object of preposition

Status
Not open for further replies.

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Fine. I will demonstrate my prowess in no more of your threads.



Sorry. It was a typo, now corrected.



No.

If you quote "Both nouns and adjectives can act/function as noun modifiers." then you are literally saying the same thing as I have been saying all along. hmm....
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I think we share the same understanding except you don't like to call it adjective but prefer to call it a noun modifying another noun.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
If you quote "Both nouns and adjectives can act/function as noun modifiers." then you are literally saying the same thing as I have been saying all along. hmm....

I have just quoted your statement. That doesn't mean that I agree with it; in online forums, we quote a statement to which we are replying to make it easier to follow the thread.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I have just quoted your statement. That doesn't mean that I agree with it; in online forums, we quote a statement to which we are replying to make it easier to follow the thread.

That was a typo. "quote" was suppose to be wrote. Now it makes sense. It came out wrong.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
This is what my grammar book says:

Adjectives

An adjective is a word that modifies, or describes, a noun or pronoun. An adjective can tell what kind, which one, how many, or how much. Examples include strong, this, three, and less. The articles a, an, and the are also adjectives. In addition, possessive nouns and pronouns can be considered adjectives because they describe nouns. Examples of possessive nouns are children’s, adults’, and Mrs. Dean’s.

A preposition is a word that indicates how a noun or pronoun relates to some other word in its sentence. Examples include before, throughout, and with. Some prepositions are made up of more than one word, such as in front of and except for. A prepositional phrase is made up of a preposition, its object, and any modifiers of the object. Examples of prepositional phrases are “before the storm,” “during heavy rain,” and “in front of an old barn.” Prepositional phrases may act as adjectives or as adverbs.


I think the reason for saying it’s not an adjective is because the noun and adjective share no association with each other in terms of meaning, other than that they modify/act.


Nouns and adjective act and modify words the same way as each other. The noun Emma is modifying another noun just like an adjective would. I don’t understand why this is not the same? Can anyone shed some light on this?
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Nouns and adjective act and modify words the same way as each other. The noun Emma is modifying another noun just like an adjective would. I don’t understand why this is not the same? Can anyone shed some light on this?

I have no light to shed, sorry.

I do have some sympathy for your way of understanding, though. There are many practical grammar resources out there that would state quite explicitly that an adjective is defined by what it does. And I think that, generally, this is how many English teachers think— if a word is modifying a noun phrase, then it's an adjective.

Piscean's view is the one held by respected grammarians, and so for your purposes, given the kind of analysis that you're trying to do, is a view that you might want to adopt.

But on the other hand, if you just want to practise analysing how the parts of sentences fit together to express meaning, then it doesn't matter whether you call it an adjective or modifier. It's just a label.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I just finished up reading about possessive nouns.

"Emma" is a possessive noun. For grammarians it's a genitive case because there's no ownership.

Here in the sentence, Emma is functioning as an adjective modifying the noun class. To be technical, it's still a noun and adjectives can modify Emma because it's a noun type.

That that now concludes my understanding, anyone disagree?

By the way, in some of the material showing it as an adjective it's because it's acting as an adjective.
 
Last edited:

Rover_KE

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
I don't think it's important. The book "Sentence Diagramming for Middle School".
We'll be the judges of what's important. You still haven't told us the author.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
It is important to know about books from which ideas are quoted so that we can assess the reliability of the information. A book about English grammar written by an internationally recognised authority is likely to be more reliable than one written by a non-native-speaking student trying to make some money.

Detailed explanations of some of the ideas I summarise can be found in:

Huddleston, Rodney (1984), An Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge: CUP
Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey Pullum (2002), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP
Aarts, Bas (2011), Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford: OUP

Briefer notes can be found in:

McArthur, Tom (ed) (1992), The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford, OUP.

These books are unlikely to be of much use to people wishing to learn how to communicate effectively in English, but they are valuable to those who are interested in English grammar per se. The first one is invaluable for those wishing to know what terminology is used by many modern grammarians, and why there are now labels unfamiilar to people who may have last learnt about grammar at school some decades ago. It also explains why some of the traditional terminology is now used in a different way.

That book itself is now over thirty years old, but many of the ideas mentioned in it are now widely accepted and taught - in the academic world at least.

Hi,

I managed to get a copy of all of the books. The first one: "Huddleston, Rodney (1984), An Introduction to the Grammar of English" is a great book. I was looking everywhere to learn about tree diagrams but gave up. This book on first glance seems to talk about the tree diagram in depth. I've not had a chance to read the entire book yet, but I can sense there is a lot I like about it. There's a part where it talks about ambiguity with the following sentence:

Liz attacked the man with a knife

It's show the ambiguity in the tree diagram. This is exactly what I want to learn, and it's the reason why I have asked similar questions in the forum. This is grammar heaven!

The other books: "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language" this book is huge. There are about 1830 odd pages. There's a lot of reading to do.

The other books are equally as good. There's a good list of assortment here to be busy with.
This is great! I really appreciate the recommendation it’s exactly what I want to learn.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
We'll be the judges of what's important. You still haven't told us the author.

Doesn't actually state author but I think it’s a publishing company of some sort: Glencoe Language Arts or Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
 

PaulMatthews

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Great Britain
Current Location
Great Britain
I just finished up reading about possessive nouns.

"Emma" is a possessive noun. For grammarians it's a genitive case because there's no ownership.

