[Grammar] subjunctive or not

[SoothingDave]

With respect to the "won out" part, i just think it doesnt make sense (in meaning) to be indicative.
As far as I know, Republicans' challenges to the health-care overhaul are still having trouble to be permitted to go to trial (in some states), let alone in effect winnning out. then why the past indicative tense?

Thx again.

They have "won out" because they have caused the Republicans to win the control of the US House, and to make significant gains in the US Senate. If elections are about ideas, this election was about Obama and the Democrats use of their power to enact unpopular legislation.

The election of Republicans in great numbers in the recent election was a repudiation of the Democrats behavior.

So the Republican ideas did "win out" in the recent election.

 

[swimagic]

Swimagic: this is not a Chinese forum, but help me out here please: who is waiting for whom??

你们等我一会儿。我等你们一会儿。

你们等我一会儿, You (guys), (plz) await me for a while -------- it's more like an imperative.
我等你们一会儿, I'll await you for a while.

I'll elaboarte in the following post.

 

[corum]

Prepositions are my pets. I should really, sincerely like to see 'come' used as a prepo.

Here you are, my best friend:

come
preposition
informal
when a specified time is reached or event happens:
I don‘t think that they’ll be far away from honours come the new season

definition of come from Oxford Dictionaries Online

---

come - definition
preposition, informal
at a particular time in the future or when a particular event happens
Come summer, all the building work should be finished.

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/come_54#come_57

 

[swimagic]

你们等我一会儿。我等你们一会儿。

in the active voice, chinese words are mostly arranged as SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT in a sentence.
我等你 I (will) wait for you.

the reason is that we have a relatively loose grammatical system, and the form of words (i mean of all words: nouns, verbs, you name it) NEVER change at all, so if we change the order, the meaning of a sentence may change accordingly.
我爱她 i love her
她爱我 she loves me

we also use inverted sentences, more like an "it is ... that" structure in english.
你才是我最爱的 it's you who i love the most.

the passive voice in chinese is pretty much the same as in english, except that we put "by sb." inbetween.
A被B打了. A was by B beaten.

Also, pay attention to "了".
When without a time reference, in most cases, it indicates the past tense or the past participle.
我吃了个苹果. i ate/have eaten an apple.

But, when used WITH a time reference, the tense is restricted to the time, and 了 almost means nothing at all.
昨天,我吃了个苹果 - yesterday, i ate an apple.
我已经吃了个苹果 - i have eaten an apple.
我要去吃个苹果了 - i'm gonna go eat an apple.
我正在做作业了 - (context: mom asks a kid if he's still playing) - I am doing my homework ALREADY.
他在车祸发生之前已经预感到了. - He had anticipated the car accident before it really happened.

 

[philo2009]

Philo: Some reference works even go so far as to classify it as a preposition but there is far from universal agreement on this.
5jj: Good. I tried to find some, but couldn't. Could you tell me the names of one or two, please?

(Far be it from me to direct people to sites offering, in my view, incorrect information, but) see Corum's earlier post.

 

[Pedroski]

I need help here: I cannot interpret 'come' as a prepo. What kind of prepo is it?

 

[corum]

I need help here: I cannot interpret 'come' as a prepo. What kind of prepo is it?

What kind of one-word prepos do you know of? How many types are there? What do you mean?

https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/...ntences/136068-come-january-3.html#post687147

 

[Pedroski]

I mean, I find the idea interesting, but its ramifications will lead to problems:

Come in!
Come here!
Go West!
Jump ship!
Arrive London 2am.
The same argument would make prepos of the verbs here.

Also, if it were a prepo, you could use it in 'phrasal' type verbs: 'go in', 'put up', 'see through'. Can you find any examples of such use? 'go come'? Maybe: 'I will come', but no, that won't work.

 

[lauralie2]

I need help here: I cannot interpret 'come' as a prepo. What kind of prepo is it?

Perhaps focusing on the word 'March' rather than on the word 'come' might help bring things a little more into perspective.


We know that:

• two dictionaries (or is it three?) tell us that 'come' as a preposition is archaic in form,
• that prepositions take nouns as their objects, and furthermore
• that nouns occur in three positions syntactically: subject, object of a verb, and object of a preposition:

​

Come March,...​

1. subject :cross:
2. object of a verb :?:
3. object of a preposition :?:

Option 1. is out given word-order constraints. Option 2. and 3 are possible but at this stage yet to be determined.

