VodkaAndCoke
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Ok, Me and Syntax are having a grammatical argument. It began with a discussion about the use of commas and full stops. It has now evolved into....how would this scenario be written as a sentence.

5 teachers share ownshership of 3 dogs. Each dog owns its own ball. Each ball has at least 1 hole.

Which English sentence would be grammatically correct in describing this scenario, explaining the relationship between the teachers and the holes?

For example:
A dog owns a home

Answer:
A dog's home

I think this is an interesting concept in itself, regarding "grammatical rules" and real use of language.

RoboBob3000
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Hrmm. I say it's the teachers' dogs' balls' holes, but I'm no grammar expert. Even though the dogs own balls singularly, we're taking them plurally in this sense.

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Mouse
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Working backwards:
-the balls have holes.

The dogs own the ball so:
-the dogs' balls have holes.

The teachers own the dogs so:
-the teachers' dogs' balls have holes.

Looks right to me.

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[Last edited by Mouse at 04-13-2006 01:59 AM]

stigant
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How many were going to St. Ives?

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Mouse
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stigant wrote:
How many were going to St. Ives?

Only one. The others were all going the other way.

What does that have to do with the teachers & dogs & balls?

bandit1200
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5 teachers share ownshership of 3 dogs

Had those teachers been imbibing? Actually, I don't care about the grammar, but my heart goes out to those poor dogs with holes in their balls.

Znirk
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I'd avoid deep nesting if possible, but if there's no other way, vary the superficial structure as much as you can:

The holes in the balls of the teachers' dogs (are smaller than my father's brother's nephew's cousin's sister's former roommate's moustache.)

As for "grammar rules" vs. "real use of language", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescription_and_description

michthro
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I take it you also want to express who owns what. So something like:
The five inebriated teachers' three collectively owned dogs' three individually owned holed balls' holes

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[Last edited by michthro at 04-13-2006 10:48 AM]

Hix
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Yeah, you'd need to specify "collectively owned" versus "individually owned" (somehow) because the phrase "teachers' dogs" doesn't single out either case (nor does "dogs' balls" or "balls' holes").

Syntax
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I guess it should be:

The (teachers' dogs)' ball's holes ?

stigant
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ppTeacher[i_teacher]->get_dog(i_dog)->get_ball(i_ball)->get_hole(i_hole);

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[Last edited by stigant at 04-14-2006 12:14 AM]

jamie
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VodkaAndCoke wrote:
Ok, Me and Syntax are having a grammatical argument.

"Syntax and I" ...

(sorry, but it IS a grammar thread!!)

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Znirk
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michthro wrote:
I take it you also want to express who owns what. So something like:
The five inebriated teachers' three collectively owned dogs' three individually owned holed balls' holes

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to squeeze all that information into one single sentence, you should rethink your overall conversation strategy

Seriously, you make arbitrarily deep structures in human languages. The equipment can't handle it (memory constraints), even if it's just a logical combination of things that are in the manual.

Plus, if you try this specific English sentence above in speech rather than writing, you're in a world of homophony trouble. Best just avoid it, and make more than one sentence.

Syntax
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Znirk wrote:

michthro wrote:
I take it you also want to express who owns what. So something like:
The five inebriated teachers' three collectively owned dogs' three individually owned holed balls' holes

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to squeeze all that information into one single sentence, you should rethink your overall conversation strategy

Seriously, you make arbitrarily deep structures in human languages. The equipment can't handle it (memory constraints), even if it's just a logical combination of things that are in the manual.

Plus, if you try this specific English sentence above in speech rather than writing, you're in a world of homophony trouble. Best just avoid it, and make more than one sentence.

Well, the problem was that we *had* to say it one sentence, otherwise it wouldn't have been the optimal solution. For the past year, that sort of behaviour has slowly become totally unacceptable, even outside the boundaries of DROD.