Here in the sentence, Emma is functioning as an adjective modifying the noun class. To be technical, it's still a noun and adjectives can modify Emma because it's a noun type.

That that now concludes my understanding, anyone disagree?

By the way, in some of the material showing it as an adjective it's because it's acting as an adjective.

I disagree.

Emma's class.

Here, "Emma's is a genitive noun functioning as a determiner.

Emma's is not functioning as an adjective. You are confusing form and function. And it's not a modifier either, but a determiner. Please take that on board once and for all.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I disagree.

Emma's class.

Here, "Emma's is a genitive noun functioning as a determiner.

Emma's is not functioning as an adjective. You are confusing form and function. And it's not a modifier either, but a determiner. Please take that on board once and for all.

Ah. I can see why you have underline noun when mentioning genitive. I understand there can be different relationships when mentioning the genitive but in this case I am referring to Emma as a noun. The suffix -'s is a marker of genitive case in English and a noun modifying another noun.

I don't disagree it being a determiner.

Emma has all the hallmarks of an adjective in that it precedes a noun. For sentence diagramming sake, that's how it's interpreted. It's not wrong to say it's functioning as adjective so long as we understand its type is a noun and not an adjective. Is that wrong?

Here's a question: why are some people using the word modifier before the noun even if it's not modifying then?
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Here's a question: why are some people using the word modifier before the noun even if it's not modifying then?

A lack of familiarity with correct terminology. They mean 'determiner'.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
A lack of familiarity with correct terminology. They mean 'determiner'.

If Piscean a respected grammarian how come he says it’s a modifier?

" No. Emma's is anoun phrase. It functions as a modifier of noun class. "
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
If Piscean a respected grammarian how come he says it’s a modifier?

" No. Emma's is anoun phrase. It functions as a modifier of noun class. "

Coming from teaching backgrounds, neither myself nor my esteemed fellow member Piscean is a grammarian, though we do have considerable practical knowledge of grammar usage, and a modicum of theoretical knowledge of contemporary grammar studies.

I don't know about PaulMatthews, but I'm confident enough to say that for your purposes of analysing sentences, you would be very wise to listen to him.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Coming from teaching backgrounds, neither myself nor my esteemed fellow member Piscean is a grammarian, though we do have considerable practical knowledge of grammar usage, and a modicum of theoretical knowledge of contemporary grammar studies.

I don't know about PaulMatthews, but I'm confident enough to say that for your purposes of analysing sentences, you would be very wise to listen to him.

What about this (it too say's it's a modifier):

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/determiners/determiners.htm

Articles, determiners, and quantifiers are those little words that precede and modify nouns:

the teacher, a college, a bit of honey, that person, those people, whatever purpose, either way, your choice

Sometimes these words will tell the reader or listener whether we're referring to a specific or general thing (the garage out back; A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!); sometimes they tell how much or how many (lots of trees, several books, a great deal of confusion). The choice of the proper article or determiner to precede a noun or noun phrase is usually not a problem for writers who have grown up speaking English, nor is it a serious problem for non-native writers whose first language is a romance language such as Spanish. For other writers, though, this can be a considerable obstacle on the way to their mastery of English. In fact, some students from eastern European countries — where their native language has either no articles or an altogether different system of choosing articles and determiners — find that these "little words" can create problems long after every other aspect of English has been mastered.

Determiners are said to "mark" nouns. That is to say, you know a determiner will be followed by a noun. Some categories of determiners are limited (there are only three articles, a handful of possessive pronouns, etc.), but the possessive nouns are as limitless as nouns themselves. This limited nature of most determiner categories, however, explains why determiners are grouped apart from adjectives even though both serve a modifying function. We can imagine that the language will never tire of inventing new adjectives; the determiners (except for those possessive nouns), on the other hand, are well established, and this class of words is not going to grow in number. These categories of determiners are as follows: the articles (an, a, the — see below; possessive nouns (Joe's, the priest's, my mother's); possessive pronouns, (his, your, their, whose, etc.); numbers (one, two, etc.); indefinite pronouns (few, more, each, every, either, all, both, some, any, etc.); and demonstrative pronouns. The demonstratives (this, that, these, those, such) are discussed in the section on Demonstrative Pronouns. Notice that the possessive nouns differ from the other determiners in that they, themselves, are often accompanied by other determiners: "my mother's rug," "the priests's collar," "a dog's life."

This categorization of determiners is based on Understanding English Grammar by Martha Kolln. 4rth Edition. MacMillan Publishing Company: New York. 1994.
 

HeartShape

Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Quoted from: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, author Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum

Genitives, such as Christ' in [41V], we take to be modifiers not determiners. They occur
readily in names that are themselves functioning as modifier within a larger construction,
as in a Christ's College don: this is a construction which accepts nominals but not full NPs
in modifier position. Such genitives cannot normally contain a determiner -
compare King's College, Women's College, etc.

I think this quotes say it's a modifier too?
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
At the end of the day, it's a matter of defining terms. If you think that what determiners do can be acceptably described by the word modify, then you can call them modifiers. If you don't, you can't. Just be aware that not everybody agrees on definitions. (Least of all English teachers.)

From what I gather, what you need to focus on is the structure of sentences, and how this bears on the meaning. You can use whatever terminology you like as long as you can understand the function of a word/phrase as it occurs in use.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top