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English grammar question | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 24 30 June 2011 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Unintended offence is often the most offensive, because it shows a complete disregard for the other person. Intended offence at least tacitly acknowledges the other party's point of view.
I completely agree with your analysis, but it takes as given that a subordinate clause with "what" is singular. As such, it does nothing to persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with that to begin with. What I set out to prove in my post was precisely that: that an English "what" subordinate clause is singular. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 18 of 24 30 June 2011 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What you need is these three words, surely...? But actually, there's a little two word phrase that muddies the waters a bit: proximal agreement. There's an argument that many features in English (and in French) agree with the nearest item. I only recall having seen this mentioned as a justification for things like "a lot of people are here" ("are" agrees with "people", not "a lot"), but I'm not convinced that it isn't more a case of considering "a lot of" as a quantity, rather than a head noun. My analysis of the sentence comes from the point of view of English without proximal agreement, and I'm pretty sure that my local variety doesn't (and therefore analyses "a lot of" as a quantifier), and I'm prepared to accept the possibility that other dialects do. But I'm not convinced. (yet) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5312 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 19 of 24 01 July 2011 at 5:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
What I found were websites like this one: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/clauses/nomrel.htm What I saw were two example sentences: Singular: [What we need] is a plan Plural: [What we need] are new ideas What I also saw were two paragraphs explaining those two sentences: The similarity with NPs [Noun Phrases] can be further seen in the fact that certain nominal relatives exhibit number contrast: [ what the author wrote here were the two sentences above ] Notice the agreement here with is (singular) and are (plural). You're a native English speaker so what you consider correct is what you hear around you. I'm Chinese so what I write is what I read from grammars :) Edited by smallwhite on 01 July 2011 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| HirokoJoya Newbie Japan gotravelenglish.com/ Joined 4893 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes | Message 20 of 24 13 July 2011 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For me too these two sentences seems to be same..
"What I've experienced is slowly developing sensations..." "What I've experienced are slowly developing sensations..." Skype English Lessons 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| AlaskaRoy Diglot Newbie United States languagesurvival.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4880 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian | Message 21 of 24 21 July 2011 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Indeed! Native speakers of English might produce it both ways. It's an inherent problem created by the structure of the language itself; there is not always one form that is clearly better than the other. Many speakers will simply make the verb agree with the first part of the sentence; others feel better when it agrees with the latter part of the sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5232 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 22 of 24 22 July 2011 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Both sound perfectly correct to me. I think the confusion comes from "What" being potentially plural or singular (e.g., What are these? What is this?). If we replace "what" with terms that are marked for being plural, we can see the difference. Here, I'll replace "what" with "thing": Singular: [The thing] I've experienced is slowly developing sensations... Plural: [The things] I've experienced are slowly developing sensations... Now, both of those sound perfectly correct. Some might be tempted to object that in the first sentence, the sentence equates a singular thing--the thing--with a plural thing--sensations. But there's nothing wrong with that: consider the sentence "The team is eleven people," which does the same thing. The difference between the two, if there is any difference, is the subject of the first--the thing--stresses the singularity of the experience. You're talking about one thing, one singular state, a state of slowly developing sensations. With the latter, you're talking about the individual sensations. Bottom line: if these are the type of issues you're dealing with in English, then you're fluent. Use either construction and be happy. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5230 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 23 of 24 23 July 2011 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Both are correct, and I'm glad you explained why so shortly and nicely, thus sparing others further work. I've added a link here to my bookmark collection.
I find it a bit disheartening that it took 21 replies until someone -even some of the big wigs- nailed it and did so in plain English, without resorting to arcane grammarisms. It could have been worse, though, so... all is well that ends well :) Edited by mrwarper on 23 July 2011 at 2:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5619 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 24 of 24 01 August 2011 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've often pondered similar questions. It's easy to determine with there/it, as I've thoroughly learned the rules regarding these pronouns, however, I find myself being unsure when it comes to words like 'all' and 'what'. Oasis sings 'all I need are cigarettes and alcohol'.. True or false? Anyone have the rules for these words?
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