A Raritätenkabinett (cabinet of rarities) is a collection of things, living or dead, which are considered worth collecting (and perhaps exhibiting) because they are rare. An online collection of grammatical rarities is available at https://typo.uni-konstanz.de/rara/ The site classifies the items it contains into the following categories: rarum (plural rara): ‘a trait (of any conceivable sort:…… Continue reading Cabinet of grammatical rarities
Tag: Word order
Are Mandarin adjectives just a type of verb?
In Mandarin, adjectives behave like verbs in some respects. As a result, some analysts suggest that adjectives are just a subset of verbs in Mandarin. This post summarises evidence that adjectives are in fact separate from verbs. The evidence comes from Chinese Syntax, by C-T James Huang, Y-H Audrey Li and Yafei Li (2009). The…… Continue reading Are Mandarin adjectives just a type of verb?
Fronted adverbials
Periodically, a debate breaks out in the British press about whether schools in England teach too much English grammar or too little English grammar. The trigger for the latest outpouring was an academic study suggesting that teaching grammar does not improve children’s writing. For some commentators, the phrase ‘fronted adverbials’ now exemplifies excessive focus on…… Continue reading Fronted adverbials
Existential Perfect in Hungarian
Hungarian uses only stress and a change in word order to express a meaning sometimes called the existential perfect. This meaning refers to an event that occurred at least once in the past or will occur at least once in the future. The number of times the event occurred (or will occur) is indefinite). Background:…… Continue reading Existential Perfect in Hungarian
You need not understand
In English, auxiliary verbs (have and be) and modal verbs behave differently from all other verbs. For example, they combine differently with negatives, as shown in the following table for auxiliaries (have and be), a modal verb (can) and another verb (go). TypePositiveNegativeAux (have)You have goneYou have not goneAux (be)You are goingYou are not goingModalYou…… Continue reading You need not understand
Scandinavian language challenge day 30
Today I worked through chapter 9 of Norwegian in three months, covering: more about conjunctionsmore about word orderconditional that clausesother words More about conjunctions Conjunctions—time: da (when)når (when)idet (As)mens (while) før (before)etterat (after)siden (since)inntil (until) Da expresses what happen once in the past (den gang: da). Når expresses what usually happens, what used to happen or…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 30
Scandinavian language challenge day 29
Today I worked through chapter 9 of Swedish in three months, covering: indefinite and negative pronouns and adjectivesformation of adverbscomparative and superlativeinfinitive with and without attother words Indefinite and negative pronouns and adjectives The following are both pronouns and adjectives: någon (neuter: något, plural: några): something, someone, some, anything, anyone, anyingen (inget, inga): nothing, no-one, no…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 29
Scandinavian language challenge day 28
Today I worked through chapter 9 of Danish in three months, covering: relative pronounsword order: more complex typespolitenessother words Relative pronouns The relative pronoun som (who, which, that) is used for both singular and plural, subject and object. When the relative pronoun is the subject, it can be replaced by der. When the relative pronoun is the object,…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 28
Scandinavian language challenge day 20
Today I worked through chapter 6 of Swedish in three months, covering: conjunctionsword order in subordinate clausesmore about word order in main clausesperfect and pluperfect tensesirregular verbsother words Conjunctions Co-ordinating conjunctions link main clauses together. Common examples: ellerförmen orbeforebut utanochså afterandso Eller is used in a common form of tag question:Han har två bilar, eller hur.He…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 20
Scandinavian language challenge day 18
Today I worked through chapter 5 of Norwegian in three months, covering: the past tense of weak verbs and strong verbsadverbsword orderordinal numbers Past tense: weak verbs Most weak verbs form the past tense by adding the suffix -et or -te to the stem. (Verbs with a stem ending in -ll, -mm or -nn drop the…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 18