Researching language online: whom do you trust?
This short guide is addressed to teachers, trainee teachers and teacher trainers, not learners of English.
Frequently, teachers are encouraged (or even compelled) to do
some research into the language they are teaching or writing about
by accessing various website resources.
Because native speakers of any language can, with some justification,
claim to be experts in the language, and also because the language
they speak is usually of passing interest to them, there are hundreds,
possible thousands, of websites designed, written and maintained by
well-meaning people with the intention of helping people to
understand the structural and functional characteristics of English.
Moreover, because English is the most widely used language on earth,
there are naturally many thousands of people who are interested in
its nature and they, too, have a right to claim some expertise, even
if the language is not their first.
That's all very well, of course.
The problem comes when what people say on their friendly and
sometimes well-designed websites is wrong.
In what follows, we have withheld the sources of the
citations to spare the blushes of their authors. They are
pretty easy to track down, but why would you trouble to do so?
It may be that some of the more egregious examples which follow have
been corrected. In that case, they will be removed on request.
 |
So, what's the problem? |
The problem is, whom do you trust? Because, it seems:
Ignorance more frequently
begets confidence than does knowledge
Darwin, C, 1871, The Descent of Man and selection in relation to
sex, London, John Murray
This section of this guide is a long list of the most egregious
and obvious errors that a morning's research identifies. It is
nowhere near to being an exhaustive list, of course, because it
seems that, when it comes to analysing language, there is more
ignorance than knowledge on display.
If you are content to believe that much of what you read on the web
is wrong, partial or misleading and you want to skip to the end for
advice concerning where to look for help,
click here.
 |
Word classes and syntax |
Let's say, for example, that you are looking for some reliable
information about adverbs and prepositions.
These are major word classes, not just in English, one of which is
an open class to which we can make additions (adverbs) and the other of which
is a closed-class set of words (prepositions) to which it is very rare for
additions to be made.
An additional distinction is that adverbs qualify verbs in some way
(or other adverbs and adjectives) and prepositions form the heads of
prepositional phrases and are followed by a complement or, in more
functional analyses, an object.
It should, you would probably agree, be a simple matter to
distinguish between them.
Unfortunately, there are people
writing or contributing to websites who have a shaky grasp of the
difference between adverbs and prepositions.
Here's a selection of citations from websites. Can you
identify the error and correct it?
Click on the
to reveal an answer.
| Phrasal verbs change meaning
based on the preposition that follows them. One example which follows is: Could anyone with information about this crime please come forward. |
Well, actually, phrasal verbs are not formed with
prepositions at all. Those are called
prepositional verbs. Phrasal verbs are formed with
adverb particles.
In the example, of course, the word forward is an adverb, not a preposition. In fact, it is a slightly rare case of a word of this kind which can never be a preposition (although it can be an adjective). The expression come forward cannot be described as a verb plus a preposition or as a phrasal verb (the sentence also needs a question mark, just incidentally). What it is is a verb followed in the usual way by a modifying adverb. It's not mysterious. |
|
Preposition OUT is opposite of IN and used to show movement
away from the inside of a place or container. Examples which follow include: Your brother was out when I came by to see him. Government forces have driven the rebels out of the eastern district. Are you going out tonight? We're heading out at seven, so don't be late. |
It hard to unravel this nonsense which is designed,
apparently, to help people with phrasal verb use.
Firstly, of course, out is usually an adverb and out of is the preposition. Out of can only function as a preposition but out can be either an adverb or a preposition (or an adjective or a verb, incidentally). In the first example, the word out is an adverb, some might argue that it's an adjective, but what it is most certainly not is a preposition. In the second example, the preposition is out of, not out and that is followed by its object or complement the eastern district. It's an example of a verb followed by a modifying prepositional phrase. In the third and fourth examples, we have out as an adverb again and in the last case the adverb is followed by a prepositional phrase. In none of the examples (and there are many of them which follow) is the word out used as a preposition on its own although it is possible to use out in limited circumstances as a preposition. |
| The following
'rule' is given on a website ostensibly intended to help
learners with prepositions for the TOEFL examination: A preposition is a word which, with the following noun or pronoun, forms a phrase, and shows the relation of its object to the word whose meaning the phrase modifies. One example which follows is: The boys studied until they were tired out. |
The rule is, as you see, incomprehensible and even
if it were not, it's probably wrong.
