I’d strongly default to thinking any word ending with “ing” is a gerund or participle.
Also I think this is interesting:
All of these sentences are OK except 4. My intuition instantly knows which are right or wrong, but after 60 seconds I still can’t explain what’s wrong with 4, like what grammar rule it breaks.
First I was trying to have a question for every word in the exercise sentences. I found that very hard and thought the questions and answers were very awkward. I got frustrated because I thought I was failing miserably. I checked whether other peopled had allowed multiple words as answers, which they did.
At this point I took a break because I had gotten a bit emotional. In the break I thought that I had been cargo culting and guessing the teachers password (thinking there had to be only one word for the answer) instead of thinking what would be useful for my learning. A great thing about learning on this forum is that I don’t have to learn in whatever way an authority figure says I have to, like in school, I can learn what I think is useful in the way I think is best. I also thought that I should be okay with the questions and answers being a bit awkward.
I came back for a second session with the mindset to be less perfectionist and do the exercises in a way that I thought would be useful.
I’m open to criticism and discussion of my emotions here.
The timers I took for these exercise were inaccurate, except for the last two, because I was jumping between exercises. The first session took ~1 hour, while the second session took ~30 minutes.
<John> <pet> <his <dog and cat>> <with vigor>.
John pet [pets]
What action happened? Pet.
Who petted? John.
What got petted? Dog.
What else got petted? Cat.
How were the things linked? And.
Whose dog and cat got petted? His = John’s.
How was the petting done? With.
With what was the petting done? Vigor.
<Seeing> <isn't> <believing> .
Can’t omit any words.
What link happened? Is.
How is the link? Not.
What has the link? Seeing.
What is the link not? Believing.
{<I> <like> <philosophy>} because {<[philosophy]> <involves> <thinking methods>}.
{I like philosophy} because {[philosophy] involves methods}
What is the action? Like.
Who likes? I.
What does I like? Philosophy.
What else happened? Involves.
What involves? It = philosophy.
What does philosophy involve? Methods.
What type of methods? Thinking.
How are the actions linked? Because.
<Some people> <don't> <love> <truth and honesty>.
People don't love [concepts].
What action happened? Do.
How was it done? Not.
Who did not do? People.
Which people? Some.
What do some people not do? Love.
What was not loved? Truth.
What else was not loved? Honesty.
How were the things linked? And.
{<John and Olivia> <enthusiastically> <sang> <their <favorite> song <on the stage>> } but {{<singing> <well> <wasn't> <enough>} for {<the actors> <pretending> <to be judges>} }
{[People] sang song} but {{singing well wasn't enough} for {actors pretending to be judges}}
What action happened? Sang.
Who sang? John.
Who else sang? Olivia.
How were they linked? And.
How did they sing? Enthusiastically.
What did they sing? Song.
What song? Favorite
Whose favorite song? Their = John and Olivia’s
What was the location of the singing? Stage.
What part of the stage? On.
Which stage? The.
<John> <pet> <his <dog and cat>> <with vigor>.
John pet [pets]
What action happened? Pet.
Who petted? John.
What got pet? Dog and cat.
Whose dog and cat got petted? His = John’s.
How was the petting done? With vigor.
<Seeing> <is not> <believing> .
Can’t omit any words.
What link is? Isn’t.
What has the link? Seeing.
What is seeing not? Believing.
{<I> <like> <philosophy>} because {<[philosophy]> <involves> <thinking methods>}.
{I like philosophy} because {[philosophy] involves methods}.
What is the action? Like.
Who likes? I.
What do I like? Philosophy.
Why do I like philosophy? Because it involves thinking methods.
What is the action of the clause? Involves.
What involves something? It = philosophy.
What does philosophy involve? Methods.
What type of methods? Thinking.
<Some people> <do not> <love> <truth and honesty>.
People don't love [concepts].
What action happened? Don’t.
Who did not do something? People.
Which people? Some.
What do some people not do? Love.
What was not loved? Truth and honesty.
{<John and Olivia> <enthusiastically> <sang> <their <favorite> song> <on the stage>}, but {{<singing> <well> <was not> <enough>} for {<the actors> <pretending> <to be judges>} }.
