The Conundrum of English

published on Cavite Wisdom Publishing newspaper on 29 August to 26 September 2021

English is a very complicated, intricate tongue. Language mavens digging into the scientific study of this tongue may opine this shorthand, bulls-eye, no-brainer introduction to this highly challenging means of communication. True, English as the global lingua franca reigns ubiquitously in different continents and sails across seas in the world. Hands down. Two noncompatriot people stranger to each other would probably use it to communicate with the other to achieve a certain, immediate goal. Taking a closer look at the nature of English, however, one can’t deny the intricacies it comprises. One may even say that the pervasive use of English, despite its complex lexicon, phonology, morphology, and syntax, is quite surprising. There are numerous factors that contribute to its elaborateness, and each is not as simple as it seems. Here are some of the common subtleties English carries.

First of all, the emergence of the different dialects of English across the globe is inevitable. These dialects are more known as the varieties of English. A comprehensive explanation and backdrop on this linguistic phenomenon require a theoretical, extensive elaboration, but its epitome is that each variety emanates from a single cultural group of people that utilizes English. To get a quick grip of this linguistic idea, try to see celebrity interviews conducted using the language during late night shows where conversations are spontaneous and pretty informal. Compare such interviews held in, say, United States, England, Scotland, the Philippines, and India. Initially, you will notice the different accents of the natives as the prevailing distinction among the interviews. A specific, everybody-knows example to this is the American and British pronunciations of words containing “R.” Yeah, the silent “R” in British English. The second observation you may have is the varying vocabularies used in each interview. You may find something referred to in a particular interview, but is denoted using another word in the other. For example, “sidewalk” and “elevator” are to American English, whilst “pavement” and “lift” are to British English. "Soft drink" is to Philippine English, but "soda" or "pop" is to American English. Some words may even be foreign or confusing to you! By looking deeper at the structure of the sentences of the participants in the interviews, you may also find some diversification. The variety here comes in expressing uncertainty, gratitude, requests, and politeness. These are but few examples of the diversity of English language production by different cultural groups. These dialects add up to the many areas with which a learner and user of English ought to be acquainted.

Second, the continuous development in the language itself adds up to the tough road to its mastery. Said development may be in the shape of shifting standards on usage acceptability. “To”-infinitives and prepositions have been witnesses to this norm evolution. Back in the olden days when the prescriptive grammar of the English language preached in the school was zealously upheld and implemented by users, people safeguarded their sentences from split “to”-infinitives and sentence-concluding prepositions. Speakers normally dragged out adverbs within “to”-infinitives, keeping these verbals uninterrupted. Nowadays, however—adverbs, often that of manner—are comfortably placed between “to” and its partner verb. Your very own study or work buddy—your computer—may be asking you if you want “to permanently delete” a certain file whenever you hit the “delete” button. The same standards U-turn happened to prepositions. Before, writers abhor prepositions found at the end of sentences. This is no longer the case today: prepositions are pervasively utilized to conclude statements.

Another manifestation of the flipping norms is the side-by-side use of “may” and “can.” The fine line that divides the semantic properties of these modals is not yet totally buried: the former is employed to ask or give permission, and the latter to signify ability. Imagine a pupil trying to get to the comfort room by saying to the teacher, “Miss, can I go out?” to which the teacher replies, “Yes, you can, but you may not.” Presently, however, “can” is interchangeable with “may” in soliciting and giving permission.

The evolution of the English tongue can also be witnessed in predicate nominatives, particularly in personal pronouns in the predicate that follow linking verbs. School grammar guides us to put in nominative case such pronouns such as in “The penman is I,” not “The penman is me.” Today's speakers, nevertheless, employ pervasively objective case pronouns instead. Imagine when Tom telephones his girlfriend Jane. Jane asks, “Who’s this?” to which Tom naturally replies, “It’s me, Tom.” Perhaps, it’s not so premature to say that such predicate nominatives are circling the drain.

The last grammatical shift I can enumerate for now is the acceptability of “who” in cases where “whom” is appropriate. Prescriptive grammar coaches us to employ “whom” whenever we refer to a noun or pronoun functioning in the sentence as object—either direct object, indirect object, or object of a preposition. This standard rule seems to have banished in present-day English language production: “Who” reigns frequently over “whom” even in pertaining to such objects.

The third mind-boggling feature of the English language is the so-called collocation. Collocation revolves around the idea that some words are consistently grouped together without regard to grammar. Most of the time, the partnership of words is dictated by the native speakers. For example, you know that an examination taken by an unprepared student will result “in” test failure, and a parental apprehension may be given “to” him. Why not “result to”? We ask an annoying person, “What’s wrong with you?” not “What’s wrong in you?” We know that brine is made “of” water and salt. Why not “made with”? During objective examinations, you’re asked to fill “in” the blanks with the correct answers, but you’re actually placing your response “on” the blanks. By collocation, some words are grouped together consistently just because. That’s it.