In the example, the word out is an adverb. |
There is no argument that it is sometimes hard to tell an adverb from a preposition, especially if the prepositional complement or object is ellipted, but that does not mean we shouldn't try.
The worst by quite a long way are two sites intended to help
people prepare for and take a CELTA course.
Here's an example of what is meant.
All headings here are taken verbatim from the sites and are in
this type face.
You can correct them and then click on the
to
see if we agree.
| The site lists what it calls the
basic parts of speech
and that list is: subject, object, preposition, adverb, verb, adjective, noun (countable), noun (uncountable but that term is left out), auxiliary verb, modal verb, pronoun, article, conjunction. |
Here are the problems with the beginning:
|
| Unlike native speakers,
language learners need to construct their sentences carefully,
paying attention to which words perform which functions (parts
of speech) as they interact in the phrase or sentence. |
This is slightly confused and misleading. One of the
guiding principles of teaching a language is to stop this
over-monitoring behaviour by learners. Other problems
include:
|
| I will pass my CELTA course. subj + aux + v + pron + obj |
This is an attempt to see how a sentence can be parsed into
its various components. Unfortunately, it's wrong.
Here's why:
|
| All full sentences must have
a subject. |
Not true, even if one can figure out what the writer means
by a 'full sentence'. Try:
Go into the kitchen and ask your mother for example. That is a sentence (called a compound sentence) but it contains no subjects. |
| Verbs also have a form
called the Past Participle. These are when we use verbs as
an adjective to describe something. The book was TORN. The necklace had been GIVEN as a birthday present. |
There is a form called a past participle and both the
examples in upper case in that assertion are correctly
identified. Well done so far. Unfortunately, the
rest of the assertion is wrong:
|
| Adjective (adj.) Adjectives are really easy to remember. They simply describe or modify something. large, red, angry, beautiful, essential, tasty, Korean, leather etc. The LEATHER chair looked WORN but EXPENSIVE. My KOREAN teacher turns RED when he is ANGRY. |
Half marks. There is a difference between describing
and modifying and a difference, too, between describing and
classifying.
|
The website owns up to:
This website represents the
personal opinions and shared advice of a single individual.
It is not affiliated, approved or endorsed by University of
Cambridge ELA.
which, considering its error-strewn content, is probably just as
well.
The reader is admonished at the end (just before the sales pitch) as
follows:
Stop wasting your time trying to
pull together scraps of vague advice from online forums
Sound advice indeed.
You are, of course, at liberty to use that website or any others
you may come across in preparation for an initial or any other training course
and you could use it a resource when planning and preparing but
you'd be unwise to do so.
You could even invest £59 in a set of materials which were
all written by someone who
passed the CELTA with the highest possible grade! (unnecessary punctuation in the original).
That means, of
course, someone who has completed 120 hours of basic training in a
profession in which others have spent decades and are still
learning.
Hopefully, the commercial material has been written with slightly
more care but we are not about to spend £59 to find out.
Here's another from a frequently-used site (allegedly):
The possessive
pronouns are my, our, your, his, her, its, and their.
No, those are all possessive determiners and not pronouns at all.
Pronouns, by definition, stand for nouns and only
one of those words can perform a pronoun function. We cannot
have, for example:
*My house is bigger than their
because the word we require to perform the pronoun function is
theirs.
Obviously.
We do have a range of possessive pronouns in English. They are
mine, his, hers, ours, yours and theirs (without
its which cannot be a pronoun, only a determiner). Of
course, his happens to be a possessive determiner and a pronoun so,
purely by luck, the author of this has got one out of seven right.
