Relative Pronouns - the Chinese angle
Django Cat
non-native speaker teachers, some of them make it a point of honour to ask
complex grammar questions to native-speaker teachers. They do this partly to
impress and establish their credentials as serious learners, but also because
they know full well that because they've learnt the language by deep and
detailed study of English grammar, as opposed to those of us who learnt it at
our mothers' knees, they may well know more about grammar than we do. This
doesn't actually make them particularly adept at actually speaking the
language, and the effect is a bit like finding an expert on human muscle
biochemistry who suggests he knows more about how to win the 100 metres than an
Olympic sprinter does. At least they haven't told me my own English is flawed
yet, and I've been spared the comment a senior colleague received that "she'd
never get a job in China dressed like that"...
Anyway, this was the Chinese teachers' poser of choice that came up in a lesson
about relative clauses (not members of Santa's family)...
We can introduce a relative clause using a wh- word, or sometimes 'that', like
this:
- the man who sold the world
- the love which dare not speak its name
- on the street where you live
- the land that time forgot
- the time when music could change the world has passed
- there's a reason why we don't eat soup with a fork
So far so good. But while it's OK to say
- the person who is outside
or
- the car which is outside,
You can't do the same thing with 'where' or 'when' (I'm still thinking about
'why').
This came up when one of the Chinese teachers wrote this in class:
* I walked down Market Street where is wide and full of shops
and another student simultaneously came out with
* I study in Manchester where is a city in the North of England
Well, the point about being a native speaker teacher is you know when
something's wrong (as long as you haven't lived in-country too long), but you
can't always explain why. I did what I always do, and said that as I wasn't
100% sure of the answer, I'd look it up and explain it next lesson, and that's
what I did.
So, to recap, you can say:
- the person who is exciting...
or
- the car which is exciting...
or
- the car that is exciting...
However, despite the fact that we teach that you introduce a relative clause
about place with 'where' and one about time with 'when', you can't say:
* the place where is exciting
or
* the time when is exciting
Why not?
I've already looked this up in various grammars (I wasn't 100% convinced by any
of them), and made a workable explanation to my teacher/students. While web
references are always welcome, I'd be especially interested in AUEer's top of
the head explanations of what you see as going on here.
Cheers
DC
LFS
Off the top of my head (and it has been a long and quite stressful day
here) it occurs to me that the difficulty you identify can be overcome,
Ernie-Wise-fashion, by substituting "what" (or, of course, "wot") in
every case...
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
CDB
[yongyuan haodou means always having a chip on your shoulder]
> Why not?
OK, IMHO:
Because "when" and "where" perform the relative function just as
"that" and "which/who" do, but they don't mean the same thing; they
aren't the same part of speech. Specifically, they act as adverbs in
the relative clause, not pronouns, which leaves the verbs in the
*relative clauses your inquisitors have constructed without any
subject. "*The place where is exciting" means "the place in (or 'at')
which is exciting", and "* the time when is exciting" means "the time
at (or 'in') which is exciting".
They can correct their error by using the right relative pronoun, or
by supplying a dummy subject: "the place which/that is exciting" or
"the place where it is exciting" and "the time which/that is exciting"
or "the time when it is exciting".
I suppose considerations of face prevent you from telling them not to
be silly.
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
Okay, off the top of my head, you can't say *"the time when is
exciting" for the same reason you can't say *"the orgy that I met
you". "Who", "which", and "that" are traditionally classed as
relative pronouns, and they can act as the subject of a verb, as in
"the person who is", but not as (what we used to call) an adverbial,
indicating a place. "Where" and "when" can act as adverbials, as in
"the orgy where I met you", but not as pronouns, so they can't be the
subjects of verbs.
An anomaly is "the day that I met you", etc., which may be short for
"the day that I met you on" (or "on which I met you").
Full marks?
--
Jerry Friedman
Garrett Wollman
Django Cat <nota...@address.co.uk> wrote:
>However, despite the fact that we teach that you introduce a relative clause
>about place with 'where' and one about time with 'when', you can't say:
Of course, not all relative clauses with "where" are about place;
there are many uses where "where" takes the place of a more abstract
condition, where in the template a prepositional phrase using the more
abstract senses of "in" or "on" would have been used. But you know
that.
>* the place where is exciting
>or
>* the time when is exciting
>Why not?
