that/to grammar query
Will Gortoa
Yesterday I was presented with this example:
"It's so exciting that live in a plane".
Now, clearly I know that 'that' should be 'to', but the student was
confused. While understanding 'to', they couldn't understand why 'that'
didn't work as well.
I couldn't fully correct the misunderstanding, simply as I couldn't
explain clearly why 'that' wasn't correct.
Can someone relate to a rule that the student was potentially thinking
of...and a way of explaining the problem. Thanks.
--
Will Gortoa
UK Teaching Assistant with no formal English training - other than 40 years
using the language. Working with very inquisitive Year 9 pupil of Chinese
origin. Helping to improve English usage understanding/skills.
Alan Jones
"Will Gortoa" <|||TheHipBlueBirdHouse|||@ollis.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:K+UXX6Ed...@ollis.demon.co.uk...
>
> Yesterday I was presented with this example:
>
> "It's so exciting that live in a plane".
>
> Now, clearly I know that 'that' should be 'to', but the student was
> confused. While understanding 'to', they couldn't understand why 'that'
> didn't work as well.
>
> I couldn't fully correct the misunderstanding, simply as I couldn't
> explain clearly why 'that' wasn't correct.
>
> Can someone relate to a rule that the student was potentially thinking
> of...and a way of explaining the problem. Thanks.
This is difficult. Grammatically one can say " 'That' is here a conjunction
and can't therefore introduce an infinitive", but I don't know whether this
concept will be meaningful to your student - it depends on how Chinese
handles the same sense. A clumsy but possible alternative, using 'that',
would be "It's so exciting that we should be living in a plane", which
illustrates the conjunction introducing a full clause complete with finite
verb. Perhaps you could devise sentences to be transformed from a
to+infinitve construction to that+finite clause and vice versa. But this is
where you need the help of an EFL teacher who has experience wich Chinese
students.
Alan Jones
Gary Vellenzer
|||TheHipBlueBirdHouse|||@ollis.demon.co.uk says...
>
> Yesterday I was presented with this example:
>
> "It's so exciting that live in a plane".
>
> Now, clearly I know that 'that' should be 'to', but the student was
> confused. While understanding 'to', they couldn't understand why 'that'
> didn't work as well.
>
> I couldn't fully correct the misunderstanding, simply as I couldn't
> explain clearly why 'that' wasn't correct.
>
> Can someone relate to a rule that the student was potentially thinking
> of...and a way of explaining the problem. Thanks.
>
Start with the basic ideas: "It's so exciting" and "I live in a plane"
To connect the two, I.e. to indicate that the "it" of the first sentence
is to be expanded as "I live on a plane", you can say "It's so exciting
for me to live in a plane" or "It's so exciting that I live in a plane."
Other ways to merge the sentences would correspond more closely to the
sentences your Chinese students probably have in their heads: "Living in
a plane is so exciting" or "To live in a plane is so exciting" or "For me
to live in a plane is so exciting."
All five sentences mean the same thing, but use different grammatical
constructions to produce that meaning. The key is that you can omit the
subject with the infinitive (to live) or the gerund (living) but not with
a finite verb (I live). That's just a fact of English, there is no logic
to it.
Gary
Will Gortoa
<a...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes
>"Will Gortoa" <|||TheHipBlueBirdHouse|||@ollis.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:K+UXX6Ed...@ollis.demon.co.uk...
>>
>> Yesterday I was presented with this example:
>>
>> "It's so exciting that live in a plane".
>>
>> Now, clearly I know that 'that' should be 'to', but the student was
>> confused. While understanding 'to', they couldn't understand why 'that'
>> didn't work as well.
>This is difficult.
Quite! (Er, see other thread ;)
>Grammatically one can say " 'That' is here a conjunction
>and can't therefore introduce an infinitive", but I don't know whether this
>concept will be meaningful to your student - it depends on how Chinese
>handles the same sense. A clumsy but possible alternative, using 'that',
>would be "It's so exciting that we should be living in a plane", which
>illustrates the conjunction introducing a full clause complete with finite
>verb. Perhaps you could devise sentences to be transformed from a
>to+infinitve construction to that+finite clause and vice versa. But this is
>where you need the help of an EFL teacher who has experience wich Chinese
>students.
As you suggest, this would prove hard to explain. And, to be brutally
honest, I don't fully understand it myself. Ha! But if the problem
persists, I can certainly approach an EFL teacher.
