thinking nothing
Did you guys get at all that that was an incredible class? I was there you see and therefore perhps better able to judge what she understood and what she didn't, how she felt about the whole process, whether or not she will download songs and lyrics on her own and try to interpret them, on her own, sing along, prepare questions for next class. Quit stuttering. Whether or not she will get some much needed exercise while studying English, relax a little, get some insight into the key concepts. All that good stuff.
Yes DB, if you look it up, the dictionary will say that "eat" is a v.t.i but that is from a syntactic point of view purely. Yes a syntactic (ju4 zi5 jie2gou4 de5 - is that right? Putting some of my basic vocabulary and analytical thinking skills to work here.) point of view (guan1dian3 - help I can't stop) is useful, but not the only one and certainly not the more important one. In practical semantic (yu3yi4 - can we get a check on that?) terms we can assume generally that if a person eats, meaning "eats," (the meaning we were discussing, the one discussed in the idiom textbook) he eats something, and that that something, especially if it is assumed, is food.
"Assumed elements" is a key concept because if you don't know what the assumed element is you don't understand the sentence. If a sentence contains an asumed bit I often ask what the assumed (jia3shi4) bit is. It is a good practice to get into. Helps to improve "understanding." Another key concept. (I'll be here all week!)
Anyway I asked what they ate and she didn't say plastic bag, computer chip or television anttena, she said "I dunno, something" and I said "Food?" and she yeah, yeah probably.
The textbook didn't go into that either, which it didn't need to of course. Look what they did in your link though.
Quote:
INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1a. To consume food.
Am I the only person who sees how stupid that is?
Next class I'll explain that some verbs beg an object and essentially don't make sense without one. They are sometimes marked v.t.i. in the dictionary, but that is bullshit really a lot of the time. Especially, if the word is being used in it's basic sense, there is "always" an object there, you just sometimes "have to" "assume" it. Drink, kill.... there are loads of them, "think" might be one, but then again what do I know? I've heared meditation is a powerful tool but even when meditating you think nothing, and that's something, right fred?
Yes DB, if you look it up, the dictionary will say that "eat" is a v.t.i but that is from a syntactic point of view purely. Yes a syntactic (ju4 zi5 jie2gou4 de5 - is that right? Putting some of my basic vocabulary and analytical thinking skills to work here.) point of view (guan1dian3 - help I can't stop) is useful, but not the only one and certainly not the more important one. In practical semantic (yu3yi4 - can we get a check on that?) terms we can assume generally that if a person eats, meaning "eats," (the meaning we were discussing, the one discussed in the idiom textbook) he eats something, and that that something, especially if it is assumed, is food.
"Assumed elements" is a key concept because if you don't know what the assumed element is you don't understand the sentence. If a sentence contains an asumed bit I often ask what the assumed (jia3shi4) bit is. It is a good practice to get into. Helps to improve "understanding." Another key concept. (I'll be here all week!)
Anyway I asked what they ate and she didn't say plastic bag, computer chip or television anttena, she said "I dunno, something" and I said "Food?" and she yeah, yeah probably.
The textbook didn't go into that either, which it didn't need to of course. Look what they did in your link though.
Quote:
INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1a. To consume food.
Am I the only person who sees how stupid that is?
Next class I'll explain that some verbs beg an object and essentially don't make sense without one. They are sometimes marked v.t.i. in the dictionary, but that is bullshit really a lot of the time. Especially, if the word is being used in it's basic sense, there is "always" an object there, you just sometimes "have to" "assume" it. Drink, kill.... there are loads of them, "think" might be one, but then again what do I know? I've heared meditation is a powerful tool but even when meditating you think nothing, and that's something, right fred?
posted by david at 1:58 AM
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