研究习作: Help sb to V and help sb V

[xiaoz]

What have your teachers told you about the difference bettwen a) and b)?

a. This book helped me to see the truth.
b. These tablets will help you sleep.

 

[majorlv511]

the teacher often says, between the two structures, help sb to do, help sb do, the word "to" is only optional.

 

[清风出袖]

to often has the imlication that the fact described after the word to is transient or true under a specific situation, while without 'to' the fact mentioned is often prevalent throught a longer period of time compared with the previous one.

 

[xiaoz]

回复：[case study]Help sb to V and help sb V

Any reference for this?

以下是引用 清风出袖 在 2005-8-30 22:47:48 的发言：
to often has the imlication that the fact described after the word to is transient or true under a specific situation, while without 'to' the fact mentioned is often prevalent throught a longer period of time compared with the previous one.

 

[Haiyang Ai]

No difference.
Have been told many times, I think.
Now I doubt it.

 

[tiger]

good topic

 

[hancunxin]

we have been told by the teacher they are the same.

 

[xiaoz]

The English-Chinese dictionary (Unabridged) 《英汉大词典》，陆谷孙 主编， 上海译文出版社，1993年第一版，1996年第5次印刷，第813页：

当及物动词help的行为主体参与（帮助）别人做事时，后面的动词不定式可带可不带to，如will you ~ me (to) clear the table? 一般在美国用法中较多省略。但当help的行为主体不参与后面的动作时，则宾语后的动词不定式必须带to，如This book ~ed me to see the truth.

 

[hancunxin]

回复：[case study]Help sb to V and help sb V

以下是引用 xiaoz 在 2005-8-31 21:58:54 的发言：
The English-Chinese dictionary (Unabridged) 《英汉大词典》，陆谷孙 主编， 上海译文出版社，1993年第一版，1996年第5次印刷，第813页：

当及物动词help的行为主体参与（帮助）别人做事时，后面的动词不定式可带可不带to，如will you ~ me (to) clear the table? 一般在美国用法中较多省略。但当help的行为主体不参与后面的动作时，则宾语后的动词不定式必须带to，如This book ~ed me to see the truth.

thanks for your work.

[本贴已被 作者 于 2005年08月31日 22时51分16秒 编辑过]​

 

[清风出袖]

it is out of my feel to the English language! how do you feel about the topic, Dr.xiao? i saw one of the peper on your web on teh topic.is that paper your view on the topic?or you have some more thought on the tpic? thanks for sharing it with ua all, thanks!

 

[xusun575]

回复：[case study]Help sb to V and help sb V

以下是引用 xiaoz 在 2005-8-31 21:58:54 的发言：
The English-Chinese dictionary (Unabridged) 《英汉大词典》，陆谷孙 主编， 上海译文出版社，1993年第一版，1996年第5次印刷，第813页：

当及物动词help的行为主体参与（帮助）别人做事时，后面的动词不定式可带可不带to，如will you ~ me (to) clear the table? 一般在美国用法中较多省略。[face=Times New Roman]但当help的行为主体不参与后面的动作时，则宾语后的动词不定式必须带to，如This book ~ed me to see the truth[/face].

Really? but the the following are the findings turned out by GOOGLE search:

以下是引用 xusun575 在 2005-9-1 21:18:11 的发言：
Results 1 - 100 of about 3,780 for "this book helped me to see". (0.26 seconds)
Results 1 - 100 of about 5,880 for "this book helped me see" . (0.34 seconds)

Results 1 - 55 of about 173 for "this book helped me to know" . (1.46 seconds)
Results 1 - 89 of about 488 for "this book helped me know" . (0.29 seconds)

 

[xiaoz]

It's great for you to have found some evidence to argue against one of the most authoritative works published in China.

 

[清风出袖]

therefore it could be sai that corpus has more say in compiling dictionaries r than peiople's feel about a language, right, no matter who the compilers might be, a lauman or a big shot in language study. here's another question on the issue, one is how represenntative the corpus consulted is , the other one is whether it is up-to-date to meet the goal of decribing the langauge as it is.

 

[xiaoz]

Representativeness is the defining feature of a corpus. For a collection of texts to be justified as a corpus, it must be representative of a language or language variety of some kind. In this sense, the Web is not a corpus - what does not represent? English? Chinese? human language? And I believe that a reference book or dictionary that claims to be based on examples and statistics in the "Web corpus" will not sell.

For up-to-dateness, that's why a monitor corpus is important, especially in tracking rapid language changes, which typically starts with lexis. That's also what a monitor corpus is typically for - dictionary making, as in the Collins series.

 

[xiaoz]

For a systematic study of help vs. help to, see

McEnery, A. M. and Xiao, R. Z. (2005) HELP or HELP to: What do corpora have to say? English Studies, 86 (2). pp. 161-187.

A pre-print version is available at the following link:
http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/51/

 

[xusun575]

回复：[case study]Help sb to V and help sb V

以下是引用 xiaoz 在 2005-9-4 9:25:49 的发言：
For a systematic study of help vs. help to, see

McEnery, A. M. and Xiao, R. Z. (2005) HELP or HELP to: What do corpora have to say? English Studies, 86 (2). pp. 161-187.

A pre-print version is available at the following link:
http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/51/

Why not have ur full article displayed here? Thanks.

 

[xiaoz]

You can click on the PDF icon to download the full paper.