Fwd: question re English grammar

From: george knysh
Message: 36367
Date: 2005-02-17

I received the following query from a friend. Since
we're presently on our mid-term break my English l.
colleagues are unavailable for comment. If anyone had
the patience and kindness to respond to this it would
be forwarded with much appreciation. GK
>
> I was looking for someone who could answer a
> question that I was
> confronted with during my Unterricht. Can you
> believe it, I do not
> have contacts with native speakers of English in
> Berlin.
>
> While explaining Adverbs/Adjectives to Germans (a
> topic they always
> find hard to understand, since their adjectives look
> like adverbs in
> a predicative position), I fell upon some cases of
> using an adjective
> where an adverb should normally be used. The case
> with verbs of the
> senses like: it smells good, it looks nice, etc. is
> clear. The rule
> is, one uses the adjective instead of the adverb as
> an exception to
> the rule. The explanation is that the words good,
> nice refer to the
> subject, describe the subject and that's why an
> adjective is
> preferred.
>
> There are, however, other cases of using an
> adjective in place of an
> adverb where the case with explaining the subject is
> not so clear.
> For example:
>
> She speaks loud (or do you say loudly? Sprachgef�hl
> says to me: loud)
> She jumped higher than him.
> She ran slower than him. (Slowlier, huh?)
>
> Okay, in case the sentences are correct, I am really
> eager to find an
> explanation, in standard English grammar. Is it
> also a development of
> some predicative position of an adjective (e.g. "she
> jumped as one
> that was higher than him", could be a logical
> development, considering
> similar structures in old languages). And in what
> cases does one use
> the adjective instead of an adverb (compare with
> your own language, I
> am sure Ukrainian also uses an adverb).
>
> I know this is not your area, but if you could find
> an
> English-teaching colleague who could give you an
> informed advice or if
> you have ideas of your own that might help, I would
> highly appreciate
> it. The normal grammars do not seem to address
> topics as specific as
> this one. And I really want to get clear on it.




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