Because "when" and "where" are not pronouns, whereas "who" and "which"
(and "that") are. I believe either Zwicky or Pullum has talked about
this (using the /Cambridge Grammar/'s idiosyncratic classification)
sometime in the last month or two.
Intuitively: there are some relativizers (I think that's the term that
CGEL uses, but their terminology is not all that familiar to me and is
rather different from the traditional grammar I learned) which are
*also* pronouns, but most of them aren't.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wol...@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
Django Cat
>>I've already looked this up in various grammars (I wasn't 100%
>>convinced by any of them), and made a workable explanation to my
>>teacher/students. While web references are always welcome, I'd be
>>especially interested in AUEer's top of the head explanations of
>>what you see as going on here.
>
>OK, IMHO:
>
>Because "when" and "where" perform the relative function just as "that" and
>"which/who" do, but they don't mean the same thing; they aren't the same part
>of speech. Specifically, they act as adverbs in the relative clause, not
>pronouns, which leaves the verbs in the *relative clauses your inquisitors
>have constructed without any subject. "*The place where is exciting" means
>"the place in (or 'at') which is exciting", and "* the time when is exciting"
>means "the time at (or 'in') which is exciting".
>
>They can correct their error by using the right relative pronoun, or by
>supplying a dummy subject: "the place which/that is exciting" or "the place
>where it is exciting" and "the time which/that is exciting" or "the time when
>it is exciting".
Ah - I actually find this explanation, and Jerry's, a lot neater than the one
in the grammar books - I'll post an example of that anon.
>
>I suppose considerations of face prevent you from telling them not to be
>silly.
>
Just so.
DC
--
Django Cat
>Of course, not all relative clauses with "where" are about place;
>there are many uses where "where" takes the place of a more abstract
>condition, where in the template a prepositional phrase using the more
>abstract senses of "in" or "on" would have been used. But you know
>that.
But I'd overlooked it on this occasion.
>
>>* the place where is exciting
>>or
>>* the time when is exciting
>
>>Why not?
>
>Because "when" and "where" are not pronouns, whereas "who" and "which"
>(and "that") are. I believe either Zwicky or Pullum has talked about
>this (using the /Cambridge Grammar/'s idiosyncratic classification)
>sometime in the last month or two.
>
>Intuitively: there are some relativizers (I think that's the term that
>CGEL uses, but their terminology is not all that familiar to me and is
>rather different from the traditional grammar I learned) which are
>*also* pronouns, but most of them aren't.
>
Again, that's a far more convincing explanation than the ones I found -
certainly better than the one in Swan.
DC
--
Don Phillipson
news:xn0fxzlc...@text.news.virginmedia.com...
> . . . despite the fact that we teach that you introduce a relative clause
> about place with 'where' and one about time with 'when', you can't say:
>
> * the place where is exciting
>
> or
>
> * the time when is exciting
>
> Why not?
Conventional parsing helps.
(1. As you titled it, most of your post is about relative pronouns.)
2. The words WHERE and WHEN are not pronouns.
3. The sentences you propose are semantically logical, and
people do indeed sometimes say them. But they have not
yet entered grammatical English, i.e. are disallowed in written English.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Django Cat
>> . . . despite the fact that we teach that you introduce a relative clause
>> about place with 'where' and one about time with 'when', you can't say:
>>
>> * the place where is exciting
>>
>> or
>>
>> * the time when is exciting
>>
>> Why not?
>
>Conventional parsing helps.
>(1. As you titled it, most of your post is about relative pronouns.)
>2. The words WHERE and WHEN are not pronouns.
Can you expand on that a bit, Don? Wouldn't that mean I could say
- the girl who I saw
but I shouldn't be able to say
- the time when I met her,
and to me that second one sounds fine.
>3. The sentences you propose are semantically logical, and
>people do indeed sometimes say them. But they have not
>yet entered grammatical English, i.e. are disallowed in written English.
>
Mmm. OK, but that last bit sounds like one of those arguments that leaves
teachers saying "class, the reason we don't say 'X' in English is because we
don't say 'X' in English".
DC
--
Django Cat
>>Conventional parsing helps.
>>(1. As you titled it, most of your post is about relative pronouns.)
>>2. The words WHERE and WHEN are not pronouns.
>
>Can you expand on that a bit, Don? Wouldn't that mean I could say
>
>- the girl who I saw
>
>but I shouldn't be able to say
>
>- the time when I met her,
>
>and to me that second one sounds fine.