This error is not a one-off event because it is repeated (word for
word) in the guide to using articles in English.
 |
More? |
Here are some more examples of odd errors of analysis with which the
web is infested. You can correct them and then click on the
to
see if we agree.
| Relative
clauses are clauses starting with the relative pronouns
who, that, which, whose, where, when. |
No. Of that list, only the first four are
relative pronouns (and one or two are missing). The
last
two are relative adverbs
and they work differently.
This is a common mistake because the grammar is superficially similar. |
| Modal
verbs help us understand more about the verb in question.
They give us hints on the possibility of something happening
(can, should etc.) or time (has, did, was etc.) |
Half right but poorly explained.
In fact, verbs such as has, did and was are not modal auxiliary verbs at all. They are primary auxiliary verbs and contain no hint of modality. The clumsy expression They give us hints ... is about 20% right. |
| Adverbs of
Time at the same time as for a long time frequently from time to time in a few minutes in the mornings last week |
One of these is actually an adverb (frequently) but most are
prepositional or noun phrases. They may be adverbials in
certain circumstances, but they are not adverbs.
|
| Collective
nouns a bottle of milk a herd of cattle a hack of smokers a cup of tea a staff of employees |
There are two obvious problems here.
a bottle of milk is not a collective noun, it is the opposite, a partitive expression. Collective nouns refer to the mass made up of individuals, partitive expressions refer to individuals from the mass. The second problem is the failure to distinguish between a collective noun such as staff or choir which does not need the of expression and an assemblage noun which usually does. We have, therefore, no need to insert of employees after staff or of singers after choir but we do need to insert the word cattle after an assemblage nouns like herd. The final problem is that there is no such thing as a hack of smokers. It's made-up nonsense. |
| We use some
and any with uncountable nouns and plural nouns. The general
rule is that you use “some” in positive sentences and “any”
in negative sentences and questions. “I have some ideas.” “I don’t have any ideas.” “Do you have any ideas?” However, we can also use “some” in questions. “Would you like some tea?” (I expect the answer to be “Yes”.) When we use some in a question, we limit what we are offering the other person. |
There are obvious problems with this:
This will mean that all the following are wrong: Anybody can come in Anything you can do would help I don't know some of these people Do you know something about this? What if someone calls? She denied stealing any money And they aren't. It's a quasi-rule and no real help at all. The second problem is that "Would you like some tea" is not a question, it's an offer. What the speaker expects the answer to be is a mystery. The third problem is the last bit about limits. This seems to have been made up because it is wrong. |
|
Words like deer and furniture do
not have plurals. |
This is surprisingly elementary.
The word deer, in common with some others for animals in particular (but not solely) has what is known as a zero plural. That is to say, it is unmarked in the plural. It has a plural, of course, because we can say, for example: Three deer are in the garden Furniture, on the other hand, is a mass noun and mass nouns have no plural. There is a very simple difference between no plural and a zero marked plural. |
| Real vs.
Really Real (adjective) describes things, really (adverb) describes actions. He is a real hero. He is really heroic. |
This is another surprisingly elementary error (it comes
from someone keen to sell you his books on English
grammar and usage, incidentally).
Yes, the word real is an adjective and the word really is an adverb. So far, well done. The problems come next: Adjectives describe things (true) but adverbs do not describe verbs, they modify them. They also modify adjectives and other adverbs and sometimes prepositional phrases. What we actually have here is an adverb modifying the adjective heroic. It's called an intensifier. It's hard to see how the word really describes anything and impossible to see how the word heroic qualifies as an action. |
| The zero
conditional uses if or when
and must be followed by the simple present or imperative. |
This one is slightly surprising because it is on a site
that is sometimes quite helpful and occasionally
accurate (ecenglish.com).
In fact, when a conditional sentence contains an imperative, the result is usually a real conditional sentence as in, e.g.: If you need any help, ask me A zero conditional, so-called, if it can be described as a conditional at all, does not contain an imperative. |
The examples above are all in really very simple areas of English
grammar and structure. The list could be extended almost
indefinitely if we include trickier areas of grammar
and phonology.
