substantive phrases
Ticce
them under the different name, but you will see from the example what
I mean). I would like to know the borders or theirs usage. Here are a
few examples, some of them are really artificial, but this is how I
hope to be sure about which are right and wrong. Just let me know
which of them are wrong.
A child the same age started to sing.
Who is there? – This is a child the same age.
I talked to my friend the captain.
My friend the captain talked to me.
It was the plank the right size.
Who is there? – This is the child the other group.
The instrument is the guitar the same craftsman. (sounds awful, but I
would rather rely on your opinion)
The news the same event was told to me. (bbrrr….)
I am just trying to find out the rule which could help me to pick out
the right cases.
Jerry Friedman
> There are so-called “substantive phrases” in English (may be you know
> them under the different name, but you will see from the example what
> I mean). I would like to know the borders or theirs usage. Here are a
> few examples, some of them are really artificial, but this is how I
> hope to be sure about which are right and wrong. Just let me know
> which of them are wrong.
>
> A child the same age started to sing.
Fine.
> Who is there? – This is a child the same age.
Strange. "This is another child the same age" might be better.
> I talked to my friend the captain.
> My friend the captain talked to me.
Both fine.
> It was the plank the right size.
Nope.
> Who is there? – This is the child the other group.
Nope.
> The instrument is the guitar the same craftsman. (sounds awful, but I
> would rather rely on your opinion)
Nope. As far as I can see, it would take more than a preposition to
save that one.
> The news the same event was told to me. (bbrrr….)
Nope.
> I am just trying to find out the rule which could help me to pick out
> the right cases.
Good luck!
--
Jerry Friedman
CDB
>
> There are so-called �substantive phrases� in English (may be you
> know them under the different name, but you will see from the
> example what I mean). I would like to know the borders or theirs
> usage. Here are a few examples, some of them are really artificial,
> but this is how I hope to be sure about which are right and wrong.
> Just let me know which of them are wrong.
>
> A child the same age started to sing.
>
mentioned. I think it would be even better if it read "of the same
age".
>
> Who is there? � This is a child the same age.
>
informal context.
>
> I talked to my friend the captain.
> My friend the captain talked to me.
>
Acceptable.
>
> It was the plank the right size
>
>
>
> The instrument is the guitar the same craftsman. (sounds awful, but
> I would rather rely on your opinion)
>
suppose it could be saved by inserting "from".
>
> The news the same event was told to me. (bbrrr�.)
>
>
> I am just trying to find out the rule which could help me to pick
> out the right cases.
>
the construction.
>
*I don't want to complicate things, but you may be thinking that "Both
these require 'of'" is acceptable. That's true, but the reason is
that "both" can be an adjective -- nothing to do with substantive
phrases.
Eric Walker
> There are so-called “substantive phrases” in English (may be you know
> them under the different name, but you will see from the example what I
> mean). I would like to know the borders or theirs usage. Here are a few
> examples, some of them are really artificial, but this is how I hope to
> be sure about which are right and wrong. Just let me know which of them
> are wrong.
Before proceeding, I note that most of the problems below are from lack
of a wanted preposition. Generally, a substantive phrase is nowadays
more commonly called a noun phrase; and by and large it is treated as if
it were a single-word noun. Some nouns can modify other nouns without
assistance--King George, the steamship Orion, the numeral 5, the
preposition 'with'; that is called close apposition. But more commonly,
the modifier needs to be related to the base noun by a preposition, which
shows the relation between the two.
(Very occasionally such relating prepositions can be elided, typically in
informal speech where intonation and rhythm can convey the same purpose.)
> A child the same age started to sing. Who is there? – This is a child
> the same age.
Change to "of the same age" and all is well with both.
The base noun is, of course, "child"; "of the same age" is the
prepositional phrase used as an adjective to make the noun phrase "a
child of the same age".
> I talked to my friend the captain.
> My friend the captain talked to me.
This requires punctuation, a comma pair to set off the appositive phrase
"the captain": "I talked to my friend, the captain." "My friend, the
captain, talked to me."
Both "my friend" and "the captain" are noun phrases; an appositive is a
noun or noun phrase that explains or characterizes another noun (or noun
phrase). If the commas marking out the parenthetic apposition are
omitted, the modifier is no longer appositional and the meaning changes:
"My sister, Mary, is my best friend" signifies that the writer has only
one sister; "My sister Mary is my best friend" signifies that Mary is one
of two or more sisters. Unless the writer clearly has only one friend in
all the world, the phrase "the captain" is appositional.
> It was the plank the right size.
