[Grammar] Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

Dear teachers,

When I think more deeply about the structures of some English sentences which seem to be easy to understand, I often find that I actually do not have a sound understanding of them. For example, we can change "It is a pity that you must go." back to "That you must go is a pity." to understand "it" refers to the deferred subject of "That you must go". However, this reasoning does not apply to "It seemed that he needed help." In my opinion, it is insensible to say that "It seemed that he needed help." actually means "That he needed help seemed." I guess there must be something missing after "seemed" in this sentence. Could it be "so" that is habitually omitted here by you native speakers? By the way, this morning, I read in a news report a sentence going, "Intrigued by their findings, Carroll's team started to look into the reasons why this might be." Could it also be "so" that is left out in this sentence?

Looking forward to your replies. Thanks.

Richard

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

ohmyrichard said:

When I think more deeply about the structures of some English sentences which seem to be easy to understand, I often find that I actually do not have a sound understanding of them. This is nothing to be concerned about. Nor do most native speakers.

For example, we can change "It is a pity that you must go." back to "That you must go is a pity." to understand "it" refers to the deferred subject of "That you must go". However, this reasoning does not apply to "It seemed that he needed help." Yes, though "seem" is a different verb to "be", and there's no reason a priori why they should behave the same grammatically in an arbitrary example.

In my opinion, it is [STRIKE]insensible[/STRIKE] [not the right word, unfortunately] to say that "It seemed that he needed help." actually means "That he needed help seemed." I guess there must be something missing after "seemed" in this sentence. Could it be "so" that is habitually omitted here by you native speakers? 'So' might fit, but that's no reason to say that that is the word that has been omitted. In fact 'so' doesn't fit in your sentence. "That he needed help seemed so" is incorrect. "That he needed help seemed to be true/seemed to be the case ..." It's true that 'seems' by itself doesn't sound right, though it has been used.*
By the way, this morning, I read in a news report a sentence going, "Intrigued by their findings, Carroll's team started to look into the reasons why this might be." Could it also be "so" that is left out in this sentence? Again, you could put 'so' there. But that's not good enough evidence to prove that it is 'so', if anything, that has been left out.

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In summary,
i) Two verbs can behave differently in the same grammatical position.
ii) Just because a word can fit somewhere doesn't mean it has been omitted from that place.

* “Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” (Hamlet, I.ii)

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

Raymott said:

In summary,
i) Two verbs can behave differently in the same grammatical position.
ii) Just because a word can fit somewhere doesn't mean it has been omitted from that place.

* “Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” (Hamlet, I.ii)

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Thanks a lot for your enlightening detailed explanation and pointing out my mistakes, Raymott.

Your reply has caused me to go to my Oxford dictionary for the usage of "so", and I've got at the entry of "so" when used as an adverb Sense 5: used to refer back to sth that has already been mentioned. And at Sense 5 there is this example sentence: I hear that you're a writer-- is that so (= is that true)? So, I love your restructured version of "That he needed help seemed to be true/seemed to be the case " .

By the way, I have a question of a different nature about the use of "might" in "Intrigued by their findings, Carroll's team started to look into the reasons why this might be." and I hope you will also help me with it. This sentence is taken from a BBC news report entitled "Is violence more common in gay relationships?" and the sentence prior to it is " 'One of our startling findings was that rates of domestic violence among same-sex couples is pretty consistently higher than for opposite sex couples,' says Richard Carroll, a psychologist and co-author of the report." It is obvious that this one finding is now already a fact and only the reasons are still unknown. Then, why "this might be"? Could it be that "this might be" is actually casual speech and, to be more accurate or to be logical, it should have been "(why) this is the case" or "(why) this is what it is"? Or is it that this sentence is still intended to mean "Carroll' team started to figure out what the reasons might be" but because of sloppy thinking the speaker of this sentence got things messed up on the surface?

Looking forward to your reply. Thanks!

Richard

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

ohmyrichard said:

"Intrigued by their findings, Carroll's team started to look into the reasons why this might be."