Fortunately, however, most of the authors of the websites in
question have not had the courage to venture into more esoteric
areas.
 |
Phrasal verbs and other mysteries |
| get out of the maze |
The problem we saw above of the inability to distinguish between a preposition and an adverb is compounded on websites which cannot distinguish between a verb modified by an adverb in the normal way and ones in which the adverb combines with the verb to form a new meaning. Nor can many distinguish a prepositional phrase following a verb from an adverb forming part of a phrasal verb. We get, therefore, all of the following described as containing phrasal verbs:
The crane picked up the entire house.
They tried to come in through the back door, but it was
locked.
It was so hot that I had to take off my shirt.
Stand up when speaking in class, please.
Someone broke into my car last night and stole the stereo.
Sally was about to get on the plane, but she turned around
when someone called her name.
I need to get rid of her.
We let our lovely dog in the house every morning.
We got on the bus at the usual stop.
None of those sentences contains examples of phrasal verbs. Most have verbs modified by adverbs in the normal way and others are, in fact, verbs with modifying prepositional phrases.
Multi-word verbs, of which phrasal verbs may be analysed as a subcategory, are certainly quite complicated to analyse and difficult to learn. The ease of neither undertaking is enhanced, however, by analysing every incidence of a verb plus a preposition or adverbial as a phrasal verb. Here's another example:
Phrasal verbs work by changing the verb’s
meaning based on the preposition that follows them.
Come in
To enter.
“‘Come in, the door is open!’ said the grandmother to the wolf.”
Pay back
To give someone back money that you owe them—can be separated by the
person getting paid back.
When it’s written as one word, “payback” means revenge.
“Thanks for getting me lunch when I forgot my wallet at home! I’ll
pay you back tomorrow.”
We need to break this down.
- Assertion #1:
- Phrasal verbs work by changing
the verb’s meaning ...
That's half true. The meaning of the verb in a phrasal verb is often (not invariably) altered by the word with which it combines. So, for example:
Look at that bird!
is a use of the verb that is transparent in meaning and is an admonition to direct one's eyes towards a bird. However:
Look up that bird in the guide
is clearly the verb combining with up to form a different meaning concerned with reference to a source of information. - Assertion #2
- ... based on the preposition that follows them.
Almost by definition, a phrasal verb is not followed by a preposition alone. It combines with an adverb to form a distinct meaning as we saw with our example of look up.
In that phrase, the verb is look up and is formed by the verb plus an adverb particle, NOT, look plus the preposition up.
However, in an expression such as:
Look up the chimney to see if it is blocked
we are not asking someone to refer to a reference book, we are asking someone to look in a certain direction.
We can follow a phrasal verb with a preposition, of course, so we allow:
Look it up in the guide
in which we have a phrasal verb, look up, followed by a prepositional phrase in the guide. - Assertion #3:
- Come in
To enter.
“‘Come in, the door is open!’ said the grandmother to the wolf.”
Now, the meaning of the expression come in is correctly identified. It does mean something like enter (although it does not mean to enter).
It is not, however, a phrasal verb and it is not a multi-word verb, either.
The correct analysis of the phrase is that it is the verb come (in its usual meaning of move towards) followed by an adverbial which happens to be an adverb (in). The adverb is modifying the verb to be sure but it is not combining with it to make a new meaning because we can equally have:
Come out
Come over
Come back
Come again
Come into the garden
as well as
Go in
Walk in
Run in
Slide in
Throw in
and lots of other expressions which have no effect at all on the base meaning of the verb. - Assertion #4:
- Pay back
To give someone back money that you owe them—can be separated by the person getting paid back.
When it’s written as one word, “payback” means revenge.
“Thanks for getting me lunch when I forgot my wallet at home! I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
There are some other false assertions here although the meaning has been, more or less, identified.
Yes, the phrase can be separated by "the person getting paid back" but what is missing from that assertion is when the person is represented by a pronoun, separation must occur so we allow:
I paid Mary back
I paid back Mary
and
I paid her back
we do not allow
*I paid back her.
That is not, however, a defining characteristic of a phrasal verb because this is the usual way verbs plus adverbs operate.
