The Toby Word and Language Service 托比英語諮詢

[sereintoby]

The Toby Word and Language Service (TWLS) is a specialist English Language service: http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6918

I research usage of English words and English Literature from the Middle Ages to the present day, and can answer a range of questions on this subject. Please allow me at least a week to answer some questions as some questions may involve a certain level of difficulty.

[kiasimom]

Welcome.

What do u mean by any questions?

[sereintoby]

What I mean is questions about school homework related to the subjects of English and English Literature.

[kiasimom]

OIC.


English questions. thanks.
That’s great. We now have a English guru

[cafelatte]

This is great! Appreciate your help me with these :


(1) I heard my neighbour __________ fiercely with her relatives at midnight.
(a) quarrel (b) quarrelled quarrelling

(2) She looks sick. Does she ________ a fever ?
(a) has (b) have had (d) is having

(3) when to use ‘who’ and when to use ‘whom’

I need to know the grammar reason/rule for the correct answer. Thanks very much in advance !

[sereintoby]

Who and Whom


Taken from http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/who.html

The distinction between “who” and “whom” is basically simple: “who” is the subject form of this pronoun and “whom” is the object form. “Who was wearing that awful dress at the Academy Awards banquet?” is correct because “who” is the subject of the sentence. “The MC was so startled by the neckline that he forgot to whom he was supposed to give the Oscar” is correct because “whom” is the object of the preposition “to.” So far so good.

Now consider this sort of question: “Who are you staring at?” Although strictly speaking the pronoun should be “whom,” nobody who wants to be taken seriously would use it in this case, though it is the object of the preposition “at.” (Bothered by ending the sentence with a preposition?) “Whom” is very rarely used even by careful speakers as the first word in a question, and many authorities have now conceded the point.

There is another sort of question in which “whom” appears later in the sentence: “I wonder whom he bribed to get the contract?” This may seem at first similar to the previous example, but here “whom” is not the subject of any verb in the sentence; rather it is part of the noun clause which itself is the object of the verb “wonder.” Here an old gender-biased but effective test for “whom” can be used. Try rewriting the sentence using “he” or “him.” Clearly “He bribed he” is incorrect; you would say “he bribed him.” Where “him” is the proper word in the paraphrased sentence, use “whom.”

Instances in which the direct object appears at the beginning of a sentence are tricky because we are used to having subjects in that position and are strongly tempted to use “who“: “Whomever Susan admired most was likely to get the job.” (Test: “She admired him.” Right?)

Where things get really messy is in statements in which the object or subject status of the pronoun is not immediately obvious. Example: “The police gave tickets to whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant.” The object of the preposition “to” is the entire noun clause, “whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant,” but “whoever” is the subject of that clause, the subject of the verb “had parked.” Here’s a case where the temptation to use “whomever” should be resisted.

Confused? Just try the “he or him” test, and if it’s still not clear, go with “who.” You’ll bother fewer people and have a fair chance of being right.

[sereintoby]

The British National Corpus (BNC) is a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of current British English, both spoken and written.


Does she have is more acceptable than the rest , the BNC lists 34 examples of its use. For example:

A0V 1104 Does she have a favourite singer?

ACN 724 Does she have the muscle to become a leading lady in her own right?

C8N 33 When your Mum finally returns from shopping, how many weeks’ pocket money does she have in her purse?

CEX 1168 Does she have any pills for her heart?‘;

CHT 698 How much space and what kind of play equipment does she have?

CJX 1895 `;Does she have any idea what the quarrel was about?’;

EF0 988 Nor does she have a sense for the impact which the fact that Christ has been seen as male and as part of the Godhead has had on the relations of women and men in western culture.

FAP 3789 Does she have a name?';

FBG 873 Does she have the time?


We will be discussing the logic behind the structure at a later time.

[sereintoby]

Any verb that is not a finite verb is a non finite verb.


Non finite verbs do not change in form to agree with a subject or to indicate past, present and future.

Present participles , past participles and infinitives are the non-finite verbs of English.

Non-finite verbs remain unchanged with a change from present to past tense :

I am looking[/ (non-finite verb) for a handbag.

I was looking for a new handbag.

I have bought the tickets.

I had bought the tickets.


(1) I heard my neighbour __________ fiercely with her relatives at midnight.
(a) quarrel (b) quarrelled (c) quarrelling


So the answer to the question is C, quarrelling, because heard is condered finite.


(2) She looks sick. Does she ________ a fever ?
(a) has (b) have (c) had (d) is having


The answer to this question is b, having because in the sense of experiencing something or doing something , especially habitually , the forms to use are :\"Did... have...?\"
\"Does... have...\"

Did you have any trouble finding us?
Did they have any trouble finding us?

Does he have coffee for breakfast?

Do or Did can be considered to be auxiliary verbs. So therefore maybe have here can be considered non finite. The finite verb is \"does\" which goes with she.

[cafelatte]

sereintoby:

So the answer to the question is C, quarrelling, because heard is condered finite.

The above conclusion is it because there can only be 1 finite verb in a sentence ? the 2nd verb (quarrel) is hence non-finite ? Why is the answer (c) quarrelling and not (a) quarrel ?

[sereintoby]

1) I heard my neighbour __________ fiercely with her relatives at midnight. (a) quarrel (b) quarrelled (c) quarrelling


There is only one finite verb for this sentence because of the only Subject \"I\", what that follows is the Object . Chances are you can answer 'quarrel' also because there is a specific time which is at midnight.
However I chose 'quarrelling' because the sentence may also be about a regular occurence, and also may emphasize the aspect of the quarrelling over a timeframe . It probably didn't only happen that midnight , but on other nights or days as well.


So determines how you would view it.

I saw him die at midnight. ( to me this means you see the whole thing)
I saw him dying at midnight( to me this means you may or may not have seen the completion of the act of dying.) So if one was sleeping at midnight , would one want to hear the entire quarrel which may last for several hours? One could have heard the entire quarrel or just part of the quarrel but on common sense ,no one would want to listen to an entire quarrel by one's neighbour.

I saw him eating the chicken at midnight.
I saw him eat the chicken at midnight.