I’ve noticed this forum isn’t. Kk.
I thought people would be more hostile to creating new topics versus posting in old topics (if they are similar enough) because there’s already a topic for that thing.
I guess where I feel (a little) guilty is that its easy when I’m sick to put in mental effort into other things like playing video games or reading novels. So when I fail to do something that also requires mental effort like studying philosophy (or studying in general) I feel kind of bad. To me the two types of mental effort are undifferentiated.
Philosophy study is probably significantly harder than video games and novels for you.
Had trouble getting started. In part due to being sick, in part due to working a lot (and then leaving the country soon after), and in part not knowing how to start this (felt too open to me for some reason). Solution: watch the video, take notes, try the sentences, and share my notes and what I have done so far.
Here’s what I did today:
I watched Learn to analyze writing (with grammar trees). I watched the video, tried the sentences, and wrote down notes and questions I had. So here’s it copy and pasted from my notes app:
- Elliot will show us how to use grammar trees to better understand sentences.
- We’re using a real example from a real discussion. This is closer to what you would interact with on a regular basis.
- First sentence:
- “Note that I would like for death to be solved very much.”
- My initial tree:
- I think note is an imperative, but I’m unsure on how to note the subject in a tree. that is a conjunction joining Note with the rest of the sentence. Only part I’m really unsure of here is what to do with the “for death to be solved”. I’m pretty sure for is a preposition modifying “like” but I’m unsure after that. I don’t think having “to be” as a modifier for death is grammatically correct.
- Elliot’s Tree (or most of it):
- Ok so before watching the rest of the video. For an imperative since the person being commanded is you, you are the subject. that is functioning as a conjunction and noun according to Elliot. Hmm. Since the sentence said Note that . “that” refers to what is being told to be noted, that means that acts as a noun for Note. Ok. Elliot has “would” and “like” together. I think my way of splitting it up is fine. “to be” is the noun being governed by “for” here? Ok. Mmm. I’m unsure of what to make of this all here. q
- From the video:
- Elliot has “that” twice because it serves two purposes. One as a pronoun/“pro-sentence” and one as a conjunction.
- Modifiers should be close to what they are modifying.
- Ok he doesn’t cover why he did the “for” part of the tree the way he did. So I’ll ask about that.
- Second sentence:
- “Is the fact of living during a time period where certain important problems have not been solved, where certain knowledge has not yet been created, best conceived of as a “disaster””?
- Ok while doing this I had to look up “where”. From apple/new oxford:
- “at, in, or to which (used after reference to a place or situation):”
- I think this is the right definition to use. Its a relative adverb, I had to look that up:
- From Relative Adverbs - GrammarFlip :
- “A relative adverb is a type of subordinating conjunction that introduces an adverb clause or an adjective clause.”
- So the thing/clause right after “where” is a modifier of sorts. Ok.
- From Relative Adverbs - GrammarFlip :
- I think this is the right definition to use. Its a relative adverb, I had to look that up:
- Ok I don’t know what “where” and the phrases after it are modifying.
- “living” or “period” or “time” ? I don’t know.
- “at, in, or to which (used after reference to a place or situation):”
- So here’s the trees so far:
- ![[Pasted image 20241011224137.png]]
- I don’t know how to make “as” work here and I don’t know how to figure out where “where” is modifying. So I’m just going to watch the video from here.
- From the video:
- Ok. Elliot has “of” and “as” together in one node. How would we split them up? Should they be split up?
- not good to have a lot of space between the subject and verb, and between the verb and object/complement.
- The difference between a question and a statement is where the verb is. Really? :o. “Do you hate him?” “You do hate him.” huh, neat. I think I’ll pay more attention to some questions.
- Ok. The first where is modifying period, the second where is a restatement of the first where statement. Its giving more information about the first. It can also be modifying period, too. Meaning is still similar that way.
- Write sentences you can make trees for. As you get better, however, still write sentences that most people could make trees for. Just because your grammar knowledge is good doesn’t mean there’s is.
- Trees can help remove ambiguity in discussions.
Questions:
Is there a way to split up “of” and “as” or is that its own preposition?
Are these trees reasonable?:
yes your split is fine.
your tree can’t be correct because “for” can’t have two objects.
if you say that “to be solved” is a modifier, not a noun, it still doesn’t make sense as a modifier on “for”.
I think the only alternative to my tree that makes any sense is for “to be solved” to be a modifier telling you the type of “death”.
either:
- the prepositional object is “be” which leads the group “death (to) be solved” (with “death” and “solved” as subject and complement of “be”)
- the prepositional object is “death” which is modified by “(to) be solved” (“solved” is the complement of “be”)
the word “to” is just a particle and can kinda be ignored. it sounds right in some sentences and is omitted in others, so i just kinda include or exclude it as convenient and don’t let the “to” affect my decision.
I’ll stop explaining here for now and give @lmd a chance. @lmd why don’t you try considering this tree and see what you think and if you can explain your answer.
lmd discussed that recently. Here’s my reply:
yes
glitched FYI
yes. this is discussed more in the youtube comments.
you did fine!
If you’re on a weird sleep cycle due to travel or illness, or having sleep schedule trouble that isn’t typical for you, it might not be a good time to immediately quit all caffeine abruptly (not sure if that was your plan, but seemed like maybe).
Nah, it was to wean it off and it was to start a bit after I get settled back in at home. The interest in quitting caffeine came at a bad time I guess? Better late than never though. While I was reading Caffeine Blues I wanted to get started but I didn’t want to do a whole lifestyle change in such close proximity to going out of the country to a drastically different timezone (and other issues such as language barriers making adjusting eating habits harder - went to Seoul while knowing zero korean).
Assignment: read Curiosity – Nonfinite Verbs if you haven’t.
Sorry I only just saw this ping. I’ll put this on my to do list!
Assignment: Try reading Grammar as Functions if you haven’t. I forget if you know enough about functions. If you don’t understand it, just stop reading and let me know.
Will do ~tomorrow probably. Just got back home and trying to get back into my normal routine. Also trying to get some sleep. Just letting you know.
I do know some things about functions. Its not much but I’ll see let you know how it goes reading that.
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I finished reading Curiosity – Nonfinite Verbs . I read some yesterday and some today. I took notes on it as I read it. It took me about ~1 hour to read it.
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Finished reading Grammar as Functions. Took about ~30 minutes. I think I understood it.
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Still busy or sick? Planning to go through more CF grammar videos next?
Not sick. Tired and busy. I think the jet lag plus immediately working a bunch right after coming back really messed me up (I just had one day off in between coming back and work). I feel much better now its just trying to get back into my routine while working. I have a lot of extra time these next few days so I should be good to start getting back into it (3 days off and 2 short shifts). So yes, I will be going through more videos next.
I will say that a part of me has been avoiding doing them because of the mental effort involved. When it comes to the assignments where I do stuff like making truth tables, doing math problems, or doing trees I can fit those into a busy schedule. The assignments where I’m trying to actually understand something are a bit harder for me to do. Those require me to actual be relatively rested and have some free time. Its much harder for me to do something like read your grammar articles or watch your videos on a busy schedule. To be clear, I’m not complaining about that. I think it makes sense, but I could be wrong. I’m just sharing if you have any feedback and to give an update on why I’m slower at posting as of recent. I feel like I’ve had more stuff recently where I had to really try and understand some content (videos, essays).
If you’re too busy for some assignments you could do other ones. There are lots of options for things to work on.