More to the point, the expression pay back is not a phrasal verb any more than come in is a phrasal verb because we can also have, for example:
pay over
pay again
pay in advance
pay by debit card
and thousands of other phrases in which the verb is modified by an adverbial but retains its basic meaning.
It is also correct that we can form a noun from the verb phrase and arrive at payback but that has little to do with phrasal verbs. The expression can, of course, also mean take revenge when it is not formed as a noun so:
I'll pay him back for his deceitfulness
also means take revenge on someone. It is a metaphorical use of the verb pay to be sure but not a phrasal verb.
The same site, incidentally, categorises numerous other examples of verbs followed by simple adverbs or verbs followed by prepositional phrases as phrasal verbs. Many are nothing of the kind.
Confusion over what is and is not a phrasal verb is so common out
here that only one more example site's problems will be enough.
We have left out a good deal of what follows on the site in question (some of which is accurate).
- Intransitive phrasal verbs
[...] intransitive phrasal verbs do not use an object.
True but that's the meaning of intransitive and nothing to do with phrasal verbs.
The example chosen to demonstrate this insight is:
The regional director was late, so the sales team went ahead without her.
which is not, unfortunately, a phrasal verb at all. It is simply the verb go used with an adverb, ahead and we can also have
go on
go back
go left
go right
go out
go in
and a host more which are just the verb used with an adverb and not an example of a mysterious phrasal verb at all. - Inseparable phrasal verbs
Inseparable phrasal verbs cannot be split up and must be used together.
with the example:
The wayward son carried on without his father.
Now, the verb carry on is actually a phrasal verb in this case (hooray) and the adverb is acting to denote progressiveness just as the adverb up often denotes completion. Aspectual uses of adverb particles are a teachable unit in themselves.
The problem here is that the example is of an intransitive use of the verb so it cannot be separated by the object because there isn't one (by definition).
When the verb is used as a transitive verb, it can be separated so we allow, e.g.:
She carried the work on alone
so the example is not of an inseparable phrasal verb at all. - come up with
think of an idea, especially as the first person to do so, or to produce a solution
with the example:
Sahar comes up with her best story ideas at night, so she writes them down before she forgets them.
This is presented as an example of a phrasal verb and it is one but of a special sort called a phrasal-prepositional verb. The correct way to analyse this is, arguably as a phrasal verb followed by a prepositional phrase. - count on
rely or depend on
with the example:
If I’m ever making a mistake, I can count on my friends to warn me.
This is presented as a phrasal verb but it isn't one, unfortunately. What it is can be called a verb with a dependent preposition or a prepositional verb but not a phrasal verb. Both the expressions used to explain the meaning of the item are also prepositional verbs so the argument is somewhat circular. - dive into
occupy oneself with something; to pore over quickly or reach into quickly
with the example:
I’ll dive into that new TV show later tonight.
The problem here is that the word into is not an adverb in any circumstances because it requires a complement. It is, therefore, a preposition.
What we have is a metaphorical use of the verb dive with a prepositional phrase into that new TV show.
Verbs followed by prepositional phrases, however figuratively they are used, are not phrasal verbs.
(The expression pore over quickly is also a bit mysterious because the meaning of pore over is not something that one can usually do quickly.) - For example, the transitive
phrasal verbs get through, come between, and go
against are all inseparable, so the direct object comes
after them every time.
with the examples:
[INCORRECT] Nothing comes us between.
[CORRECT] Nothing comes between us.
This would be a helpful thing to note if only the example was actually a phrasal verb but, unfortunately, it is just a verb followed by a prepositional phrase and not a phrasal verb at all. The word between is only, like into, a preposition and cannot be used adverbially.
We can have, therefore:
He put it between the house and the garage
or
He put it between them
but not
*He put it them between
because prepositions in English are followed, not preceded, by their complements (or objects, if you prefer). The meaning of the prefix pre- in preposition contains the clue. There are a few postpositions in English, in fact and other languages use them very extensively.