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> As you suggest, this would prove hard to explain. And, to be brutally
> honest, I don't fully understand it myself. Ha! But if the problem
> persists, I can certainly approach an EFL teacher.
I'd have e-mailed this response, but the address looks munged.
There is another group, alt.usage.english (not this one, please
note), that is much busier than this one, and its participants
include at least two ESL teachers. You're more likely to get a good
answer there. (If you've already posted your query over there as
well, let me suggest that the next time you post to more than one
group, you send one posting with multiple addresses. It works
better.)
--
Bob Lieblich
John Emery
----------
In article <K+UXX6Ed...@ollis.demon.co.uk>, Will Gortoa
<|||TheHipBlueBirdHouse|||@ollis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Yesterday I was presented with this example:
>
>"It's so exciting that live in a plane".
>
>Now, clearly I know that 'that' should be 'to', but the student was
>confused. While understanding 'to', they couldn't understand why 'that'
>didn't work as well.
It does, actually, but the subject must be specified. That is,
"it's so exciting that I/you/we/they live in a plane". This is
not the case in many languages, but I don't know how Chinese
works with dependent clauses or if it even has them. The
infinitive does not require a subject.
>
What's so exciting about living in plane, anyway? Sounds
cramped.
Will Gortoa
Vellenzer <gvell...@nyc.rr.com> writes
All extremely clear/useful. Thanks. :)
Eric Walker
[...]
>The key is that you can omit the subject with the infinitive
>(to live) or the gerund (living) but not with a finite verb (I
>live). That's just a fact of English, there is no logic to it.
Yes and no; there's certainly some history. The following is
from Curme, _English Grammar_, at 123.A (with some elisions):
The infinitive was originally a noun and had the inflection of a
noun. The infinitive without _to_ is the nominative or the
accusative of this old noun. The old simple nominative is
sometimes still used, although we do not now feel the original
force: [it is] Better _ask_ than _go_ astray = It is better _to
ask_ than _to go_ astray = _To ask_ is better than _to go_
astray [is]. Simple _ask_ and _go_ are there the subjects of
the two prepositions, but we now feel them as imperatives.
The infinitive with _to_ was originally the object of the
preposition _to_, and we can sometimes still feel the original
force: Something impelled me _to do it_ = _toward the doing of
it_. We do not now usually feel the _to_ before the infinitive
as a preposition, but construe it as the sign of the infinitive,
so that we now employ the infinitive with _to_ as the subject or
the object of the verb, as once the old infinitive was used.
The compact convenient form of the infinitive construction won
it favor in older English, so that in the 14th century there
arose a desire to extend its boundaries, that is, to use it with
a subject of its own if there was no word in the principal
construction that could serve as its subject. When the
infinitive has a subject of its own, the subject is usually
introduced by _for_: He was eager _for me_ to come at once.
[End of quoting]
My sense is that the infinitive is losing its nounish quality
and correspondingly acquiring a verbish sense at an increasing
pace. Once, the construction "I require to have my rights" was
perfectly ordinary; nowadays, most would cast it as "I require
_that_ I have my rights." The old form is still correct, but
looks, I think, almost archaic.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
Mark Wallace
"Eric Walker" <ewa...@owlcroft.com> wrote in message
news:rjnyxrebjypebsgpb...@news.cis.dfn.de...
> My sense is that the infinitive is losing its nounish quality
> and correspondingly acquiring a verbish sense at an increasing
> pace. Once, the construction "I require to have my rights" was
> perfectly ordinary; nowadays, most would cast it as "I require
> _that_ I have my rights."
Chalk and cheese. "I require to have my rights" more closely
parallels the gerund usage. "I require that I have my rights" uses
subordination, and the notorious subordinate imperative, to form the
object.
> The old form is still correct, but
> looks, I think, almost archaic.
It is not 'correct'. We use the gerund, if a noun-substitute is
needed at all; but, in the quoted example, subordination is
preferable ("I require having my rights" is not forceful enough).
--
Mark Wallace
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Will Gortoa
<n...@this.org> writes
>What's so exciting about living in plane, anyway?
It's a Boeing 727 and belongs to a lady in Florida. The phrase 'only in
America' immediately springs to mind. ;)
>Sounds
>cramped.
Surprisingly spacious when stripped. Window cleaning bill is pretty
horrendous though!