>
(Answering my own question). No, it wouldn't, because both those examples
already *have* a pronoun - 'I'.
I'm beginning to understand how this works now, thanks to you folks, but this
isn't because of what it says in the references I looked up.
DC
--
TsuiDF
--the street where you live
v
*the place where is exciting
As I have very little top-of-my-head to go on (fine hair is such a
curse), I'd say just that the first is an attempt
to be more precise about the street, while the second is describing
the place. There is only one street where
you live, but there may be many exciting places.
Upon reflection I also wonder if this is to do with the Chinese
familiarity with verbs which look (to us) like adjectives.
Alas, I am so tired right now that I can't remember the term for these
things. In English we can't make 'where you live' into an adjective
and
say 'the where-you-live street', but we can say 'the exciting place'.
Given that Chinese doesn't use 'is + adj' the way English does, this
may in part contribute to
the confusion of your Chinese ESOL teachers on this point.
Peripherally, I must refer to my own bafflement when learning that in
French, one sometimes uses 'where' (ou, sorry for missing accent mark)
where an English
speaker would use 'when'. Having spent so much time being told that
French is more precise than English, this was worrying. I have since
learnt to go with the
flow, but have to remind myself every time such a structure comes up.
And you might be ever so slightly relieved to know that 'I am asking a
ludicrously complex question to prove I'm knowledgeable' phenomenon
isn't limited
to ESOL courses for teachers. We see it all the time at one of
projects which is designed to help small businesses work out a
strategy for
dealing with their intellectual property rights. Invariably any
workshop we hold will have one or two people in it who want to discuss
the niceties of the latest
patent law developments in X country's court system [insert footnotes
here], whilst our speakers are trying to talk about how to decide if
it's worth even
thinking about registering a trademark... .
Courage!
cheers,
Stephanie in Belgium
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> I've currently got some Chinese ESOL teachers in one of my classes. Like many
> non-native speaker teachers, some of them make it a point of honour to ask
> complex grammar questions to native-speaker teachers. They do this partly to
> impress and establish their credentials as serious learners, but also because
> they know full well that because they've learnt the language by deep and
> detailed study of English grammar, as opposed to those of us who learnt it at
> our mothers' knees, they may well know more about grammar than we do. This
> doesn't actually make them particularly adept at actually speaking the
> language, and the effect is a bit like finding an expert on human muscle
> biochemistry who suggests he knows more about how to win the 100 metres than an
> Olympic sprinter does.
The head of the biochemistry department where I was in Birmingham was a
muscle biochemist and he had been, in his youth, a member of the
England Rugby team. So he knew about muscle from both points of view,
but probably he was an exception.
Nonetheless, the fact that champion athletes always seem to have
trainers who are, almost by definition, less expert than they are
themselves, suggests that there is place for theoretical knowledge.
--
athel
Django Cat
>On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:56:56 -0800 (PST), TsuiDF
><stephanie...@chello.be> wrote:
>
>
>>Upon reflection I also wonder if this is to do with the Chinese
>>familiarity with verbs which look (to us) like adjectives.
>>Alas, I am so tired right now that I can't remember the term for these
>>things.
>
>Stative Verbs
>
No - stative verbs (in English, anyway) are verbs for states, often emotions or
attitudes which are either switched on or switched off, and so don't usually
appear in continuous (-ing) forms. They're the reason why AUE posters get
upset about McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" slogan. By same token you might hear
"I hate cheesy fast-food outlets", but you won't hear people say "I am hating
cheesy fast-food outlets" unless, possibly, they come from the Indian
sub-continent.
DC
--
Django Cat
Yes, for sure.
>
That's all fairy nuff, and suggestions would be most welcome for a better
analogy for the 'learnt grammar rules vs native-speaker knowledge' debate. For
years I've said something like 'understanding how the muscles in your leg work
is not the same as knowing how to walk'. I'm probably taking up a
teacher-training job in the New Year, so this would be a good time to rethink
this idea.
There are various other cans of worms hovering around this one, which I
wouldn't choose to run with just at the moment. Not least amongst them is 'if
that's a way a native speaker says it, that's the way it should be said'.
DC
--
Richard Maurer
muscle biochemistry who suggests he knows more about how
to win the 100 metres than an Olympic sprinter does.