{[People] sang song} but {{singing well wasn't enough} for {[fake] judges}}.
What action happened? Sang.
Who sang? John and Olivia.
How did they sing? Enthusiastically.
What did they sing? A song.
What song? Favorite.
Whose favorite song? Their = John and Olivia’s
Where was the song sung? On stage.
Which stage? The.
What was the catch? But.
What link was? Wasn’t.
What had the link? Singing.
How was the singing? Well.
What was the singing not? Enough.
Enough what? For.
What was the action? Pretending.
Who was pretending? Actors.
Which actors? The.
What were they preteding? To be.
To be what? Judges.
While {<you> <are> <having <a discussion>>}, {[<you> <should>] <never> <<misquote> <anyone>>}.
{never misquote} while {having discussion}.
What action is implied? Should.
Who is it implied that should do something? You.
What are you commanded to not do? Misquote.
When are you allowed to misquote? Never.
Who should you never misquote? Anyone.
At what time does this apply? While.
While what happens? Are.
Who are? You.
What are you? Having.
What were you having? Discussion.
Which discussion? A.
14 min
{<I> <think>} that {<<nuclear> power> <is> <safe>}.
think nuclear power is safe.
What action happened? Think.
Who thinked? I
What did I think? That.
What link is “that” talking about? Is.
What is? Power.
What kind of power? Nuclear.
What is nuclear power? Safe.
7 min
I compared my answers with Eternity’s tutoring thread and Max’s answers. I only corrected the markups and outlines, since the question-based analysis was harder to judge.
“Enthusiastically” should be part of the verb phrase “enthusiastically sang”, so:
<enthusiastically sang>
“Singing well” has the same error. Should be:
<singing well>
“Their favorite song” is a noun phrase. “Favorite” is an adjective phrase, since phrases can have only one word. But then I could have treated “their” as determiner phrase. I didn’t have “thinking” as a phrase in itself in “thinking methods”. I don’t think it’s technically wrong, I just think it’s not very useful to mark it up as a phrase when there’s only one adjective.
I thought “for” was a conjunction because I thought “pretending” was a finite verb. But now I think “pretending” is a participle whose object is “to be”.
New Oxford on “for” as conjunction:
conjunction literary
because; since: he felt guilty, for he knew that he bore a share of
responsibility for Fanny’s death.
“For” as a conjunction meaning because or since is literary now because it’s archaic. Older dictionaries has this meaning for “for”.
If we substitute because for “for”, it doesn’t work because it lacks a finite verb:
So “for” is definitely a preposition.
I would do this instead now:
{<John and Olivia> <enthusiastically sang> <their favorite song> <on the stage>}, but {<singning well> <was not> <enough> <for <the actors <pretending to be judges>>} (could do '<pretending <to be >>` since “to be” and “judges” are objects, but I think that’s unnecessary).
New outline:
{[People] sang} but {singing well wasn't enough for [fake] judges}.
“Never” should modify “should”. I’m not sure if “anyone” can be the object of “misquote”, but that’s the best I can come up with. I would this instead now:
While {<you> <are> <having <a discussion>>}, {<[you]> <[should] never> <misquote anyone>}.
I would change it to <nuclear power>.
I didn’t make trees for part 4 because the analysis request for the exercises were different. I thought I could make trees anyway as bonus practice because of the success criteria.
- John pet his dog and cat with vigor.
- Seeing isn’t believing.
- I like philosophy because it involves thinking methods.
- Some people don’t love truth or honesty.
- John and Olivia enthusiastically sang their favorite song on the stage, but singing well wasn’t enough for the actors pretending to be judges.
After making this tree I got a bit uncertain that:
Because the tree I would make for “The actors pretending to be judges” would be:
And that in “The pretending actors”, “pretending” is definitely a participle, but “The pretending to be judges actors” doesn’t work. It feels weird to add “to be judges” when “pretending” acts as an adjective.
I could say that “were” is an implied word. Hmm. It seems more like “for” is answering the question of “whom wasn’t it enough for?”, rather than “why wasn’t it enough?”
Perhaps either is fine.
- While you’re having a discussion, never misquote anyone.
- I think that nuclear power is safe.
