Thread: ''What happened''

Two sentences:
1.What happened?
2. What did you do last night?

Why do we use an auxiliary verb ''did'' in the second sentence and in the first one we don't and just say what happened (not 'what did happen')?

Спасибо!

In "what happened", "what" is the subject of the sentence. In "What did you do last night", a different word acts as a subject. I guess that is the reason.

True. In the second sentence "you" is the subject and"what" is the object.

Compare: Who saw you? Who = subject, you = object. Who did you see? Who = object, you = subject.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

Whom did you see? Whom = object, you = subject.

(Note: To those learning English, for all intents and purposes 'whom' is somewhat of a dying word in speech these days, I just wanted to point it out for clarity as you may come across it from time to time in texts.)

Hmmm, "sheriff stars" to both translationsmru and Bitpicker for their answers -- аs a native speaker of English, I really had no idea how to answer Lena's question, but I thought the subject/object analysis was very logical!

Двадцать очков Гриффиндору...

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Hmmm, "sheriff stars" to both translationsmru and Bitpicker for their answers -- аs a native speaker of English, I really had no idea how to answer Lena's question, but I thought the subject/object analysis was very logical!

Двадцать очков Гриффиндору...

I have to confess that while I never had any problem with such phrases I had to look up the reason why it is like it is in a grammar book. It's a distinction I had never really thought about before.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Hmmm, "sheriff stars" to both translationsmru and Bitpicker for their answers -- аs a native speaker of English, I really had no idea how to answer Lena's question, but I thought the subject/object analysis was very logical!

Двадцать очков Гриффиндору...

Удивительно, как люди не понимают собственного языка. В американских школах не разбирают предложения по составу?

Originally Posted by Marcus

Удивительно, как люди не понимают собственного языка. В американских школах не разбирают предложения по составу?

Не надолго, а затем люди забывают. Разве не то же самое в русских школах? Я могу вспомнить, когда я задавал вопросы русскам о падежах, и они не могли даже перечислить все из них по имени.

Originally Posted by zxc

.Не надолго.Недолго, а затем люди забывают. Разве не то же самое в русских школах? Я могу вспомнить, когда я задавал вопросы русским о падежах, и они не могли даже перечислить всех их по имени.

Недолго = короткое время
Ненадолго = на короткое время

У нашей квартире есть свободная комната, и наш друг ненадолго остановится у нас.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Удивительно, как люди не понимают собственного языка. В американских школах не разбирают предложения по составу?

Мне удивительно, что вы удивляетесь тому, что много людей плохо понимает формальную грамматику собственного языка!

I mean, one thing that I've heard over and over from people who have intensively studied a second language as adults is: "I never even thought about the grammatical rules of my own language until I began studying a foreign language and doing translations."

And speaking of translations, if it had occurred to me to try translating Lena's two sentences ("What happened?" and "What did you do last night?") into Russian, I would have immediately realized that "what" was a subject in the first one and an object in the second one. ("Что случилось?" vs. "Чем вы занимались вчера вечером?") Although I'm not sure that I would have made the connection between the subject/object difference and the use/non-use of the auxiliary verb "did."

By the way, Lena -- do you understand that "What did happen?" is grammatically possible? However, the "did" would be strongly stressed and typically have a rising intonation, and the meaning would be something like "Что, на самом деле, случилось?" But the "did" in "What did you do last night?" is normally unstressed, and doesn't have an emphatic meaning -- it's simply a past-tense marker.

I have to confess that while I never had any problem with such phrases I had to look up the reason why it is like it is in a grammar book. It's a distinction I had never really thought about before.

And this is very strange. English is not your mother toungue. How could you say it corectly if you did not know the rules? We learnt structure of English qestions and trained using them for a very long time. And questions with "who" and "what" were treated separately and much attention was paid to distinction between questions where "who" ("what") is a subject and where it is an object.

Originally Posted by Marcus

And this is very strange. English is not your mother toungue. How could you say it corectly if you did not know the rules? We learnt structure of English qestions and trained using them for a very long time. And questions with "who" and "what" were treated separately and much attention was paid to distinction between questions where "who" ("what") is a subject and where it is an object.