What has happened here, it seems, is that the author has spotted that we cannot use the preposition between after its complement or object and, having noted this simple truth, has decided that it must be an inseparable phrasal verb. If we follow that logic,
Put it under the table
would be an example of the use of an inseparable phrasal verb.
Later on the same page, we encounter come between as another example of a phrasal verb but it is not, for the same reason. - In fact, of the 80 or so expressions on this page which are
called phrasal verbs we also find
get around, get at, get away, get into, get through, get together
which are all examples of the polysemous verb get being used with an adverb, not a phrasal verb at all.
We also have:
leave out, let in, take out, throw away
listed as phrasal verbs and they aren't, of course.
We even have the expression let know listed as a phrasal verb and it is not even a multi-word verb. It is just the verb let combining with the verb know and we can also have:
let go
let believe
and many more combinations with let which must be separated by the object.
There are many other sites which insist that a verb plus a prepositional phrase such as occurs
in:
Get on the bus
contains a phrasal verb. It doesn't, of course, because it's
just the verb get meaning move position followed by a
simple prepositional phrase.
The same site suggests that go out, let in, log onto, put
together, put on, send back, think back, throw away are all
phrasal verbs when none is. They are just verbs being modified
by adverbs.
We could go on and there are many hundreds more examples of poor
analysis out here (some of which you will find explained in the
guide to multi-word verbs).
When almost any combination of a verb plus an adverb or a verb plus
a prepositional phrase is consigned to the category of a phrasal
verb two things happen, neither good:
- Learners are faced with thousands of combinations that they are asked to remember as single expressions when they are not.
- Learners are denied the opportunity to see how verbs may be normally modified by adverbs or followed by simple prepositional phrases.
 |
Catenative verbs
|
This seems, oddly, to be another source of deep confusion for
many. It shouldn't be because the area is quite simple.
However, ...
-
One site
has this:
Some verbs can be followed only by a gerund:
Some verbs with this pattern:
verbs of liking and disliking: enjoy, like, love, hate, dislike, fancy
phrases with ‘mind’ – like ‘I don’t mind‘
verbs of saying and thinking: admit, consider, deny, imagine, remember, suggest, recommend
other common verbs: avoid, begin, finish, keep, miss, practise, risk, start, stop
Well, some of this is correct but it depends what the verb refers to.
It is perfectly possible to allow:
I like to run in the mornings
I hate to disappoint you
I dislike to be difficult about this
We can also accept:
I remembered to post your letters
She recommended to get there early
We began to worry
They started to complain
The problem also is that some of these verbs can also take a direct nominalised clausal object as in, e.g.:
I admit to do it won't be easy
She is considered to be the best at her job
I imagine to be here in the winter is unpleasant
The truth is that many verbs can be used equally acceptably with both forms and some can have distinctly different meaning depending on the following verb form. -
Another site has:
We use gerunds (verb + ing):
[...]
As the subject or object of a sentence - Swimming is good exercise
And it's true that we can use the -ing form in this way. However, we can also use the to-infinitive in the same way:
To swim in warm water is extremely pleasant
We also find:
We use 'to' + infinitive:
[...]
I came to London to study English
in which, in fact, we have the preposition, to, standing for the more complex in order to so to study in this example is not an infinitive.
On that site, we also find the admonition always to use an infinitive after the verb hope for example so that disallows:
I hope speaking at the meeting won't be too stressful for you
and the same problem has arisen of using the -ing form as the direct object of the verb.
 |
Advice about language |
Another area which seems to cause a lot of difficulty is describing differences and similarities between English and other languages. Here are some examples from three different websites:
- A false cognate, or false friend, is a word
which has a similar form to a word in another language but has a
different meaning, like actually, which means
really in English but
now is
(sic) some European languages.
(Typographical error in the original.) - A cognate is a word that is basically written
the same, with the same meaning, in both languages.
Sometimes, a word only seems to be the same in both languages, but really has two completely different meanings. These are what we call false cognates, and they’re out there lurking just below the surface, waiting for unsuspecting students to amble by and pluck them up by accident. - A false cognate is a word or phrase that looks the same in both idioms but has a different meaning.