At least he knows the basics, and could score the individual
parts of a large crowd scene milling about on stage.
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Django Cat
>I'm more confused than ever, but the pair that fascinate me are:
>
>--the street where you live
>
>v
>
>*the place where is exciting
>
>As I have very little top-of-my-head to go on (fine hair is such a
>curse), I'd say just that the first is an attempt
>to be more precise about the street, while the second is describing
>the place. There is only one street where
>you live, but there may be many exciting places.
>
>Upon reflection I also wonder if this is to do with the Chinese
>familiarity with verbs which look (to us) like adjectives.
>Alas, I am so tired right now that I can't remember the term for these
>things. In English we can't make 'where you live' into an adjective
>and
>say 'the where-you-live street', but we can say 'the exciting place'.
>Given that Chinese doesn't use 'is + adj' the way English does, this
>may in part contribute to
>the confusion of your Chinese ESOL teachers on this point.
>
I was talking about this stuff last week to a colleague who spends most of her
time teaching in China. She was saying that a common thing with
character-based languages such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean is that they lead
to major confusion for speakers learning English where they encounter
situations when words with the same roots can form multiple word forms - think
of a group like constitution [noun]; constitute [verb]; constitutional
[adjective]. Students from the Far East regularly write sentences like:
* 'Great Britain and Northern Ireland constitution the United Kingdom'
and often have real problems conceptualising why this is an error.
I wonder where Franke is these days - he's very sound on this kind of thing.
DC
--
Django Cat
>>
>> I've already looked this up in various grammars (I wasn't 100% convinced
>>by any of them), and made a workable explanation to my teacher/students.
>> While web references are always welcome, I'd be especially interested in
>>AUEer's top of the head explanations of what you see as going on here.
>
>Okay, off the top of my head, you can't say *"the time when is
>exciting" for the same reason you can't say *"the orgy that I met
>you". "Who", "which", and "that" are traditionally classed as
>relative pronouns, and they can act as the subject of a verb, as in
>"the person who is", but not as (what we used to call) an adverbial,
>indicating a place. "Where" and "when" can act as adverbials, as in
>"the orgy where I met you", but not as pronouns, so they can't be the
>subjects of verbs.
>
>An anomaly is "the day that I met you", etc., which may be short for
>"the day that I met you on" (or "on which I met you").
>
>Full marks?
>
>
Pretty close. As an example of the stuff I found in published grammars, here's
Michael Swan, as promised:-
"After nouns refering to times and places, /when/ and /where/ can be used to
mean /at/ /which/ or /in/ /which/ . After the word /reason/ , /why/ is used to
mean /for/ /which/ :
Can you suggest a time when it will be convenient to meet?
I know a wood where you can find wild strawberries.
Is there any reason why you should have a holiday?"
What he doesn't say is *why* this is, which I now feel I've got a much better
handle on. Thanks to all.
DC
--
TsuiDF
> ><stephanie.mitch...@chello.be> wrote:
>
> >>Upon reflection I also wonder if this is to do with the Chinese
> >>Alas, I am so tired right now that I can't remember the term for these
> >>things.
>
> >StativeVerbs
>
> attitudes which are either switched on or switched off, and so don't usually
> appear in continuous (-ing) forms. They're the reason why AUE posters get
> upset about McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" slogan. By same token you might hear
> "I hate cheesy fast-food outlets", but you won't hear people say "I am hating
> cheesy fast-food outlets" unless, possibly, they come from the Indian
> sub-continent.
I still can't remember the term, not sure whether it's stative verbs
or not, but an example would be 'hong2', which could be used in:
'Tade lian hongle' = His face turned red (=he blushed).
'Wo kanle tade hong lian...' = I saw his red face
I think there would be a natural tendency to confuse this with 'ing'
in EN.
cheers,
Stephanie
TsuiDF
> There are various other cans of worms hovering around this one, which I
> wouldn't choose to run with just at the moment. Not least amongst them is 'if
> that's a way a native speaker says it, that's the way it should be said'.
Indeed. Explained to me during my travails learning beginning Hebrew
as 'because that's the way the Israeil mothers teach the Israeli
children.'
And said in just the kind of pretend-patient voice you'd expect in
that situation.
Good luck!
cheers,
Stephanie
Isabelle Cecchini
>> Zhang DaWei wrote
>
>> On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:56:56 -0800 (PST), TsuiDF
>> <stephanie...@chello.be> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Upon reflection I also wonder if this is to do with the Chinese
>>> familiarity with verbs which look (to us) like adjectives.