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This phrase doesn't imply that the facts are not true, or might not be true.
It is taken as fact that there is more violence between gay couples than straight couples. However, this might be due to reason A, reason B, reason C etc. Note that the quote says "reasons". The probability (might be) relates to the possible reasons not to the fact.
Yes, fact X is true. But it might be because of reason A, and it might not be.

Here's another example:
"He has parked his car three blocks away. I wonder why that might be." There is no doubt that it is true. But, he might have wanted to walk, for exercise; he might have run out of petrol, etc. There are several reasons it might be, but no doubt that it is.
So, that is how the phrase is used.

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

Raymott said:

This phrase doesn't imply that the facts are not true, or might not be true.
It is taken as fact that there is more violence between gay couples than straight couples. However, this might be due to reason A, reason B, reason C etc. Note that the quote says "reasons". The probability (might be) relates to the possible reasons not to the fact.
Yes, fact X is true. But it might be because of reason A, and it might not be.

Here's another example:
"He has parked his car three blocks away. I wonder why that might be." There is no doubt that it is true. But, he might have wanted to walk, for exercise; he might have run out of petrol, etc. There are several reasons it might be, but no doubt that it is.
So, that is how the phrase is used.

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Thanks a lot for your great explanation, Raymott. I have read your reply three times and I can follow your line of reasoning.

Anyway, do you native speakers of English use "for this/that reason", "due to this/that reason" and "because of this/that reason" interchangeably? Just now I went to my physical Oxford dictionary and the Online Oxford Collocation Dictionary and could only find "for (this) reason", "for reasons of" and "by reason of". Is it that the two dictionaries are not exhaustive? I have never been bold enough to use "due to this/that reason" and "because of this/that reason" and this may be due to the fact that I have a limited English vocabulary. Besides, is there the possibility that when you native speakers explain things, you use collocations which you do not use under normal circumstances? For example, we can say "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in their office". But I doubt whether we will say "Neither the CEO was in his office nor his assistant were in their office" in daily normal speaking or writing situations unless we are analyzing it or explaining the underlying structure of the orginal sentence?

The more discussion we have, the more questions I will think of. Forgive me for giving you so much trouble, but I look forward to your answer. Thanks.

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

"Anyway, do you native speakers of English use "for this/that reason", "due to this/that reason" and "because of this/that reason" interchangeably? "

No, sometimes there’s an obvious reason for using one or the other.

1. "I am not well. For this reason I am unable to work today."
2. "He said he wasn't well. It was for that reason that he didn't come to work today."

In 1, the reason has just been given. It's proximate; we can use 'this'.
In 2, the reason given is removed from the present situation by being given hours later by a different person.

Usually, you can use either.

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

Raymott said:

"Anyway, do you native speakers of English use "for this/that reason", "due to this/that reason" and "because of this/that reason" interchangeably? "

No, sometimes there’s an obvious reason for using one or the other.

1. "I am not well. For this reason I am unable to work today."
2. "He said he wasn't well. It was for that reason that he didn't come to work today."

In 1, the reason has just been given. It's proximate; we can use 'this'.
In 2, the reason given is removed from the present situation by being given hours later by a different person.

Usually, you can use either.

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Thanks, Raymott.
Your reply reminds me of a long comment of four paragraphs I wrote under a Youtube video in answer to the question about the use of magic words like "Thank you" and "Excuse me" raised by the American who uploaded the video. When I came to the first sentence of the second paragraph, I was confused about which one of "This" and "That" to use as the first word of the first sentence to refer back to what I discussed in the last two sentences in the previous paragraph. Finally I used "That", but I still doubt whether I have made a mistake. In this writing situation, which do you think should be used, "this" or "that"? Or will either do? I vaguely remember I have read an article in a thick English writing coursebook which has "this" or "that" used at the beginning of several paragraphs, but unfortunately just now I failed to locate this article.