All that seems quite clear until you amble by and notice that
they are all wrong.
A false friend is a word which shares its etymology (that is to say,
its origin) with a word in
another language but over time the meanings of the words in the
languages have drifted apart.
There are lots of examples on this site so one will do:
The words aktuell (in German) and actual (in
English) share an original source so are cognates but in German, the
word means something like contemporary or current
and in English it means real or factual.
This is an example of a false friend, not a false cognate.
A false cognate is a word which coincidentally looks and may sound
like a word that means the same in another language but the words are wholly
differently derived and not related.
For example, the word occur in English translates as
okoru in Japanese (起こる) but the surface form is merely a
coincidence. The words are not cognates or false friends, they
are false cognates.
Finally, the word administration in English is translated
as administration French with exactly the same form
(although the pronunciation is different). These are cognate
words which are not false friends because the meaning is the same.
And here's an example from a site to help people speak French which seems unable to
translate from French into English and has a page entitled:
French English False Cognates - Faux Amis
and, of course faux amis translates better as false
friend although French does not distinguish in this case.
English does, though.
For more go to the guide to false friends on this site.
 |
Determiners |
| that mountain |
This is from one site but a short search reveals that there are many more sites that cannot distinguish between a determiner and a pronoun.
Demonstrative Pronouns
The demonstrative pronouns are this,
that, these and those. We
use them to refer to something specific.
Example:
This book is more interesting than that book.
These shoes fit better than those.
Well, yes and most definitely no. The words this, that,
these and those certainly can be demonstrative
pronouns (although their uses are quite different in terms of mass
vs. count noun uses). However, in the examples here we have
three cases of the words acting as demonstrative determiners and
only one case (the last) where it is a demonstrative pronoun.
To be clear:
This book, that book and these shoes
contain demonstrative determiners and not pronouns.
those in the second sentence is a pronoun.
Well, one out of three isn't all bad.
Here's another, even stranger one:
A determiner usually appears at the beginning of the noun phrases and works as an adjective to modify the nouns.
Well, again, yes and no. Most determiners do occur at the
beginning of noun phrases (although enough
is an exception worth mentioning) but they do not work like
adjectives, are not adjectives and do not modify the nouns in the
way that adjectives do.
The possessive and demonstrative determiners were once referred to
as adjectives but how one could class something like the or
many as an adjective is rather mysterious, not to say
misleading.
This sort of confusion bleeds over into the nasty habit of sites which prescribe the ordering of adjectives so we get the following, for example:
| What the adjective expresses | Examples |
| Quantity | four, ten, a few, several |
| Value/opinion | delicious, charming, beautiful |
| Size | tall, tiny, huge |
| Temperature | hot, cold |
| Age | old, young, new, 14-year-old |
| Shape | square, round |
| Color | red, purple, green |
| Origin | Swedish, Victorian, Chinese |
| Material | glass, silver, wooden |
It is certainly true as a rule of thumb that determiners precede
the adjective and classifiers generally follow the adjective and
come directly before the noun they determine. However, to
describe four, ten, a few and several as
adjectives is misleading (and wrong). They are, of course,
quantifying determiners.
To describe Chinese, glass, silver and wooden as
adjectives is also slightly misleading because they are actually
classifiers and they work rather differently.
Incidentally, this so-called rule would mean that:
John baked a huge delicious cake
She lives in a tiny beautiful cottage
There's a green round blob on it
He was a stocky ten-year old
I wore my Hawaiian short trousers
They live in a Mongolian round house
would all be wrong.
This sort of unusable and unreliable rule is much beloved of some
websites, possible because it's easier to state it and test it than
to exemplify and justify it.
It is debunked in the guide to adjectives on this site.
Lest you think that these are the only example of sites written by the inexperienced and ignorant for the inexperienced and ignorant you should know that in researching this short guide six other similarly confused and unhelpful sites were investigated. It would try your patience too far to include all that was discovered and, anyway, the point has been made.
On this site, a number of the areas of language analysis carry website warnings and many concern the sorts of issues we have exemplified here.
