|
 |
The concepting of noticing | ||
Tags: Corrections | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 41 of 56 12 December 2010 at 12:09am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Tread carefully... right now you're not only accusing a native English speaker of bad English, you're accusing a native speaker who has studied English to degree level and obtained a distinction in English language of bad English. And you are wrong. English places its adverbials at the end of the clause, so in the clause "just because you can't tell what the mistake is at the syntax level", the adverbial phrase "at the syntax level" is bound to "can't tell", not "is". It could be rewritten as "just because you can't tell at the verbal level what the mistake is," -- however, this is not the neutral form. The neutral form is as I wrote it. The antecedent of "it" is "the mistake", which is the only noun phrase not embedded within an adverbial.
"Existence" is far more concrete than this. Mistakes don't generally "exist", in English, something "is a mistake". That's how English works.
"To be mistaken" as an intransitive verb is slightly archaic, and means that someone holds an incorrect believe. A sentence cannot "be mistaken", because a sentence has no mind, and therefore has no beliefs. Something can be "mistaken for" something else, but it would be extremely unlikely that we would talk about a sentence in this way, if not impossible.
Why is it that you keep proposing using "syntax" to avoid confusion, but continue to use the term "grammar" as a synonym for "syntax"? They are grammatically possible or syntactically valid, but they are not "correct". 345 is a valid number, but it is not the correct answer to "5x12" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 42 of 56 12 December 2010 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Since the focus of this thread is the concept of noticing and not deciphering turgid English prose, I prefer get back on track. To answer this poster's question, I don't remember the exact question I asked. It certainly was something like: ¿Está abierto mañana? I certainly agree that the context really determines meaning. The problem here is that I initially misunderstood what the speaker was saying until I asked for clarification. As I said earlier, I would have just shrugged off the whole thing until I remembered the article I had read about a certain Mexican usage of "hasta". That was the aha moment. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7095 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 43 of 56 13 December 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
And here lies the distinction between the two examples... In the Spanish one, no mistake was made by the speaker - grammatically, syntactically or any other -ally. An unexpected regional usage invited misunderstanding. In the French example, however, I'm prepared to accept Cainntear's point. In isolation, the phrase used is a possible sentence. But, in reality, the speaker made a grammatical error - he chose the wrong structure and failed to convey his intended meaning.
They are grammatically possible or syntactically valid, but one is not "correct". The Spanish example is not in any sense incorrect.
5 x 12 = 60 or 5 x 12 = 5A Which is it? Well, it's both depending whether you're working in Decimal or Hex. Edited by Andy E on 13 December 2010 at 12:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 44 of 56 13 December 2010 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The point is well taken. In the French example, the speaker made a mistake in terms of intended meaning. But how do I the listener know this? I fully understood the utterance as a correct one. It is only later in the conversation that I realized that there had been a mistake. This is why I proposed using the term syntactic correctness to describe the fact that the sentence is totally correct in terms of its construction. Isn't this something that happens all the time in our native tongue. If someone says to me "I arrived at 3:45 pm.", what should I understand? Now, it turns out that the person was mistaken and actually arrived at 2:45 pm. Is the original statement now grammatically incorrect? I don't think so. However, I won't create a fuss over the terminology. Let's just say that it was syntactically correct. But the fundamental question here is What is grammaticality? If a statement is grammatical only when it reflects the true intentions of the speakers and respects all the rules of sentence construction, I think we will have a serious problem of lots of ungrammatical statements. Returning to an example given above, to say that 345 exists but is not the answer to 5 x 12 = is irrelevant. A better example would be something like saying 5 x 12 = 60 and then later saying "Sorry, I was really multiplying in hex and I really meant that 5 x 12 = 5A". Ah, now I see; 5 x 12 = 60 is now wrong. It has become "ungrammatical". Sure, but by itself it stills looks right to me. Edit: I had written "Ah, now I see; 5 x 12 = 12 is now wrong." Edited by s_allard on 14 December 2010 at 2:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 45 of 56 14 December 2010 at 1:30am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Case in point, as a fellow Scot to me 6 feeet/foot four and 3 pounds/pound fifty are all correct; but it has to be 20 stone- 20 stones (with "s" to mark the plural) would be just plain wrong in my head. My Degree was not in English, but can I timidly point out that mistaken doesn't seem wrong to me with sentence, rather it sounds like an americanism deliberately used (by analogy with a mistaken belief) as a euphemism. Something like "ill-chosen", which would make sense in the context of his post. That said it certainly doesn't mean the same as incorrect, and he shouldn't have tried to correct your English, correcting native speakers is a pet hate of mine, since the language BELONGS to them. EDIT: the above seemed right when I wrote it, but the more I think about it the more wrong mistaken sounds with sentence...guess I'm not so good at noticing errors in my own language :-/ Edited by Random review on 14 December 2010 at 2:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 46 of 56 14 December 2010 at 2:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Sorry, you expect me to let this slide? You try to make me look stupid by picking at my English, and then when I point out that there's nothing wrong whatsoever with what I wrote, you accuse me of taking the topic off-track, while simultaneously insulting my writing by calling it "turgid English prose"?
If it was said by a native, to a native, it is not a grammatical error, its just a plain old mistake. (Maybe he just forgot to change his watch when the train/plane/bus crossed timezones.) For it to be a grammatical error, it would need to be caused by a flaw in the speaker's model of English grammar. For example, the Catalan for 2:45 translates literally as "three quarters of 3". And also, if we're talking about a learner, there's the possibility that he's confused 2 and 3, and that's a lexical error. This isn't a question of terminology, though, because each type of error requires different remedial action. Edited by Cainntear on 14 December 2010 at 2:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5873 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 47 of 56 14 December 2010 at 2:41am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
And here lies the distinction between the two examples...
In the Spanish one, no mistake was made by the speaker - grammatically, syntactically or any other -ally. An unexpected regional usage invited misunderstanding. An unexpected regional usage? No. ¿A qué horas están abiertos mañana? Estamos acá hasta las diez. ¿Hasta las diez de la noche? Desde las diez de la mañana. The last sentence doesn't share the same meaning as the original response. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 48 of 56 14 December 2010 at 2:58am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Memories can get confused, memories of what people said even more so, and memories of what someone said in an unusual dialect of a foreign language? I think we all know what he meant here. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