I guess people have different teachers and different ways of learning. I learnt English myself and I didn't have any tutors. That's why I didn't know about subject/object issues much. I know a Swedish girl who speaks English pretty well. She did study English at school but she had know idea what transcription is (she could not read it) or what the present perfect tense means...I agree with Throbert McGee...we study grammar at schools but then we just speak our native language and we don't pay attention to the rules that much. For example, when you say "Она пришла домой" or "Я пришел домой" you just say it and you don't wonder why you say "она пришла" and not "она пришел".

Marcus, I learn languages by "osmosis" rather than by memorizing rules, I try to replicate the language learning of a child learning his mother tongue. As an adult I have the additional tool of knowing about grammatical rules, but I use that tool to explain to myself certain characteristics of the language which I nevertheless try to adopt as natural rather than as the result of conscious thinking. I have read hundreds of English language novels and other books, had countless conversations in speaking and writing and have probably seen or heard and therefore now can mimick just about every imaginable sentence structure there is. If things like a non-stressed "what did happen?" never turn up, then I never get an impetus to use that form. When I notice forms like "what did happen?" then I try to glean from the context what this form achieves in addition to a simple "what happened?". Usually there will be a dialogue, for example:

A: But that's not what happened!
B: Alright, so what did happen then, in your words?

And I simply understand from such examples sooner or later that the form with "did" adds emphasis.

If you approach a language only through rules and translation, then you never achieve real access to the language. It's like using only half your brain for the language. The left hemispere processes the foreign language, applying rules and translations, then transfers the syntactic content thus transformed into the native language to the right hemisphere which harvests the semantic content; and the semantic content of the reply from the right hemisphere is clothed in the native language first in the left, then again transformed by applying the set of known rules and translations, and hopefully comes out correctly. That's like an interpreted computer language: slow.

What you need to aim for is a direct connection between the syntactic processes in the left hemisphere to the semantic in the right hemisphere without a detour through your native language. Only then you will really be able to think in the target language, and then you will really know the language. This is more like a compiled language, and it is fast.

I'm still a couple of years at least from reaching that point in Russian, but I am quite content that I will, eventually.

Originally Posted by Marcus

And this is very strange. English is not your mother toungue. How could you say it corectly if you did not know the rules? We learnt structure of English qestions and trained using them for a very long time. And questions with "who" and "what" were treated separately and much attention was paid to distinction between questions where "who" ("what") is a subject and where it is an object.

Yes, I want to echo what bitpicker said. His written English is like native, you can safely trust anything he says about English. In fact, because he's making the effort, his English is better than that of many English speakers (who are notoriously lazy about grammar, grammatical rules and even spelling.)

I suspect he probably has a noticeable accent when speaks, but that's not relevant in a forum. But basically, he's put a lot of time into it, he's an absolute ace with grammar and additionally his experiences are relevant for anyone learning English.

Remember that English is MUCH closer to German than it is to Russian, so it's been easier for him to learn than it's been for you, for example. In Western Europe it's also much easier to get exposure to English and native English speakers.

For me, it's the same thing although in Scandinavia we have even more exposure to English than in Germany. I started from a really young age and I've lived in the UK for 10+ years. Basically, I am confident about my English and if I make any mistakes here, it's because I don't bother proof-reading most of the time, and because I change what I want to say while I'm in the middle of writing a sentence.

Unfortunately I don't know grammatical terms well and I am not as good at explaining the reasons why a certain sentence structure is better than another, as Robin is. The only English grammar I can remembers studying, is verbs: "go-went-gone" and "I am, you are, he-she-it is..." The rest I simply learnt naturally.

One little mistake is not the end of the world unless it's for a professional situation. I don't even particularly agree with the idea that everyone should have to speak English as a second language... As can be seen in International Politics, Science etc - as long as you've got functional English and can articulate yourself clearly without sounding like a fool... that's all you really need. Anything else is "extras". You should be aware that native English speakers usually think that foreign accents sound cool and interesting and they generally believe that the foreign speaker is intelligent since he masters more than one language (at least that is the attitude towards white people...)