To repeat, which do you think should be used at the beginning of a new paragraph to refer back to what you have just discussed in the last one or two sentences of the previous paragraph, "this" or "that" or either? Thanks.

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

Raymott said:

"Anyway, do you native speakers of English use "for this/that reason", "due to this/that reason" and "because of this/that reason" interchangeably? "

No, sometimes there’s an obvious reason for using one or the other.

1. "I am not well. For this reason I am unable to work today."
2. "He said he wasn't well. It was for that reason that he didn't come to work today."

In 1, the reason has just been given. It's proximate; we can use 'this'.
In 2, the reason given is removed from the present situation by being given hours later by a different person.

Usually, you can use either.

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I have been misleading in giving the examples of "for this/that reason", "due to this/that reason" and "because of this/that reason" and I am sorry for that. In post #5 I actually intended to ask about whether you native speakers really say "due to a reason" or "because of a reason" besides the collocations of "for a reason" and "by reason of" under normal circumstances or you use "due to a reason" or "because of a reason", which I cannot find in my physical Oxford dictionary or the Online Oxford Collocation Dictionary, only when you explain things to others in order to have a change in the use of collocations which have the same meaning but some of these substitutes are actually not used under normal circumstances.

Along this line of thinking in the last part of post # 5, I asked whether you native speakers say "Neither the CEO was in his office nor his assistants were in their office" to explain the underlying structure of "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in their office" while in normal daily situations you never say "Neither Statement A nor Statement B."

I am indeed eagerly looking forward to your answer, which I am sure will be very helpful to my deeper understanding of how English actually works. Thanks.

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

ohmyrichard said:

To repeat, which do you think should be used at the beginning of a new paragraph to refer back to what you have just discussed in the last one or two sentences of the previous paragraph, "this" or "that" or either? Thanks.

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You can use either.

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

1. Yes, native speakers do say "due to this reason" and "because of this reason".
2. I asked whether you native speakers say "Neither the CEO was in his office nor his assistants were in their office" to explain the underlying structure of "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in their office"
I would explain it by saying "The CEO was not in his office, nor were his assistants in their offices." if that is the meaning. There is some question in the original about whose offices the CEO and his assistants are not in. Depending on the context, it could mean "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in some other unnamed people's office."

Re: Is "so" omitted after "seem" and "be" in these two sentences

" to explain the underlying structure of "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in their office"
[/COLOR]I would explain it by saying "The CEO was not in his office, nor were his assistants in their offices." if that is the meaning. There is some question in the original about whose offices the CEO and his assistants are not in. Depending on the context, it could mean "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in some other unnamed people's office."[/QUOTE]

A big Thank-you to you, Raymott. Regarding the sentence of "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in their office", in terms of who is (not) in whose office I agree with you that it is a quite tricky issue but here I would like to focus on its structure. I used to explain to my former students that there is the ommission of "was in his office" after "Neither the CEO", that if we have what is omitted back in place, it would be quite obvious why it is "were", not "was", that is used after "his assistants", and that then knowing what is underlying structurally we do not need to mechanically apply the proximity rule in this case.

However, this semester when I wanted to explain it to my current students in class the same way, I suddenly started to doubt the correctness of my whimsical (Should I use "fabricated" instead of "whimsical"?) reasoning. Afterwards, I did some research but failed to get any evidence that native speakers of English explain this sentence my way, let alone expressing the idea my way in any normal situations. I mean I cannot find sentences with the structure of "Neither someone does something nor someone else does the same thing" or " Neither someone is in a state nor someone else is in the same state" to support my reasoning. This is why I thought of asking you about it in that post. I know we do not need to repeat what is identical in the two parts of the sentence; what I cared most about is whether "Neither Statement A nor Statement B" is allowed in English.

It is good to know from you for sure that you native speakers of English do not even explain "Neither A nor B does something or is in a certain state" my way.I got in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary the sentence of "He didn't remember and neither did I", which is similar to your sentence used to explain "Neither the CEO nor his assistants were in their office." Thank you very much!