Username
jayles
Member Since
August 12, 2010
Total number of comments
748
Total number of votes received
228
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Latest Comments
Modal Remoteness & Tense
- December 3, 2013, 2:14pm
@Jasper Just to make the term "six-pack" clearer: (you need to draw this in boxes)
IF-CLAUSE MAIN-CLAUSE
1) REAL/PRES/FUT "If/Should I have time, I will/shall/may/can call her."
2) UNREAL/PRES/FUT "If I had time, I would/could/might call her."
3) UNREAL/PAST "If I had had time, I would/could/might have called her."
Modal Remoteness & Tense
- December 3, 2013, 2:02pm
@Jasper
1) The idea that there are "first","second", and "third" conditionals is just a way of putting it all across to ESOL intermediate students. The "six-pack" (as each conditional has two parts to the sentence - the if clause and the main clause) covers maybe two-thirds of conditional sentences and helps ESOL learners get off the ground. Later they learn about "mixed" conditionals and the whole construct is somewhat undermined.
2) The truth (which is taught much later) is that one just chooses the most befitting tense for the situation - there are a limited number of choices. So in the "if" clause (first conditional) any present tense will do;
and in the main clause and modal will do eg:
a) "If he's missed the bus, you could come too".
3) If one is looking at "third" conditionals, it is noteworthy that "would" , "could", "should", "might", and "must" indicate the idea is unreal; and "have+third form" (eg have sent) is the perfect infinitive indicating past time.
4) In older English one could say "he was come" instead of "he has come" and thus:
b) "If he were come, I would have known." instead of
c) "If he had come, I would have known."
This shows that "had" in (c) is an unmarked subjunctive. The use of what looks like a "past" tense in second and third conditionals masks what is really an unmarked subjunctive form, which today only shows up in "If I were you". The subjunctive here is used because the situation is unreal.
Selfie
- December 3, 2013, 1:33pm
And already being explained to ESOL students, now that I learnt it myself yesterday.
Correspondence
- December 1, 2013, 5:03am
channel5.com/shows/the-wright-stuff/clips/richard-madeley-and-panel-discuss-about-the-british-economy
itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/enderle/the-five-things-you-arent-allowed-to-discuss-about-linux/?cs=16507
Yes, learner problem esp for German-speakers et al. But also a few seemingly native instances if one googles around - and my yoga teacher used it today - "a native-speaker error" I trust.
Correspondence
- November 30, 2013, 5:45pm
You might like to try discussing about "discuss about"
Correspondence
- November 29, 2013, 5:34pm
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/behavior
The plural seems to be used more in a "behavioral" context.
Words are often both countable and non-pluralizeable, with a slight change in meaning. When countable "behavior" suggests we are looking at each observed event discretely.
Compare the word "work" and "works" as a noun,
Correspondence
- November 28, 2013, 7:22pm
“feedback” and “check in”
- November 27, 2013, 10:22pm
@Anwulf "The threshold for Latinates ... for most Anglishers ... is when the Normans took over." That pretty much limits Anglish to folk who are very knowledgeable about word-roots then. Some less esoteric approach might be more widely able to be taken onboard.
Having said that I do find myself writing on the whiteboard things like:
insomnia = sleeplessness
progress = going forward
rapid = quick, fast
and then I thnk of you, and how right the underlying mindset would be.
Even: cor-RECT = right !
Word in question: Conversate
- November 23, 2013, 6:20pm
@WW 'being "forced"' to learn English: perhaps better stated as having little alternative.
In reality, to work effectively in English, one needs to think in English, and this can be quite invasive. If one spends all day at work thinking in English, one's first language is effectively sidelined. In the end bits of one's native-tongue wordstock just drift away.
I'm sure that you know the score, being at the broomhead of linguistic imperialism.
Questions
Five eggs is too many | July 1, 2013 |
“The plants were withered” Adjective or passive? | August 27, 2013 |
Which sound “normal” to you? | March 31, 2014 |
“it’s the put-er-on-er-er” | April 7, 2014 |
Modal Remoteness & Tense
And as a footnote: most European languages have similar systems for handling conditionals and unreal ideas - the English system is borrowed from French and German. However, Slav languages tend to make little distinction between what in English are second and third conditionals; today's German verb tends not to distinguish "when" and "if" (and "in case"); Japanese has something like four ways of expressing conditionals, which don't necessarily correspond to the English system; and of course in Chinese the verb doesn't change at all. One should not take it that other languages are like English.