I agree with everything that Robin said, although I wouldn't have expressed it as well. Translationsnmru is another forum user who is not a native English speaker but writes in absolutely perfect English and gives great advice.

I am trying to apply the same principles that he's outlining to learning Russian (basically repeating what I did for English). But I'm not so sure my approach is correct; Russian is harder and more different to any other language I know. I have not had the same practical incentive (necessity) to learn it, and nowhere near the same exposure. So I am not sure that the "English" approach necessarily works for learning Russian.... I feel that my learning is far too slow although it got a big boost by my trip to Eastern Europe (which is coming to and end shortly).

And I have a vertical hole in my brain where the information about grammar should be. For some reason I seem unable to pick it up and remember it. It's a real handicap when learning Russian and I am so in awe of people who can confidently speak about grammatical concepts.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Мне удивительно, что вы удивляетесь тому, что много людей плохо понимает формальную грамматику собственного языка!

I mean, one thing that I've heard over and over from people who have intensively studied a second language as adults is: "I never even thought about the grammatical rules of my own language until I began studying a foreign language and doing translations."

And speaking of translations, if it had occurred to me to try translating Lena's two sentences ("What happened?" and "What did you do last night?") into Russian, I would have immediately realized that "what" was a subject in the first one and an object in the second one. ("Что случилось?" vs. "Чем вы занимались вчера вечером?") Although I'm not sure that I would have made the connection between the subject/object difference and the use/non-use of the auxiliary verb "did."

By the way, Lena -- do you understand that "What did happen?" is grammatically possible? However, the "did" would be strongly stressed and typically have a rising intonation, and the meaning would be something like "Что, на самом деле, случилось?" But the "did" in "What did you do last night?" is normally unstressed, and doesn't have an emphatic meaning -- it's simply a past-tense marker.

Yes, now I do understand that it is possible. I've never heard ''what did happen'' before though. But I trust native speakers
In addition, I would never guess that "did" could be translated as "на самом деле"...I would imagine an angry or anxious Russian man/woman shouting "ЧТО случилось" and this loud "ЧТО" would mean your stressed "did".

Thank you for your ideas

Lena,

Your posts to the forum are very good.

I'm a native American English speaker and this one when I first read it made me shake my head as "what did happen" sounded so odd to my ears but then I started to think about it and I actually do say "What did happen." It is only for a very specific thing though, when I'm upset... say with my children and they are saying that one thing happened and I've heard a different version or two of the same story. I would indeed say (probably through gritted teeth), "So, what DID happen???" Or I might say "So tell me, what DID happen?" At that point, my girls better tell me the truth about what happened.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Lena,

Your posts to the forum are very good.

I'm a native American English speaker and this one when I first read it made me shake my head as "what did happen" sounded so odd to my ears but then I started to think about it and I actually do say "What did happen." It is only for a very specific thing though, when I'm upset... say with my children and they are saying that one thing happened and I've heard a different version or two of the same story. I would indeed say (probably through gritted teeth), "So, what DID happen???" Or I might say "So tell me, what DID happen?" At that point, my girls better tell me the truth about what happened.

Thanks I know that we can use 'do' or 'did' to emphasize the meaning or stress something. For example, I do like apples, I did see him last night, etc. But ''what happened'' was playing on my mind for a long time. I was wondering why it was not used with the auxiliary verb ''did''. Thanks to this forum and people who know more than me I could get some nice and reasonable answers

Yes Lena, I also want to chime in with Rockzmom and say that your English is great.
Just continue participating here and reading and listening to English speaking material.
You have already "succeeded in your studies, I think, so you should feel great about that.
What you are doing now is just "polishing" the edges a bit.
Keep it up !

Originally Posted by Hanna

Yes Lena, I also want to chime in with Rockzmom and say that your English is great.
Just continue participating here and reading and listening to English speaking material.
You have already "succeeded in your studies, I think, so you should feel great about that.
What you are doing now is just "polishing" the edges a bit.
Keep it up !

Thank you Hanna! I am glad to hear that my English is great. I do love English! It's such a great language. I am trying to learn more and more - to read books in English, listen to music, watch films and I'm coming to London soon! It's not my first time but I am excited