>>> Alas, I am so tired right now that I can't remember the term for these
>>> things.
>> Stative Verbs
>>
>
> No - stative verbs (in English, anyway) are verbs for states, often emotions or
> attitudes which are either switched on or switched off, and so don't usually
> appear in continuous (-ing) forms.
It looks as if "stative verb" can be used to speak about one category of
words --verbs-- in English grammar and another category -- a kind of
adjective/verb-- in Chinese grammar.
See for instance http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Chinese/grammarlist.htm
"A stative verb expresses quality or conditions. In Chinese a stative
verb is used where in English one would use the verb 'to be' with an
adjective."
--
Isabelle Cecchini
Django Cat
>>>
>>>>Upon reflection I also wonder if this is to do with the Chinese
>>>>familiarity with verbs which look (to us) like adjectives.
>>>>Alas, I am so tired right now that I can't remember the term for these
>>>>things.
>>>Stative Verbs
>>>
>>
>>No - stative verbs (in English, anyway) are verbs for states, often
>>emotions or attitudes which are either switched on or switched off, and so
>>don't usually appear in continuous (-ing) forms.
>
>It looks as if "stative verb" can be used to speak about one category of
>words --verbs-- in English grammar and another category -- a kind of
>adjective/verb-- in Chinese grammar.
>
Ah ha. I wondered.
DC
--
John Kane
> There are various other cans of worms hovering around this one, which I
> wouldn't choose to run with just at the moment. Not least amongst them is 'if
> that's a way a native speaker says it, that's the way it should be said'.
Recently heard from a native English-speaking Canadian[1] "You ain't
got no cheese on that tray".
John Kane Kingston ON Canada
1. Outport Newfoundland where it probably is correct in the local
dialect. I'm begining to suspect a heavy francophone presence.
Mike Lyle
[...]
OK, off the top of my head before reading everybody else's no doubt
better-considered explanations, relative "where" and "when" are,
respectively, synonyms for "in/at/on which [place]" and "at/on/in/during
which", and therefore are forbidden by logic from referring back to
their antecedent, or from being the subject or object of a verb. Your
student isn't as smart as he thinks he is. It seems to me. But I have
probably left out some prepositions...
--
Mike.
Django Cat
>>Why not?
>>
>>I've already looked this up in various grammars (I wasn't 100%
>>convinced by any of them), and made a workable explanation to my
>>teacher/students. While web references are always welcome, I'd be
>>especially interested in AUEer's top of the head explanations of what
>>you see as going on here.
>
>OK, off the top of my head before reading everybody else's no doubt
>better-considered explanations, relative "where" and "when" are,
>respectively, synonyms for "in/at/on which [place]" and "at/on/in/during
>which", and therefore are forbidden by logic from referring back to their
>antecedent, or from being the subject or object of a verb. Your student isn't
>as smart as he thinks he is. It seems to me. But I have probably left out
>some prepositions...
>
>
Ka-ching! Precisely the answer that the grammar books give. I suppose my
concern was 'why do "where" and "when" work in this different way from "which"
"that" or "who"?, to which I suppose the answer is 'because they do'.
DC
--
CDB
I still think it's because they're adverbs, where the other three are
pronouns, and your EFL teacher-students are trying to construct
subordinate clauses that look to a nessie as if the adverb is being
used as the subject, or as if the subject is missing..
Those probably sound all right to them, because Chinese doesn't need a
dummy subject: "shi", the verb, means "it is": "you", also a verb
(have), means "there is". They supply the subject without thinking
(or else just don't feel the need of one), just as in their own
language.
Django Cat
>>>OK, off the top of my head before reading everybody else's no doubt
>>>better-considered explanations, relative "where" and "when" are,
>>>respectively, synonyms for "in/at/on which [place]" and
>>>"at/on/in/during which", and therefore are forbidden by logic from
>>>referring back to their antecedent, or from being the subject or
>>>object of a verb. Your student isn't as smart as he thinks he is.
>>>It seems to me. But I have probably left out some prepositions...
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>Ka-ching! Precisely the answer that the grammar books give. I
>>suppose my concern was 'why do "where" and "when" work in this
>>different way from "which" "that" or "who"?, to which I suppose the
>>answer is 'because they do'.