Fourth, the mystical, multi-faceted “do” dims things even further. Semantically, this two-letter word is a handy, shorthand tool to elevate a mere indication of something to an emphatic declarative statement right before exclamation level. This is, however, applicable only to sentences having an action verb. An example to this is “Megan came here yesterday.” Compare this to “Megan did come here yesterday.” The latter sounds more commensurate to the speaker’s muscular message and appeals more to the feelings of the listener. Syntactically, “do” is a key sentence component in expressing negation in declarative sentences where the verb is an action verb, and in forming interrogative sentences. Declarative sentences whose verbs signify action enlist “do” to convey negative polarity. Such sentences place “do” before “not” as in “James and Klay do not make prank videos frequently.” With regard to interrogative sentences, “do” serves in both questions answerable by yes or no, and those that aren’t. In yes-no questions, “do” is employed to ask questions involving actions. For example, the declarative sentence “Ben and Courtney iron their clothes before they go to sleep” will be converted to the interrogative form this way: “Do Ben and Courtney iron their clothes before they go to sleep?” As you see in these sentences, “do” is present in the interrogative but not in the declarative. In questions eliciting specific information, often in the form of “wh”-questions, “do” operates in queries that (1) involve actions, (2) have no other auxiliary verbs, and (3) asks anything conveyed in the predicate of the equivalent declarative, active sentence. For example, in the interrogative sentence “What do the chefs cook in the afternoon?” the action involved is to cook, the question does not employ any other auxiliary verb, and it inquires something indicated in the predicate of the equivalent declarative, active sentence (The chefs cook steak in the afternoon). Notice that “do” is not applicable in these interrogative sentences: “When is he going to school?” “Where have you been?” and “Shall we proceed to the conference?” This is because there are other auxiliary verbs in these sentences—“is,” “have,” and “shall.”

As you see, the functionally-loaded “do” can’t just be set aside all because of its brevity. The English language has assigned various functions (some are given above) to it, mostly in syntax and semantics. Any attempt to get a hang of the English tongue must include the acquisition of the different roles of “do.”

Fifth, language registers contribute to the lessons into which an English language learner must dig. A genre is a pervasive, distinct way of using the language, specific to a purpose, and most apparent in writing. It is characterized by distinct syntax, morphology, pragmatics, and most importantly, lexicon. A knack on these registers gives you an entry to the different communities of English language users. Journalistic parlance, legalese, academic writing, and medical documentation—these are examples of English language registers.

Finally, and probably the most problematic feature of the English language, is its little adherence to word predictability. Predictability refers to the consistent pattern of inflection and derivation of words. Word predictability problems in English come in different forms, inspiring learners to dive deeper in their hang-generation pursuit.

Adding “s” to nouns is the rule of thumb to signal plurality, such as in “books,” “pillows,” and “stones.” There are nouns, however, that don’t go this way: some form their plural structure by an internal orthographic change, thus, giving rise to an entirely different word. Why do “ox,” “tooth,” “mouse,” and “child” can’t be “oxes,” “tooths,” “mouses,” and “childs”? How come they stand as “oxen,” “teeth,” “mice,” and “children” in conveying plurality? Answering this literally switches us to history. For our purposes, we content ourselves that there are nouns in this language that form their plurals uniquely.

Even more astonishing are the zero plurals—nouns that do not change in morphological form even in the state of plurality. “Deer,” “sheep,” “fish,” “trout,” “minnow,” and “salmon” are examples.

On collective nouns, bewildering are the terms denoting different groups of animals. We call a collection of geese as gaggle, of dogs or wolves as pack, of cattle as herd, of fish as school, of lions as pride, and of birds as flock. These are different collective terms to mean only an assembly of the same animals.

As to dominion, “-dom,” “-hood,” and “-ship” are common, handy suffixes to nouns. They aren’t applicable to nouns across-the-broad, though. “Kingship” can’t be “kinghood,” “dukedom” is not to “dukehood,” “brotherhood” amounts not to “brotherdom,” and “leadership” does not admit “leaderdom.” We must know what jurisdictional suffix is appropriate to the different nouns of the language.

Bearing of tenses gives us headache, too. The irregular verbs! While regular verbs have “d” or “ed” to signify past tense, irregular verbs don’t. They give birth to an entirely distinct word to convey completed action, such as “bought” for “buy,” “went” for “go,” “drove” for “drive,” “ate” for “eat,” “rode” for “ride,” and “taught” for “teach.” These are but few of the irregular verbs the English language keeps. Briefly, we need to memorize the equivalent past form of tons of irregular verbs of English to be versatile in English conversations.

Phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs also constitute our English language production, but we just shrug them off often. Phrasal verbs are often two-word verbs where the second word is a preposition. “Check out,” “lift up,” “bring out,” and “wake up” are some. Inherently, phrasal verbs can be split up by putting the direct object in between. “Wake him up” and “check it out” are typical.

The same structure applies to prepositional verbs—a verb-preposition combination— except that they don’t want to get separated. “Look after,” “watch out,” “agree on,” and “meddle in”—these are some prepositional verbs of English. To say “look the toddler after” and “agree the stipulation on” are eerie. Familiarity with phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs is another item in our memorization list.

Alas, these are only few of the many nagging intricacies comprised by the English language. Emerging dialects; flipping usage standards; established grouping of words; the functionally-loaded “do”; the adamant, peculiar genres; and eccentric word predictability. There could never be an easy-peasy, one-stop-shop push to learn the tongue. Strong immersion in the language, lasting commitment, a great deal of memory work, and skillful research knack come to the fore to be adept at this phenomenal tongue. No wonder, individuals highly capable of producing grammatical English sentences are quite admirable. And convincing. So to speak.

This article was also published on PTV News website on 18 November 2019. Click The link to said publication is https://ptvnews.ph/the-conundrum-of-english-language/#:~:text=English.