People who give advice on good writing often claim that sentences containing verbs in the passive form are harder for listeners and readers to process than sentences containing verbs in an active form. A paper I read recently provides evidence that these claims are overstated. The paper is Processing unambiguous verbal passives in German, by…… Continue reading The passive. Is it really harder to understand than the active?
Tag: Time
Saxon Genitive
English has two common ways of expressing possession: the ‘Saxon genitive’ form adds -’s to the end of the last word in a noun phrase referring to the possessor:the king’s wifethe King of England’s wifethe man over there’s wifeFor more on the Saxon Genitive, please see Does English really have case? – Language Miscellany the…… Continue reading Saxon Genitive
On the weekend
Learning which preposition to use in a language, and in which context, often involves learning some general rules of thumb (which often differ greatly from language to language) and many detailed rules that typically seem arbitrary. For a small example of this, consider how you talk in English about what you did, will do, or…… Continue reading On the weekend