>
>I still think it's because they're adverbs, where the other three are
>pronouns, and your EFL teacher-students are trying to construct subordinate
>clauses that look to a nessie as if the adverb is being used as the subject,
>or as if the subject is missing..
I do too. In fact I was thinking my way towards this on the lines that while
"which" "that" or "who" can be followed by a verb, "where" and "when" must be
followed by a noun phrase or pronoun - which CTTOI is exactly what you're
saying.
DC
--
Django Cat
>On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:50:18 -0500, "CDB" <belle...@sympatico.ca>
>wrote:
>
>>Those probably sound all right to them, because Chinese doesn't need a
>>dummy subject: "shi", the verb, means "it is": "you", also a verb
>>(have), means "there is". They supply the subject without thinking
>>(or else just don't feel the need of one), just as in their own
>>language.
>>
> I think this is a key observation. My wife and son are native-born
>speakers of Mandarin Chinese, and their mistakes when learning
>English are informative about Chinese grammar (the mistakes would be
>called "Chinglish" by some people) So, we have omitted dummy subjects
>in what they have spoken and written; sentences like "I very much
>like" when in the context "I like it very much" would have been more
>usual (this contains another example of the Chinese stative verb at
>work),
Hi Zhang - as a university English language teacher with many Chinese-speaking
students I see the sorts of problems you're describing all the time
I'd not come across this stative verb idea in the context of Chinese (it's an
different idea from English stative verbs) - I'll watch out for it.
>questions like "You want not want?" which is a literal
>translation from the Chinese "ni yao bu yao?" which would have been
>more conventionally phrased in English as "Do you want it?",
That's not unique to Chinese speakers - or even unique to speakers of East
Asian languages generally.
> mixing up
>tenses (because Chinese does not have a tense system such as
>English's),
It's interesting what you can learn as a teacher about students' first
languages from the way they write English, without actually ever having studied
that language. Chinese students forever use unnecessary time marker words and
phrases:-
* 'Nowadays Beijing is a large city'
From this it's possible to deduce, as you say, that Chinese doesn't use tenses,
but also that if you want to show time it's necessary to use a marker word
because it won't be shown in the declension of the verb. So I'd guess that
rather than:
I go to the shop
I went to the shop
I will go to the shop
The Chinese equivalent must be something like:
Now I go to the shop
InPastTime I go to the shop
InFutureTime I go to the shop
And it's that first 'now' that comes out as 'nowadays' in my students' essays
all the time.
>mixing up singular and plural (because apart from the
>pronouns, Chinese does not distinguish between them in the way English
>does) and mixing up masculine, feminine, and neuter pronouns (because
>spoken Mandarin Chinese does not distinguish between them).
Yes, a very common one, and the default is always 'he'. My Chinese students
are always describing female members of class as 'he' and despite the giggles
of class members of other nationalities (all of whom have their own set of
ideosyncracies as English learners) it often takes them a moment to twig what
the problem is.
>In fact,
>to assist my son's teachers, I have been compiling a list of typical
>errors a beginning Chinese speaker might make when learning English
>which are tied in with the grammatical features that are different in
>Chinese as opposed to English.
I'd be very interested in seeing that...
>
>I think the ley to understanding the problems as pointed out, and
>perhaps even the motivation of the questions being asked by the
>Chinese teachers, could well be rooted in the same issues concerning
>the different grammatical structures and forms in the two languages.
>Futhermore, to try to explain why certain things are done in a certain
>way in English may be more difficult to Chinese learners, because
>their language does not have such an obvious distinction between them,
>if indeed they have any distinction at all.
>
Indeed - that's where conceptualising changing word class is a difficulty.
DC
--
John Holmes
>
> Ka-ching! Precisely the answer that the grammar books give. I
> suppose my concern was 'why do "where" and "when" work in this
> different way from "which" "that" or "who"?, to which I suppose the
> answer is 'because they do'.
I've been wondering why your students imagine that wh- gives words some
special property in common. You couldn't use "whale" or "whiffenpoof" in
the same way either.
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
TsuiDF
> > Isabelle Cecchini wrote
> >It looks as if "stative verb" can be used to speak about one category of
> >words --verbs-- in English grammar and another category -- a kind of
> >adjective/verb-- in Chinese grammar.
>
> Ah ha. I wondered.
Yup, that's the stuff I was groping for.
cheers,
S.