Words ending with “ing” are never finite verbs. I don’t even know of one exception (though as usual I wouldn’t be shocked if there is a rare exception).
Also any word immediately after “to” isn’t a finite verb. After “to” you’ll find either an infinitive or the rest of a prepositional phrase. (There are probably exceptions for what comes after “to”, like I know sometimes prepositions can sometimes be split up from their objects. I’d be interested if anyone has an example with a finite verb after “to” though.)
So “the actors pretending to be judges” cannot be a clause because there’s definitely no finite verb, so “for” has to be a preposition not a conjunction.
There are other ways to figure it out like considering meaning, but analysis of parts of speech is generally a good starting point: it tends to be relatively simple with clearer rules than other analysis, and sometimes gives clear, definitive answers.
In general, I’d be very cautious about adding finite verbs as implied words. I think they’re rarely omitted because they have a starring role.
Good point.
Thanks, I didn’t know.
“The actors pretending to be judges” seemed like a complete thought to me. I think I see how it isn’t now (intuitively, outside of parts of speech analysis). I thought you could use verbs ending with “ing” to describe something happening now (as opposed to it being a concept), but I think you need another verb (a finite one) – like “am”, “were”, or “are” – for that to work.
That’s what I guessed. I haven’t mentioned that I’ve read Curiosity – Nonfinite Verbs though.
I haven’t implied that a word immediately after “to” is a finite verb, have I? If you know of a place I did, please tell me.
I assume you were just telling another tip. I’m just asking to be sure you weren’t pointing out an error I made.
You didn’t do that. It was relevant to whether that text could be a clause since it contained “to be”.
I think I met these criteria. Addressing all mistakes is harder to tell, there are probably more mistakes, but I’ve made a good effort to find and correct mistakes. If the criteria is demanding perfection (eventually), then I think that’s too demanding. A better criteria would be to have a session for looking for errors after completing an exercise set, or that I should dedicate at least 45 minutes to looking for errors in each exercise set.
I kind of think that not demanding any correctness, like 8/10 correct exercises, and rather only say “do all exercises”, “read the whole article” and so on, is playing it safe. But some people fail at that, so perhaps it’s fine.
I like the way I did it in the arithmetic trees project, where I kept doing exercises until I had 10 correct ones. Another option could be like “do sets of 10 until 90% success rate”.
It is now 8 days since I started, so the project is a success.
The main benefit was the grammar I learned. What I knew from beforehand (before the exploration project) was mostly just what verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositions, and pronouns are. I learned:
This project was the first non-mini project, so I gain more experience doing projects on CF, and I learn to do structured projects in general. It adds to my public track record of successful projects.
I didn’t really do this. I did it for like the middle of the first exercise set (part 2), and I caught one error doing it, but then I forgot. It didn’t seem to cause many errors after that though, I don’t think the check is necessary. I should do better at following through with specific things like this in projects. I should explicitly say why I will stop doing the thing if I think that’s better.
I watched the relevant parts of the Max tutoring videos. I compared answers with forum answers. I did some online research, but not a lot. I could have done that more.
I made way more errors than I expected. The exercises were harder than the part 1 exercises. So I spent way more time than I expected to.
I don’t know exactly how much time I spent since my time tracking got muddled with other philosophy activities like watching some of tutoring videos, reading other articles, and reading the forum. I recorded it all under “philosophy”. I can say I did 30 hours of philosophy for the past 8 days. I would estimate that the project took around 20-24 hours then.
The next project I want to do more detailed time tracking and give a summary in the conclusion.
I had one time I got emotional and frustrated doing exercises. I think I eventually handled that fine enough. Otherwise I enjoyed doing the project. I’m happy to complete projects and make progress.
I can’t start another project yet. I have to firefight assignments for the next 3 weeks.
In the past I would have said that now was too busy, that I had to finish the assignments first. Now I think it was more important to join the forum and start learning philosophy. I’m fine with failing to take an exam because I joined the forum (or failing all my classes even).
I don’t want to take long breaks (more than 5 days) unless absolutely necessary. I’m somewhat scared of quitting if I take a long break. I don’t think I would quit, but I see many people quit after supposedly only taking breaks.
I could do a less demanding project, and do max 1 hour a day. Or I could just do activities.
