I have often heard and always thought that people exclaim "(T)here you are!" when they, for example, found someone they’ve been looking for. So much so that I was pretty surprised to learn that that phrase is used for handing someone something. However, there is no definition for an exclamation to a discovery, and I … Read more
Looking at the TV was/were John and Jane. Should "to be" be conjugated in the singular or plural form? My first thought was that it should agree with Looking at the TV; after all it comes first in the sentence and it makes sense to think that it should be the subject. But then what … Read more
I came across this quote and was intrigued by its grammar: "The soul would have no rainbow, had the eyes no tears" At first glance, "had the eyes no tears" this seems like a type II conditional sentence being inverted (I can vaguely make out the conditional clause to mean "If the eyes had no … Read more
I want to understand the underlying structure of "How + adjective + subject + verb" ex) how selfish we are. Here’s my opinion. As the form of indirect question, subject and verb inversion has taken place. How + adjective + verb + subject -> How + adjective + subject + verb ex) How selfish are … Read more
I want to know how to invert these if-clauses in conditionals (for the convenience, I’d leave the main-clause): If I am not going to catch the train… (a real conditional) If I were not going to catch the train… (an unreal conditional in the present) If had not been going to catch the train… (an … Read more
I have seen the following sentence in some article: Where some understanding exists of how brain processes produce mental phenomena-for example, pain, thirst, vision, smell-it is clear that specific neurobiological processes are involved. It seems that the original form of the bold phrase is is: Where some understanding of how brain processes produce mental phenomena … Read more
The people all wanted a new leader. In the above example, what is the grammatical function of all? Is it an inversion of ‘all of the people’ or ‘all the people’? Or is it something else entirely? I have noticed various ambiguous constructions like these, most of which involve a quantifier (e.g. all, both, each, … Read more
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It’s a line from Martin Luther King’s famous speech, I wonder if it is inverted? Because I suppose normally we would say, we stand in his symbolic shadow today. Why is his sentence structured like that? Answer … Read more
In the book "Horizons: exploring the universe-Cengage learning (2018)", it said: Only during totality, when the photosphere is completely hidden, is it safe to look at the Sun directly. So I was wondering why the author wrote "is it safe … directly." Is it correct in terms of grammar? Shouldn’t it be "it is safe.. … Read more
I’ve seen many examples that suggest putting not after the subject. E.g. Were Elsa not a brave girl, she wouldn’t go with us. Can we write: Weren’t Elsa a brave girl, she wouldn’t go with us. as if we invert the subject and the verb in an interrogative sentence? The reason I’m asking this problem is, there’s an … Read more
