I'm looking for a technical book about the English language: grammar, etc.

Eliot Rosewater

Here's a riddle I heard in a lecture today: A rich woman decides to divide her fortune of €10 million equally between a number of lion tamers. How much does each lion tamer get?

The answer is €5 million, because the word "between" indicates two parties, hence two lion tamers.

The lecturer used our ignorance of the answer to make the point that students aren't taught the ins and outs of grammar these days. He listed off the names of a couple of grammatical concepts that no one recognised.

In light of this fact, and the fact that I'm going through a "give me all the knowledge I can get" phase, can anyone recommend me a book that will give me a technical and generally better understanding of the English language?

metrovelvet

I used to use "Elements of Style", Strunk and White, but it has been criticized.

pickarooney

"a technical books", "a rich women" - is there a pattern here?

I find Wikipedia, with properly cited resources, as good as anything for tackling new and exotic concepts of language. It's just so much easier to cross-reference everything quickly.

Of course, you have to know what you want to know for starters.

Eliot Rosewater

pickarooney wrote: »

"a technical books", "a rich women" - is there a pattern here?

Post duly amended! I don't know how I missed those: I read over my post about three times.

pickarooney wrote: »

Of course, you have to know what you want to know for starters.

Indeed. I suppose I want to be informed about the language on a linguistic level. I want to know what the "genitive case" is, for example. Though I think I have a good enough grasp of the language (bar a few slip ups, of course ) I could not describe the various components of a given sentence.

Donkey Oaty

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I want to know what the "genitive case" is, for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case

I do like my hard copies, but as Pick says, it's all there.

pickarooney

The genetive case is very straightforward in English - it's basically 's.
Compared with the Irish tuiseal ginideach...

The basic sub-categories of linguistics would be
- phonetics (one of the more interesting aspects, involving lots of arcane transliteration with funny symbols)
- phonology (very broad and relates as much to biology as language, e.g. sound production on a physical level)
- morphology (how words move from one form to another, through conjugation, pluralisation, tense etc.
- syntax (grammar, how sentences are constructed and what each element is. Be prepared to draw a lot of trees. You might enjoy this, based on your sig )
- semantics (word and sentence meaning, more towards the abstract end of the scale)

Then there are fields such as etymology, pragmatics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics...

You might find you get more out of books which approach linguistics from a more scientific point of view. If I can remember the name of my first year linguistics book it was really well laid out and covered all the various fields in just enough detail. All I can remember is that it had a royal blue cover and had about 700 pages!

metrovelvet

....ah diagramming sentences. I remember that.... and not with fondness.

Rosewater - is it lent? Are you wearing a hair shirt? Did you cheat on your girlfriend or skip work or something?

Eliot Rosewater

pickarooney wrote: »

The genetive case is very straightforward in English - it's basically 's....

Cheers for that pickarooney! Syntax was the one I was getting at (as you guessed )!

metrovelvet wrote: »

Rosewater - is it lent? Are you wearing a hair shirt? Did you cheat on your girlfriend or skip work or something?

Yeah, cheated on the girlfriend and she'll only take me back if I can teach her a course on theoretical linguistics. Oh to be back in the days when a simple apology would do!

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

I do like my hard copies, but as Pick says, it's all there.

I know, but I do find it hard to learn from a computer screen.

pickarooney

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I know, but I do find it hard to learn from a computer screen.

Does not compute!

I still can't recall the name of that book, but if you have a look at Natural Language Processing as a subject it's a fairly mathematical approach to syntax.

metrovelvet

since feeling is first... (VII) by E. E. Cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Eliot Rosewater

A daring post metrovelvet - if I was being serious you might have convinced me to abscond!

pickarooney wrote: »

I still can't recall the name of that book, but if you have a look at Natural Language Processing as a subject it's a fairly mathematical approach to syntax.

I'll give a look around the UCC library and see what I can find.

FlutterinBantam

:eek:

I've strayed into the reach around forum.


Backs out

backs out


backs out

:cool:

Eliot Rosewater

Perhaps I should look into that semantics thing too. The meaning of FlutterinBantam's post has gone completely over my head!

Reminds me of the more/most thing. If you are comparing two objects you say one is more -adjective- rather than one is "the most". I think. Isn't that correct?

Regarding the OP, the question would have used "among" if there were a number of lion tamers, I suppose?

metrovelvet

bluewolf wrote: »

Reminds me of the more/most thing. If you are comparing two objects you say one is more -adjective- rather than one is "the most". I think. Isn't that correct?

Regarding the OP, the question would have used "among" if there were a number of lion tamers, I suppose?

Yes but it'd kind of an unfair question because one can't assume anymore that people using between and among know the difference.