Again, a preposition is wanted: "the plank of the right size".
Also, though constructions where "the" is appropriate can be constructed
in certain contexts, in general use it would be "a plank". You could say
"John poked about in the small stack of variously sized planks, finally
extracting one; when he held it up to the gap, we could see that it was
the plank of the right size." But more common is something like "The gap
was filled with a plank of the right size."
> Who is there? – This is the child the other group.
Another wanted preposition. The bare noun phrase "the other group" does
not make a modifier by itself: it needs the relational preposition.
Compare "a man of the people", "the tires of the car", "the girl from
U.N.C.L.E.", &c &c.
In this case, absent context it is unclear which preposition is wanted,
but probably "from", though "of" is possible.
> The instrument is the guitar the same craftsman. (sounds awful, but I
> would rather rely on your opinion)
It is awful. Yet again, a preposition is wanted, and again probably
"from" but possibly "of", depending on the meaning intended.
> The news the same event was told to me. (bbrrr….)
Lacking "of": "news of the &c &c". Two further notes: Normally, "news"
doesn't take an article unless being used as a synonym for "report":
"News of his death reached us yesterday"; "The news was not welcome."
And it is unclear why "same" would be wanted there.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/
Mark Brader
> A child the same age started to sing.
Both correct, if there is a context indicating what age you're talking
about. For the second one, this is very unlikely. If it was "the
same age as my son", either one would be fine.
> I talked to my friend the captain.
> My friend the captain talked to me.
>
> It was the plank the right size.
These are fine.
> Who is there? -- This is the child the other group.
>
> The instrument is the guitar the same craftsman. (sounds awful, but I
> would rather rely on your opinion)
>
> The news the same event was told to me. (bbrrr....)
These are wrong.
> I am just trying to find out the rule which could help me to pick out
> the right cases.
I have no idea of what the rule is.
--
Mark Brader | "The only thing required for the triumph of darkness
Toronto | is for good men not to call Hydro."
m...@vex.net | --Michael Wares
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Eric Walker
[...]
Re--
I talked to my friend the captain.
My friend the captain talked to me.
--I didn't do very well. Let me start anew.
An appositive points out the same person or thing by a different name,
usually in the form of an explanatory phrase that narrows an earlier,
more general phrase. [Explanation adapted slightly from Garner.] Thus,
"Mary" is an appositive in both of these:
a. "My sister, Mary, is my best friend."
b. "My sister Mary is my best friend."
The difference in punctuation tells us which appositive is restrictive
and which non-restrictive. To illustrate that difference, consider:
1. "Wild geese, which fly high, are a menace to aviation."
2. "Wild geese that fly high are a menace to aviation."
In #1, the phrase set off by commas is non-restrictive--that is, it does
not restrict in size the class "wild geese", it merely comments on them;
the proof is that it could be deleted from the sentence without
materially altering its meaning.
In #2, the phrase, lacking commas, is restrictive: it restricts the class
of wild geese to that subset that flies high.
(Besides commas, most good writers distinguish between "which" and "that"
in such constructions, but that is not yet considered an actual rule of
English grammar, despite its obvious utility.)
Thus, in (a) above, which uses commas, "Mary" is non-restrictive, which
necessarily means that the writer has only one sister (take out the part
between the commas and you have "My sister is my best friend", making
plain the uniqueness of that sister). Likewise, (b) is restrictive (we
know owing to the lack of commas) so that there must be more than one
sister, the name "Mary" singling out which one was meant.
So, in--
I talked to my friend the captain.
My friend the captain talked to me.
--the use is restrictive, implying more than one friend. I stated it
exactly wrong in my first post. But if the writer were a lonely person
with but one real friend, then commas would be wanted to make that clear:
I talked to my friend, the captain.
My friend, the captain, talked to me.
Sorry for the initial confusion.
John Holmes
>
>> I talked to my friend the captain.
>> My friend the captain talked to me.
>>
>> It was the plank the right size.
>
> These are fine.
Did you really mean to say that of the third one? Or did you misread it?
It sounds very strange to me. "Find a plank the right size" works,
though.
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
Mark Brader
>>> I talked to my friend the captain.
>>> My friend the captain talked to me.
>>>
>>> It was the plank the right size.
Mark Brader:
>> These are fine.
John Holmes:
> Did you really mean to say that of the third one? Or did you misread it?
I must have misread it. "It was *a* plank the right size" would be fine,
though. Sorry.
--
Mark Brader "A healthy nation is as unconscious of its
Toronto nationality as a healthy man of his bones."
m...@vex.net -- Shaw