3 ms·
What's wrong with that?
by afandian 13y ago
What's wrong with that?
- adrianb 13y agothis was / these were
- afandian 13y agoIt's not quite as simple as tense and agreement though. This example is the subjunctive mood (and it is correct). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive Unless I completely missed your point and you felt that the correct grammar clashed with your intuition, in which case I apologise, and I suppose it depends on your linguistic surroundings when you learn the language.
- cliveowen 13y agoI know it's not wrong, it's just that every time I see it, it feels wrong.
- afandian 13y agoOkay. As I said in my comment further down, I suppose this depends on your linguistic surroundings when you learned to speak. To me using 'were' in the incorrect mood feels wrong. I'm not a strict grammarian (I had to look that reference up to double-check before posting), and my feel for grammar is intuitive rather than learned from verb tables. Obviously the verb-tables (or fragments of them) are encoded in that haze of language in some latent form, but it's entirely down to the environment in which I learned to speak. Acquisition of grammar is a fascinating topic. Can anyone can recommend any books on the subject?
- mogrim 13y agoNot sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" is quite an entertaining look at English (mainly British) grammar.
- ghaff 13y agoSince you asked specifically about the acquisition of language, Steven Pinker has written a number of books that touch on the topic, e.g. The Language Instinct. Note that there are a number of conflicting theories about language and how it's acquired so probably no single book will give you an unbiased view of the current best thinking in the space.
- afandian 13y agoCool. There's a number of Pinkers floating around my home, I might just pick one up.