- back -
 |
So, how do we decide whether to trust a site? |
The first thing to do is to get some idea of whom the site is intended to help. There are four sorts of site (although some straddle the boundaries and some are almost impossible to characterise with any confidence).
- Sites designed to help learners of English.
Many of these are constructed by commercial organisations who want to use them as a free hook in the hope that visitors will go on to access the businesses' main sites and book a course or buy some materials.
Others are written by people who would like to earn some money from teaching online. They, too, are often obvious hooks intended to encourage people to sign up for courses (and pay for them).
They have the following main characteristics:- They are often written by teachers on the staff of the organisations who are under-trained or otherwise somewhat ignorant.
- They try to simplify the area because they know that
their object is pedagogic rather than to do with training
teachers. There is nothing wrong with that: many
text-based grammar books do the same thing but it is usually
clear what the intended audience is.
If the audience is learners of English, you will find that grammar guides in particular are likely to be simplified to the point of inaccuracy. It is very difficult to remain both accessible and accurate. That is not a criticism; it arises from the intentions of the authors. - They are often wrong.
- They are usually hurriedly put together and contain quite numerous typographical errors.
- Sites designed by publishers for teachers of English.
It has not escaped the notice of major ELT publishers that teachers are often quite influential when language teaching organisations come to enhancing or replacing their materials banks. Naturally, establishing a resource for teachers is a good way of raising the profile of certain materials and their publishers. Most major materials publishers now have websites which appear quite independent and unaffiliated but are, in fact, paid for and maintained by the commercial organisation which lies behind them. Some are more honest and open about this than others.
They are variably trustworthy, naturally. - Sites designed to be areas where learners and speakers of English can
discuss their ideas about how the language works.
These sites are usually places where people can post and answer questions about the language and are open to all. Such sites are not primarily intended for people teaching English or training teachers of the language. They have the following characteristics:- The topics are randomly organised because the structure of the site depends not on any consistent approach to analysis but on the questions people pose and the issues they raise.
- The answers which are provided are supplied by self-selecting people who feel they have some knowledge to impart. Sometimes, this is justified, often it is just a re-hash of half remembered and poorly digested information.
- Sites designed for training teachers or other people
studying language seriously.
These sites are often written by people working in higher or further education as a supplement to a face-to-face or online course in linguistics, pedagogy or applied linguistics.
Others are constructed by large non-profit organisations who have the resources and expertise to be accurate and helpful.
A few have been written by real experts in the language and teaching who are using the site to promote their own published material or just because they want to be helpful (or both).
They are:- Usually quite trustworthy because they are written by academics with a reputation to uphold and an understanding of the pitfalls to avoid.
- Often accessibly organised into topic areas and some have an internal consistency which helps people to build on their knowledge as they work or read through the materials.
 |
Scepticism |
If you are reading this, you are probably a teacher of English, a
teacher in or considering training or
a trainer so the first kind of site is not for you. Some of
the materials may be helpful when preparing a particular lesson
(because that's the audience they are aimed at) but they are worse
than useless if your concern is to analyse the language and research
the area.
The issue here is that you have to check what you are being told
very carefully (usually by cross-checking with a proper grammar book
or a trustworthy site).
Do not trust them.
Sites designed by publishers can be extremely helpful if you are
trying to locate a particular set of materials or a worksheet to
insert (suitably adapted) into a lesson. They are less helpful
when it comes to language analysis because analysis doesn't sell
books.
This second kind of site also requires you to cross-check the
information you find.
The third kind may be quite interesting and sometimes can alert
you to information about the language of which you were previously
unaware. However, the organisational shortcomings of this
sort of site may mean that you can't easily find what you are
looking for and when you do, you find it isn't what you wanted.
Sometimes, as was noted here, the responses to people's questions
and the issues raised are accurate, accessible and comprehensive as
well as written by people who know what they are writing about.
Unfortunately, that is often not the case so a little scepticism is
in order.
The fourth kind of site is the sort you can probably trust.
This site likes to think it is one of these.