Oh yes sorry, I realise you asked about parts of speech and role. My idea was that ‘each’ might be the subject of the participle ‘according’. I have low confidence in that though. I don’t know.
Hmm. ‘nor’ seems to imply ‘neither’ already. In english, ‘nor’ seems to be ‘not both’ and ‘not either’. Having ‘neither’ modifying ‘are’ then seems like a double negative.
what are my options?
you can’t modify a conjunction afaik, so neither can’t be modifying ‘nor’
neither could modify omniscient
neither could modify omniscient and infallible
neither could modify are
I don’t think it modifies omniscient. that would seems to be unbalanced. I think neither/nor is applying to both adjectives equally.
I don’t think that there is another implied ‘neither’ that will allow both ‘omniscient’ and ‘infallible’ to be modified equally.
I don’t think it modifies the whole ‘or’ group.
It seems like the best answer is that it is modifying ‘are’.
I’m a bit confused about this. If we aren’t considering something an auxiliary verb, what are we considering it? Does it still modify the verb? Is it just part of the main verb?
Okay. So we’re thinking finite vs nonfinite verbs. There aren’t auxiliary or modal verbs.
So in ‘They must be free’, ‘must’ is the finite verb, and ‘be’ an infinitive whose object is ‘free’. And ‘must’ is the main verb in that clause. Am I on the right track?
Oh. Of course. And yes the modifier ‘red’ is the correct type for the things grouped (nouns). So too would ‘neither’ be the correct type of modifier (adverb) for both ‘omniscient’ and ‘infallible’ (adjectives).
Okay I think conceptually, ‘neither’ modifying ‘nor’ makes most sense.
I think the ‘according’ subtree is an adverb phrase that modifies the infinitive ‘be’. It’s telling us about how men must be free. It’s giving detail about the being:
I think I should’ve listed my options for what ‘according’ could be modifying, putting each into words. Then compare them, like your reply did, and like I have done before.
My next problem is the ‘cooperate or pursue’ parenthetical/restatement tree.
some options:
A child of ‘free’. This is where it would be if it wasn’t a restatement and was part of the main sentence.
A child of the infinitive group ‘agree or disagree’.
some context:
I want it to be clear that the ‘according’ subtree is a modifier of ‘agree or disagree’ and its restatement, not ‘free’ or ‘be’.
With option 1, I don’t see a good way to have the ‘according’ subtree modify the right things. I have to pick either the ‘agree or disagree’ group, the ‘cooperate or pursue’ group, or ‘free’.
With option 2 I can have the restatement be a child of ‘agree or disagree’. And I can have the ‘according’ subtree be a modifier of the group ‘agree or disagree’.
An appositive noun or noun phrase follows another noun or noun phrase in apposition to it; that is, it provides information that further identifies or defines it.
So in your example sentence, ‘Lassie’ is the appositive of ‘dog’. My intuition says that the appositive should be the child of its noun.
Yes. Restatements are conceptually a type of modifier – they provide more detail, more information of some sort (in this case the name). (If there was no more detail, it’d be redundant and usually pointless though repetition can be used for emphasis). So even though the appositive is equal in some sense (a restatement is the same thing again), I think putting it as a child/modifier makes sense.
So you can try to apply this concept to the complex sentence you’re working on.
I have been doing at least 15 min typing practise about 4-5 days a week I estimate. (I started trying to keep a log of my practise, but I’ve forgotten to log a few times)
I played and kept a log for a few days after I last posted about it 11 days ago. For the first two days I played for about 20mins and didn’t beat a level. On the 25th I did beat one level. I haven’t played since the 25th.
Daily Writing
I have written on only one day since the last update 11 days ago. So something is going wrong there.
I think in that case the last tree I posted is correct. It has the restatement group ‘to cooperate or to pursue’ as a child of the group ‘agree or diagree’. It also has the ‘according’ subtree modifying the 'agree or ‘disagree’ group, which ‘to cooperate or to pursue’ is part of.
I think you need to slow down. Focus on increasing the percentage of tests where you get 100% accuracy.
Are you feeling a bit stuck and getting discouraged by the difficulty?
What do you use to manage you schedule? E.g.: Calendar? Alarms? Todo list? Day-planning in the morning or the night before? Breaks throughout the day to think about what to do?
I manage my weeks/months with my calendar. That quite reliably works for me at those scales. Daily scheduling however is more ‘intuitive’? I don’t know if that’s the right word. Maybe vague is actually the right word. Some days when I have enough things on that require scheduling, I do a whole to-do list first thing in the morning, and write down how long I expect each task to take. Other times its just vague. Like today, I don’t have anything to do before 5pm when I have to make dinner before going to work (my housework is all up to date) and I’ll probably just do some tutoring/reading/relaxing till then. Maybe since I do have the time, I don’t schedule things in, and so I can more easily avoid doing some things or can let myself be distracted. I do start tutoring work at or before 10am regularly though (I’m awake around 8-9am).
Usually when I am doing a task like practising typing or writing, I set a timer to go off so I know that I’ve done it for the minimum amount of time I allocated.
I did another Rand sentence that used a restatement. This time it is a prepositional phrase that is restated. My two main apparent options for where to nest the restatement are [1] as a child of the group ‘work and integrity’ or [2] of ‘minds’. Its kinda hard. It seems that the restatement is a detail of which such minds (the minds of the intransigent innovators). But also of the whole phrase ‘from the work and the inviolate integrity of such minds’. So I can’t really decide which of [1] or [2] works best.
Ayn Rand in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal:
It is from the work and the inviolate integrity of such minds—from the intransigent innovators—that all of mankind’s knowledge and achievements have come.
Here is the tree with the restatement per option [2]:
I think both your options for what’s being restated are incorrect and there’s a major textual clue (using a standard pattern) which helps guide the reader to know what’s being restated.
OK. There are a lot of methods you could use to add some structure to this. Self-help books have many tips related to scheduling or habits. You might need to look around and try a variety of options to find some that work for you. I do think you should make some change here to get a bit more organized and have a bit more control over your activities so some goals don’t get neglected.
Here’s what I’d suggest you try first: When you have a large block of free time, have an alarm go off every 2 hours. When it goes off, take a 5 minute break to relax, move around, stretch, look out the window, and also to consider your goals for the day and if there’s anything specific you want to or should do within the next 2 hours.
In general, I think it’s worth getting past some difficulties with problem solving. That’s a thing you want to become comfortable at.
One step is evaluating if a particular problem is worth solving. In this case, since you like Baba Is You reasonably well, and it’s related to logical thinking, I think it’d probably be a good one for you to overcome. I imagine if you got good at the game you’d feel accomplished and see that you’d made some progress rather than thinking it was pointless. If you’re resisting it pretty strongly you could drop it and focus elsewhere but otherwise I’d suggest using it for problem solving practice.
So, one thing is having a positive attitude: not thinking you “should” be doing better, succeeding faster. Being able to work on something that isn’t immediately easy or natural for you is a really important skill. You need to be able to recognize that you’re making some progress, not fully stuck, and be happy with that even if it’s not going as well as some of your other activities. Slowing down and patiently working on stuff in small chunks is important for doing hard stuff in general.
There are lots of other issues you could be having. Trying to identify some of them yourself is something you can work on. That’s a skill that will also be useful for other activities and which mostly comes before solving the issues.
@Eternity some of this may be relevant for you too
