Home›Forums›General Discussion›Help Answering a Grammar Question
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June 13, 2013 at 4:19 pm #32683Venus XiongParticipant
hi, i’m Venus. i have a grammer question which puzzles me for a long time. hope you can help me to get the answer. thanks very much.
Is the following sentence correct?
“The owner of the company sells in London his villa.”
I want to emphasis that the action “sell” happens in London. and maybe the villa is not in London.
I am confused whether “in London” should be put at the end of the sentence.
if “in London” is put in the end, then the sentence will be: The owner of the company sells his villa in London .
here comes the question: does “his villa in London” mean the villa which is in London?
June 13, 2013 at 4:34 pm #32684BrendanModeratorand maybe the villa is not in London
Hurt brain hurt much.
June 13, 2013 at 7:17 pm #32686ng so fanParticipantThe owner of the company sell his villa in London and his villa is not in London.
The owner of the company sell in London his villa that is not in London
The owner of the company sell his not-in-london villa in London
DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME???? 🙂
June 13, 2013 at 9:44 pm #32688Kim DuistermaatParticipantYour sentence ‘ the owner of the company sells in London his villa’ is not correct.
‘the owner of the company sells his villa in London’ is correct, but suggests the villa is in London.
you might try:
‘in London, the owner of the company sells his villa’
which tells you where the owner is selling, but does not specify the location of the villa.June 14, 2013 at 9:01 am #32691IanParticipantAction means verb. So you should be using sold.
The owner in London sold his villa.
Sells is third person singular.
Example.
She sells her body every night to fat German business men to make a living.
June 14, 2013 at 10:02 am #32697Venus XiongParticipantThanks so much for all your helpful answers.
Another confusing thing: i read in a grammer book the verb which follows “there” must be decided according to noun after the verb. Whether the noun is a singular or a plural. If the noun is a singular, the verb must be “is”.
But when I did an exercise in the grammer book, the answer made me confused.
The exercise: “Fill out the bracket with is or are.”
There ( ) uncle Jim and brother Jack.
The answer given is “are”. But I think it should be “is” according to the grammer book.June 14, 2013 at 10:28 am #32699CharlieKeymasterThe exercise: “Fill out the bracket with is or are.”
There ( ) uncle Jim and brother Jack.
The answer given is “are”. But I think it should be “is” according to the grammer book.I think the difference is between singular and plural subjects – you’d say “there is Jim” and “there is brother Jack”, but “there are Jim and Jack” because you’re referring to two subjects (people).
June 14, 2013 at 10:31 am #32700MeriorParticipantThey don’t have “villas” in the UK but the following example is sufficiently vague to suit your purpose as it gives no clue as to the location of the villa. Generally they are referred to in the UK as “houses”, “detached properties” or maybe even “mansions”.
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The owner of the company sold his villa while he was in London.Or you could spell it out…
The owner of the company sold the villa in Spain through a London Estate Agent.
June 14, 2013 at 12:33 pm #32707Venus XiongParticipantThanks for your answers.But, if “there are Jim and Jack” is right, how about the following sentences?
There is a book and some pencils on the desk.
There are some pencils and a book on the desk.June 14, 2013 at 1:02 pm #32708IanParticipantJune 14, 2013 at 2:19 pm #32709BrendanModeratorThere is a book and some pencils on the desk.
There are some pencils and a book on the desk.…and maybe it is not a desk.
June 14, 2013 at 2:41 pm #32713VincentParticipantNow I’m confused
June 14, 2013 at 3:24 pm #32717MeriorParticipant@ Venus – we aren’t going to be there for your SATS.
@ Vincent – if you are a native English (or even American) speaker then you don’t need to understand the rules of grammar. In fact, I am sure that they only invented the rules of grammar so that Chinese girls would need our help.
June 14, 2013 at 3:29 pm #32718ng so fanParticipantPlease don’t generalize Chinese girls
Please don’t generalize by one Chinese girl
May be the Chinese girl isn’t a girl
June 14, 2013 at 3:30 pm #32719CharlieKeymaster@ Venus – we aren’t going to be there for your SATS. @ Vincent – if you are a native English (or even American) speaker then you don’t need to understand the rules of grammar. In fact, I am sure that they only invented the rules of grammar so that Chinese girls would need our help.
I think we (native English speakers) have an intrinsic grasp of most of the details, but communicating them to non-native speakers is sometimes difficult. I’ve had so many times where I’m explaining something like a grammatical feature of English and it just ends with “I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is”. By comparison, Chinese is a lot more logical than English.
June 15, 2013 at 11:10 am #32753EricParticipantim an english minor and i dont know jack about grammar. charlie’s right. “it’s just the way it is”, or “that doesn’t sound right.” comes up quite often.
June 16, 2013 at 11:35 pm #32800Kim DuistermaatParticipantI think (but I’m not a native speaker) that formally, the verb should go with the grammatical subject, so it should be ‘there are a book and some pencils on the desk’.
But, in real life, colloquial use, apparently many native speakers feel ok about ‘there is a book and some pencils on the desk’ while they do not feel ok about ‘there is some pencils and a book on the desk’ (because the first noun to follow the verb is plural). Perhaps also the ‘distance’ to the verb matters: many people don’t have any trouble with ‘when you turn here, there is a grocery shop on your left and a bakery on your right’, or ‘there is a book in my bag and some pencils on the desk’.
Also, I think the meaning of ‘there’ in the Jim and Jack sentence is different from the meaning of ‘there in the books on the desk sentence.
I like this website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
June 17, 2013 at 8:42 am #32803PaulParticipantIs the action still going on? If so, “The owner of the compnay is in London selling his villa” would do. In this sentence, the owner is in London with the intent to sell his villa, thus the location of the action is implied to be in London. Since the example given is only one sentence long, the sentence “The owner of the company is selling his villa in London” is confused. If there was a context, it would be able to make the distinction between the location of the villa and the location of the sale in that the reader should already know the location of the villa before this sentence is reached.
The examples of the book and pencils sounds perfectly all-right to me as the meaning comes across clearly and isn’t confused at all.
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