message: <<The present perfect tense is for something that, as of now, has been completed. The past perfect (imperfect in other languages) is for something that was ongoing at the time (in the past) being talked about. The best way to think about it (imo) is to separate tense and aspect from each other. (I won't be editing the article just now, I'm too tired to think.) Neonumbers 11:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The difficult tense 

message: Hi all,
I am a native speaker, but otherwise without any linguistic training.  I came across this article for help with a difficult tense description for my own writing, but found the following two descriptions unhelpful:
*Future perfect: "I shall/will have listened." Indicates that an action will occur after some other event.
*Future-in-past perfect: "I would have listened." Indicates that an action would occur after some other event.
Since I am already a bit fuzzy on what the difference is between "will" and "would", trying to distinguish them by saying that "will" means "something will occur" and "would" means "something would occur" is not helpful.  Isn't there some restriction on one of these tenses that it refers to actions that take place after the phrase is uttered?  For example, I would not say "By the time I finished elementary school I will have listened to a thousand Barney songs".  But I would say "By the time my son finishes elementary school, he will have listened to a thousand Barney songs."  and "Had Barney existed in the '70s, I would have listened to a thousand Barney songs."
Can an expert please help fix this? 
David s graff 20:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tautological tense description 

message: I don't like the way that it currently starts: too rule-oriented. English is unusual in its decentralisation—as opposed to French. That's why style and grammar are more subtle in English, IMHO. I'd refer to "patterns" rather than "rules". BTW, singular "rule" seems odd. Tony 01:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that linguists generally agree that any grammar can be fully specified by a set of deterministic rules, which may of course be connected to semantics or other extremely complex things.  The term rule is ubiquitous in works of psycholinguistics, as far as I know.  The AHD's definition 2a of grammar is "The system of rules implicit in a language, viewed as a mechanism for generating all sentences possible in that language."  There are of course other senses of the term, but they all tie back to the general idea of analysis of the set of possible utterances within a given language, and that set can presumably be defined in terms of rules. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  rules? 

message: The previous version of the genitive cases for pronouns mixed possessive pronouns with possessive determiners (e.g. "mine" versus "my"). For example, the first person singular genitive previously was "mine", which is a possessive pronoun (i.e., used like any other pronoun; "That's mine" vs. *"That's my"), whereas the second person singular genitive was "your", which is a possessive determiner (i.e., used like any other determiner; "That's your hat" vs. *"That's your"). I cleared up the issue in a relatively non-destructive way: possessive determiners are on the left of the forward slash, possessive pronouns are on the right. — Augur 04:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it worth explicitly distinguishing them on the basis of "predicative" and "attributive"? Tony 04:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. I was editing this page as you said that to explain my most recent edit. Specifically, the table is supposed to be for case pronouns, and while my previous edit was meant to clarify the your/yours issue, it introduced new words that didn't fit the purpose of the table. So I've removed the possessive determiners entirely and left only the possessive pronouns. Were it not for Moogle10000's undiscussed edit... — Augur 04:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genitive Case in Pronouns 

message: I've changed the opening, which I found to be most unsatisfactory. Just why we need to introduce dialects right at the top is beyond me. I've used "how meanings are created" as a definition that encompasses both descriptive and prescriptive accounts of the grammar. The rest of the lead requires intensive work. Tony 07:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  recent edit to the opening 

message: Substituted at 20:32, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment