Showing posts with label grammar of the English language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grammar of the English language. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2013

English grammar/writing: use of "present perfect" as opposed to "past tense"



… . The choice of present perfect or past tense depends on the frame of reference (period or point in time) in which the event is conceived as occurring. … . If the frame of reference extends to the present time, the present perfect is used. … . If the frame of reference is a time in the past, or a period which ended in the past, the past tense is used instead. …
The use of present perfect resp. past tense is quite different (as described above [link]), and German native speakers confuse their use in English a lot; by my experience they rather resist accepting the difference and applying them properly in English. (This is rather annoying.)

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

emphases in the English language

  • adjectives get pronounced on their first syllable; e.g. …; counterexample: …
  • verbs get pronounced on their second syllable; e.g. to refer, to access; counterexample: …
  • nouns get pronounced on their first syllable; e.g. the access, …; counterexample: …

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

English grammar: commas and relative clauses

Rule:
Relative that follows its antecedent:
When a relative (clause) immediately follows its antecedent, and is taken in a restrictive sense ("restrictive clause"), the comma should not be introduced before it.
The relative clause gets completed with a comma though. Of course it gets omitted, if there is a period anyway.

wikibooks on the grammar of the English language

Looks like the major entry in that list is this one: