Help Answering a Grammar Question

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  • This topic has 17 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by Avatar photoPaul.
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  • #32683
    Avatar photoVenus Xiong
    Participant

    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?

    #32684
    Avatar photoBrendan
    Moderator

    and maybe the villa is not in London

    Hurt brain hurt much.

    #32686
    Avatar photong so fan
    Participant

    The 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????  🙂

    #32688
    Avatar photoKim Duistermaat
    Participant

    Your 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.

    #32691
    Avatar photoIan
    Participant

    Action 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.

    #32697
    Avatar photoVenus Xiong
    Participant

    Thanks 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.

    #32699
    Avatar photoCharlie
    Keymaster

    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.

    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).

    #32700
    Avatar photoMerior
    Participant

    They 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”.
    —————————————————————
    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.

    #32707
    Avatar photoVenus Xiong
    Participant

    Thanks 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.

    #32708
    Avatar photoIan
    Participant

    #32709
    Avatar photoBrendan
    Moderator

    There 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.

    #32713
    Avatar photoVincent
    Participant

    Now I’m confused

    #32717
    Avatar photoMerior
    Participant

    @ 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.

    #32718
    Avatar photong so fan
    Participant

    Please don’t generalize Chinese girls

    Please don’t generalize by one Chinese girl

    May be the Chinese girl isn’t a girl

     

     

    #32719
    Avatar photoCharlie
    Keymaster

    @ 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.

    #32753
    Avatar photoEric
    Participant

    im 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.

    #32800
    Avatar photoKim Duistermaat
    Participant

    I 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/

    #32803
    Avatar photoPaul
    Participant

    Is 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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