Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Noun+noun, possessive case, and adjectives

All I know is:
noun + noun is used to describe the stuff an object is made of:
"a steel spoon" and not "a steely spoon", while the adjective gives a
more metaphorical meaning: "steely eyes"
That's always correct or do you have to analyze every single expression?
Another doubt:
According to most grammars, in the possessive case the construction with
"of" is preferred  when the possessor is a thing, while the "'s"
construction is preferable when the possessor is a "live thing", but
again: is that always true?
At that, you can also use a noun+noun construction:
A summer day
A summer's day
A day of summer
My non-native intuition(and google too) tells me "a summer day" is the
most natural form, but if I follow the grammar it'd be best to use
"a day of summer" which sounds horrible to me.
So all comes to this: most of the times intuition and grammar are of the
same opinion, sometimes they are not, and we consider that exception as
an idiomatic expression, but maybe that's only a way to say that
grammar doesn't rule the language but is only a simplification of
it(with a lot of limits), so why bother studying it and addling one's
brain with a lot of useless and difficult to remember concepts when real
language more than often goes beyond them?
p.s.
I suppose writing this post gave me the chance to do some writing
practice :-)

Mi pare che le stagioni vadano sempre scritte in maiuscolo.
-- 
Ciao Pizzi

 Mi pare che le stagioni vadano sempre scritte in maiuscolo.
Lo Swan ti smentisce spudoratamente :-)
We use capital (big) letters at the beginning of the following kinds of
words:
the names of days, months and public holidays (but not usually seasons)
Negli esempi:
Sunday, March, Easter, Christmas (BUT normally summer, autumn)


non ero sicuro a quanto leggo dipende:
Calendar items
The names of months, days, and holidays always begin with a capital 
letter: June, Monday, Fourth of July, Michelmas, Ides of March.
Seasons start with a capital letter when they go with another noun or 
when they personify. Here they function as proper nouns: "Winter 
Solstice"; "Autumn Open House"; "I think Spring is showing her colors"; 
"Old Man Winter".
However, in the general sense, they do not start with a capital letter: 
"This summer was very hot."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)
-- 
Ciao Pizzi


Well , you start off learning scales , even if you want to finish up playing 
Ligeti .
Mike 

 playing Ligeti .
Exactly, but when you reach a more advanced point(learned the basics of
grammar), rules become so intricate(and full of exceptions) that you
can forget them in a few days(or weeks, or months), no matter how hard 
you tried to memorize them :-(

 wrote in message
news:49759f36$0$1118$4faf...@reader1.news.tin.it...

That is why Swan's book is so useful. Instead of pointing out rules, he
merely says "we say" or "we don't say".
He never says why.
Joe from Massachusetts

 He never says why.
Grammars do?
Kiuhnm

 wrote in message
news:49788872$0$841$4faf...@reader5.news.tin.it...

Grammars list rules. Swan doesn't concern himself with rules, only actual
usage.
Joe from Massachusetts


What's the difference between rules and actual usage?
For instance Swan says:
"unless (= 'except if') can be used instead of /if not/ when we refer to 
exceptional circumstances which would change a situation. We do not use 
/unless/ to refer to something negative that would be the /main cause/ 
of the situation that we are talking about."
That sounds like a rule to me.
I'd say the real difference is that Swan's grammar is word-centered 
while almost every other grammar is topic/rule centered.
Kiuhnm

 wrote in message
news:4978b05d$0$1117$4faf...@reader2.news.tin.it...

I don't think Swan would consider his work a grammar, nor would I. It is
aimed at the user who has a good foundation in the language, so it does not
contain declensions, conjugations, etc. which one would expect in a grammar.
If I say we write "weird" and not "wierd" (a violation of the "i-before-e"
rule), I am giving an example of usage which appears to violate a rule which
was painstakingly put together by scholars. Why do we write one rather than
the other? No reason. That's just the way it is. Is that a rule too?
«Grammar: The study of how words and their component parts combine to form
sentences; the system of rules inherent in any language (from the American
Heritage Dictionary, 3rd Ed). Grammar needs to be distinguished from usage,
which is the way the language is conventionally used within the culture.»
http://web.cuny.edu/academics/oaa/uei/wac/glossary-terminology.html
Joe from Massachusetts

 I don't think Swan would consider his work a grammar, nor would I.
In my opinion a grammar is like a manual, the swan instead is an HOW-TO.
There is a world of difference between.
-- 
Yatta!,
All my world in a few pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.it/diotonante/

 
http://web.cuny.edu/academics/oaa/uei/wac/glossary-terminology.html
That's just an arbitrary definition (which I don't like at all).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar
"Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions 
governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology 
and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and 
pragmatics.
Each language has its own distinct grammar. "English grammar" is the set 
of rules of the English language itself. "An English grammar" is a 
specific study or analysis of these rules. A reference book describing 
the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a 
grammar". A fully explicit grammar exhaustively describing the 
grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar, 
as opposed to linguistic prescription, which tries to enforce the 
governing rules of how a language is to be used."
And again:
"Formal grammars are codifications of usage that are developed by 
repeated documentation over time, and by observation as well"
I'm well aware that in many books grammar and usage are depicted as two 
different things. Maybe it's because people identify grammar with what 
they were forced to learn at school when they were young.
Swan's book gives the learner a good picture of how English really works.
If that isn't what a practical grammar book is supposed to be...
Kiuhnm

 I don't think Swan would consider his work a grammar, nor would I.
I've just read the introduction of the book we're talking about.
"
[...]
This book is a practical reference guide to questions of this kind. It 
deals with over 600 points which regularly cause problems for foreign 
students of English. Most of the points treated are grammatical, but 
there are also explanations of a certain number of common vocabulary 
problems.
[...] the book is more like a dictionary than a grammar in form. This 
makes it possible to give a clear complete tratment of each point, and 
enables users to concentrate just on the question he or she needs 
information about.
[...]
This is a reference book, not a systematic course in English grammar. It 
will be most useful to a student who has made a mistake and wants to 
find out why it is wrong, or to a teacher who is looking for a clear 
explanation of a difficult point of grammar or vocabulary.
[...]
This book gives explanations of individual points of usage, but does not 
show how the separate points 'fit together'. For a systematically 
organised account of the whole of English grammar, students should 
consult a book such as "A student's Grammar of the English Language", by 
Greenbaum and Quirk (Longman), the Longman English Grammar, [...]
"
As you can see, Swan himself doesn't draw any line between grammar and 
usage. What he says is that his book is not a *complete* grammar, not 
that it's not a grammar.
Kiuhnm