(identity 'myron)

Wed, 05 Nov 2003

SVO [/misc]

I've been asked a few times here about some aspects of English grammar, which I don't really think is ever formally taught to native speakers (do you know what the past perfect tense is off the top of your head?)... and now I've been prompted into looking into things a little deeper. Turns out we have twelve verb tenses with 6 of them being pseudo-tenses, more like aspects, that are continuous.

The interesting part of English grammar is, I think, word order. In English, it's probably the most important thing to get right in order to sound natural and convey the correct meaning. There's the famous example of, "What are you doing fucking in my bed," and, "What are you fucking doing in my bed". And yet at the same time, order can often be quite fluid. Normally we use Subject-Verb-Object, but meaning isn't lost if you flip to another order say, a la Yoda. In fact, when speaking informally to one of my friends, Mike, I've noticed we both routinely flip the order and use the wrong tense either for comic effect or just to relieve the monotony. Example: "See you the matrix?" (Have you seen the matrix yet?)

It's also not impossible to use the other orders listed on the wikipedia article, although it works better if you're posing a question, and the order is more fluid by nature. Ex:

• Verb-Subject-Object: "Seen you yet the matrix?"
• Verb-Object, Subject: "Seen the matrix yet, you?" (this is cheating though, cause you becomes vocative). Much more natural using a proper name: "Seen the matrix yet, Mike?"
• Object-Subject-Verb: "The matrix, [have] you seen it yet?" (a bit contrived, but not impossible in spoken English, especially between me and Mike)
• Object-Verb-Subject: "The matrix, seen you yet?" (again, contrived and unnatural, but not totally impossible). This one's also special because it's the transformation used in the famous meme, "In Soviet Russia..." Eg, "In Soviet Russia, car drives you!" of Family Guy fame.

Curiously, at the moment I can't think of any way to use the typical Japanese word order, Subject-Object-Verb. "You, the matrix, seen yet?" is sorta pushing it in terms of naturalness.... Also, it's interesting to note that Mike's native language, Polish, uses noun declensions which frees up the word order, and lets you fluidly rearrange things at will to change emphasis. :P

// posted at 17:33. permalink   comments

Matrix Revolutions [/misc]

Looks like the venerable rottentomatoes.com has got the review count at about 38% for Matrix Revolutions. The last movie earned a generous (imo) 78%, and already had critics rather undecided about the direction the trilogy was heading. The latest addition seems to have only worsened the effect, polarizing the opinions to frank, "it sucks", and high praise like "visual poetry".

However it has turned out, don't spoil it for me--I'm seeing it next month. :P

// posted at 17:07. permalink   comments

City of Angels [/personal]

Just watched City of Angels. I gotta say, the ending was uncalled for. I shoulda pulled a Phoebe and turned it off before it ended. Thankfully I've got the original movie it's based on and apparently that has a happy ending.

I'm a sap, eh?

// posted at 05:02. permalink   comments