- #36
honestrosewater
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The study of language. It's a very broad field. ;)jimmysnyder said:What, precisely, do you mean by the term 'linguistics'?
The study of language. It's a very broad field. ;)jimmysnyder said:What, precisely, do you mean by the term 'linguistics'?
The sentence "May 'it' haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay 'it'" contains two so-called "reference errors." However, there is no ambiguity and nobody would claim Charles Dickens is a poor writer.Charles Dickens said:I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,
to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not
put my readers out of humour with themselves,
with each other, with the season, or with me.
May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no
one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December, 1843.
Sure, some languages have similar rules and some don't. But linguists study more than just grammar. I haven't built up a collection of linguistics links yet, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics look like a decent overview.ArielGenesis said:about the linguistic, do the same rule apply for other language.
In this sentence, there is another rule in use. Because of the semicolon, the second part of sentence is a restatement or clarification of the first part of the sentence, and is therefore expected to follow similar structure. So the "it" subject of the second part of the sentence can be expected to correspond to the "pronoun" subject of the first part of the sentence. The rules for determining what pronouns should refer to what nouns are complex, but they exist. For example, if the sentence were constructed this way:"A PRONOUN must always have an ANTECEDENT; it must refer back to the most recently used noun."