If 2. (the object of a verb), then expect an implied subject; i.e., archaic come (ye) March; Cf. mark (ye) my words. But would that be too much of a stretch?

If 3. (the object of a preposition), then expect 'come' to gain its category via its position relative to the noun 'March' as we are constrained by the grammar to define it in any other way.

 

[corum]

Option 1. is out given word-order constraints.

Is English strictly an SVO language, IYO?

 

[birdeen's call]

The following sentence seems to refute the idea.

And then came Christmas.

 

[corum]

I mean, I find the idea interesting, but its ramifications will lead to problems:

Come in!
Come here!
Go West!
Jump ship!
Arrive London 2am.
The same argument would make prepos of the verbs here.

Also, if it were a prepo, you could use it in 'phrasal' type verbs: 'go in', 'put up', 'see through'. Can you find any examples of such use? 'go come'? Maybe: 'I will come', but no, that won't work.

Not every, say, 'provided' is a subordinating conjunction and similarly, not every, 'come' is a preposition. Sentence structure matters.

I have provided them with some fruits.

Does the fact that 'provided' above is part of a verb phrase exclude the possibility of 'provided' functioning elsewhere as a subordinator? No. Does the fact that 'come' functions as a verb somewhere rule out the possibility of 'come' functioning as a preposition somewhere else? I highly doubt it.

 

[Johnson_F]

1. Come in! Come here! Go West! Jump ship! Arrive London 2am.
The same argument would make prepos of the verbs here.

2. Also, if it were a prepo, you could use it in 'phrasal' type verbs: 'go in', 'put up', 'see through'. Can you find any examples of such use? 'go come'? Maybe: 'I will come', but no, that won't work.

1. These all seem to be examples of imperatives, a different kettle of fish from 'Come March'.

2. All phrasal verbs, almost by definition, consist of a verb and at least one preposition (or adverb, or particle). Not all prepositions are used in the formation of phrasal verbs.

Neither of your arguments suffices to prove that 'come' in 'come March' is not a preposition.

 

[Johnson_F]

The following sentence seems to refute the idea.

And then came Christmas.

Surely this is just a version of 'And then Christmas came'?

 

[birdeen's call]

Surely this is just a version of 'And then Christmas came'?

It is. I believe it's an extant VS version.

 

[Johnson_F]

Come March

1. subject :cross:
2. object of a verb :?:
3. object of a preposition :?:

Option 1. is out given word-order constraints. Option 2. and 3 are possible but at this stage yet to be determined.
If 2. (the object of a verb), then expect an implied subject; i.e., archaic come (ye) March; Cf. mark (ye) my words. But would that be too much of a stretch?
If 3. (the object of a preposition), then expect 'come' to gain its category via its position relative to the noun 'March' as we are constrained by the grammar to define it in any other way.

1. Corum asked in post 30, "Is English strictly an SVO language?, and, of course, the answer is no. Should you doubt that, re-read this sentence. Besides, the main argument against 'come' as a preposition in 'come March' seems to be that it is a subjunctive verb. If that be the case, then 'March' is the subject.
2. I feel that 'March' as an object of otherwise intransitive 'come' is far too much of a stretch.
3. I think I agree with you here, but do not really understand your, "we are constrained by the grammar to define it any other way."

 

[Johnson_F]

It is. I believe it's an extant VS version.

In that case, there is no doubt that 'came' is a verb in your sentence (indicative, too), so this example is not really relevant to this discussion, I think. Or is it?

 

[birdeen's call]

In that case, there is no doubt that 'came' is a verb in your sentence (indicative, too), so this example is not really relevant to this discussion, I think. Or is it?

Corum asked whether lauralie2 thought English was strictly SVO. I allowed myself to give a counterexample. As you said, English is not stricly SVO and I thought an uncontroversial example wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

[Johnson_F]

Corum asked whether lauralie2 thought English was strictly SVO. I allowed myself to give a counterexample. As you said, English is not stricly SVO and I thought an uncontroversial example wouldn't be a bad idea.

I apologise, Birdeen's Call. I misunderstood the reason for your post. It was, in fact, completely relevant.

 

[lauralie2]

It is. I believe it's an extant VS version.

It is, and I think your example is a great addition to the discussion. Well done! I stand corrected.