Beetroot's Grammar thread

[Beetroot]

Today I am learing about sentence structure.

subjects, verbs, objects, comlements and adverbials.

Beetroot,

Whatever's doing the action in the verb is the subject. So in your last example "I" is the subject. (If it were the object, it wouldn't be "I" but "me").

Whatever's having the action of the verb done to it is a direct object. So in "I ate pizza", pizza's the object. A verb that can take a direct object is a transitive verb (v.t in dictionaries), and one that cannot is an intransitive verb (v.i. in dictionaries). "To lie" (in the lying down sense) is intransitive and "to lay" is transitive.

If the verb is "to be", e.g. "I am a cow", there isn't an object but a complement. Consider "to be" as like an equals sign.

I'd be completely clueless on grammar if I hadn't done O'Level Latin (showing my age again - oh dear!)

it all soujnds so complicated to me.

twiggy!!!! mad old bat will email you, possibly even today - DH has day off so I can show him the pics and have a fascinating chat about it. (Sorry not to have been back to you yet.)

Going back to gingerly - if it's an adjective then "a gingerly penis" should sound OK, if it's an adverb then "gingerly touching" is OK. I know which one I prefer.

what is a gingerly penis?

My point entirely

Do you think soupy has been lurking? She is "perching gingerly on one cheek" here

The only way to learn English grammar is via a foreign language. Latin is ideal because there are very few exceptions to its rules, and you get to learn completely useless stuff like gerunds and gerundives.

Gerunds and gerundives are not useless. If nothing else they give you a finer appreciation of the "Molesworth" cartoon on the private life of the gerund.

That is exactly what I was thinking about, but I did not exepct anyone else to know about Molesworth!

I'd say gingerly is an adverb... in french (which is where i learned my grammar) adverbs generally end in ment (gentiment, doucement) in english they quite often end in "ly"

I think adjectives can be used as adverbs though... so I'd say if you can replace the word with a "ly" ending word, it's used as an adverb. Am sure it's obviously far more complex than that and there are endless conflicting rules!

oops, I stand corrected an adverb doesn't define a noun/subject... so it is a adjective.

Adverbs can only add info to a
verb so: I did this gingerly
adjective: it's gingerly beautiful
adverb: it's gingerly quick

I was never all that good at french grammar! 10 years in the UK have only made me worse!!

True, but an adverb ending in "ly" is usually formed from an adjective eg loud-loudly, cold-coldly, pretty-prettily; and ginger is a noun.

Surely it's not where you got the word from, but what you do with it, that makes it an adverb rather than an adjective.

"Ginger" can be a noun (the knobbly stuff in the fridge)
or an adjective (e.g. ginger hair). Neither seems to have much to do with "gingerly", probably because "gingerly" comes from a different root to do with being highly born and delicate (and not Zingiber officinale). According to my sturdy ocean-going Chambers Dictionary, "gingerly" can be either an adjective or an adverb. I hope that settles the matter.

OUP says that too, hallgerda. What is its root word then? Must dig out my trusty OED. It is also a verb (sort of) as in ginger up. My jury is still out however

(Colours don't form adverbs anyway, do they? Bluely, greenly, redly...nah! Though I suppose you could dye your hair gingerly )

Possibly Old French gensor, comparative of gent according to my dictionary. at your OED JanH!

Oh, sorry, Hallgerda, it's only the Concise edition!

Never mind, we can all dream. One day I hope to live in a house big enough for the whole thing...