19 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2020
    1. Second, English may lack a future tense

      But what about verbs like "expect" or terms like "will do", won't that be an example of a future tense because you're planning or predicting for the future?

      It's a bit confusing...

  2. Sep 2020
    1. Notice that the indirect object comes before the direct object:

      Another example can be a boy gave a girl a pencil. The verb is "gave", the direct object is the girl, and the indirect object is what the boy gave her; the pencil.

    1. When we analyze a sentence, we take it apart to determine what function each unit in the sentence has. This process is known as parsing a sentence.

      Another easier way to think and remember "Parsing", is in Latin, it is considered "part of speech". you take apart a sentence and learn the parts of it.

    2. a college paper, a memo at work, or a newspaper article—requires some knowledge of syntax

      I never heard the word "syntax" before joining this class. It was always referred to as "sentence structure" rather than the actual word, so I find the very interesting and feel schools should teach more terms lie syntax early on.

    1. Many immigrants, for example, live in their new country for years and never completely master the local language, even after making sustained efforts to study it.

      I 100% agree with this statement. Especially in this day in age, I have seen/heard many immigrants bashed or judged for not knowing the "proper English language" after being in America for a "long time". This statement proves it can be difficult for some people to fluently learn a new language and immigrants are not just "lazy to learn", although the U.S itself is a melting pot of languages.

  3. Aug 2020
    1. Languages often have alternative expressions for the same thing ('car' and 'auto'), and a given word can carry different senses ('river bank' vs. 'savings bank') or function as different parts of speech ('to steal'—verb; 'a steal'—noun).

      I've seen this in the Spanish language a lot, so it does happen within one language. for instance, my dad is Honduran so the way he says bus in Spanish is "autobus" but my mom is Puerto Rican and the way she says it is "guagua". Both mean the same object but carry different expressions.

    1. Not only does every language have syntax, but similar syntactic principles are found over and over again in languages

      This reminds me of how some English phrases are reversed in Spanish. For example, the phrase "Next summer" in Spanish is "El verano que viene" meaning "The summer that is coming".

    2. sually negative ones like “There is no such word as ain't”

      I agree. Whenever someone hears about "grammar", most of the time the word "correction" will come to mind. When I used to hear "grammar: I would think the same way, having to correct a sentence or paragraph other than seen WHAT is putting the sentence together.