Made him dig or Made him dug?

In a situation where we have two lexical verbs with one functioning as the main verb and the other as an auxiliary verb, the first verb in the complex will serve as an auxiliary verb accounting for tense and number while the second verb will function as a main verb and be in its base form. The base form of a verb is that which has not been inflected. For example, let us LOOK at the following:

Base Form/Present Plural Form	Present Singular Form	Past Tense Form	Past Perfect Form	Continuous Form
Dig	Digs	Dug	Dug	Digging
Begin	Begins	Began	Begun	Beginning
Play	Plays	Played	Played	Playing
look,	Looks	Looked	looked	Looking
Walk	Walks	Walked	walked	walking

Let us look at the following examples:

1. LET us BEGIN (not  beginning, began, begun or begins) to worship God.

2. She MAKES him PLAY

3. We MADE him LOOK at the boy

4. She LETS him WALK on the lawn today.

5. John MADE him DIG the hole.   

The verb phases which are split in the above sentences are:

1. Let (auxiliary) begin (main)

2. Makes (auxiliary)  play (main)

3. Made (auxiliary) look (main)

4. Lets (auxiliary) walk (main)

5. Made (auxiliary) dig (main)

First or Firstly: Understanding Enumerative Conjuncts

'First', 'firstly'; 'second', 'secondly'; 'third', 'thirdly'; etc. are all  equal pairs given they are used as enumerative conjuncts. Thus, the difference between the pairs in this context is, rather than a semantic one, a morphological one.

 

By conjunct is meant a kind of adverbial that is usually at the initial position of a sentence and which, rather than modifies the main  verb, connects the sentence with another one. Examples of this are:

 

1. IN ADDITION, there should be a sentence before this sentence.

2. ALTERNATIVELY, instead of 'first' you can use 'firstly'

3. EQUALLY, you can provide your own examples.

On the other hand (note that this is also a CONJUNCT), enumerative conjuncts are such conjuncts that are used in listings ideas or points in a chronological manner. 

In summary, ‘first’ and firstly are both correct and so are the others like ‘second’, ‘secondly’, etc. However one should be consistent with whichever one is making use of: ‘Firstly…. Secondly… Thirdly…’ or ‘First… Second… Third…’ and not Firstly… Second… Thirdly…’  

BETWEEN HYPOTAXIS AND TENSE

Hypotaxis can be described as the relationship which exists between two clauses in which one is subordinate to the other. Simply put, hypotaxis is the relationship between the clauses in any kind of complex sentence.

For instance, the  relationship between 'he had left' and 'before I came' in 'He had left before I came' is that of hypotaxis where the latter clause is subordinate to (that is, less in semantic and grammatical importance than) the former clause.

One of the relationship that we may trace between two clauses in hypotactic relationship is tense.

Tense may be said to be the grammaticalisation of time in language. It is such a concept by which we understand when an action is done or how a process is to be construed in terms of a relative temporal construct. It such aids our understand of the world through language that we are able to conveniently say that a speaker or a writer is speaking about the past, the present, or the future. It is also through tense that we know that an action precedes another action In time. It is through it that we know that 'he had left' precedes 'before I came' in time.

Now, let us examinine the following sentences:

>> I thought I HAVE finally arrived there.

>> I thought I HAD finally arrived there.

One phenomenon common to clauses in hypotactic relationship is tense sequencing or tense agreement. It is usually said that both clauses should agree in tense such that we do not have something like *'He had left before I come'. By this kind of requirement, the first sentence would be grammatically out of place.

To further explain this, we could use the following analogical examples:

>> I thought you COME yesterday.

>> I thought you CAME yesterday.

By what we have established and our own knowledge of grammatics, we would consider the first sentence as a grammatical aberration while we hold the second as grammatically O.K. Why? It is because there is a clean-cut marker of time 'yesterday'. Let us now go back to the sentences in our focus and introduce a clean-cut marker of time:

>> I thought I HAVE finally arrived there last year.

>> I thought I HAD finally arrived there last year.

However, there may be time when the tenses of the two clauses would not correspond. Example:

>> This IS the town where I STAYED last year

Here, the tense of the main clause 'This is the town' in the present tense does not correspond with the subordinate clause 'where I stayed last year' which is in past tense.

At any rate, the complex sentence ' I thought I had I finally arrived there.' should be considerd as grammatically faultless and held appropriate based on the foregoing observations of the structures of the English sentence.

Everybody knows when HE/SHE is right or when THEY are right?

You really must have found yourself in a situation where you are confused on what possessive adjective, objective case pronoun or subjective anaphoric pronoun to use with indefinite pronouns such as ‘everybody’, ‘anybody’, etc.  In such situations you often have to choose from the following sets: their, his/her and his; them, him/her and him; and they, he/she and he. For example, do you say: ‘Everybody knows when they are right.’ or ‘Everybody knows when he or she is right.’ or ‘Everybody knows when he is right.’?  Let us take a look at the following.

Indefinite Pronouns, Subjective Anaphoric Pronouns, Objective Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

Indefinite Pronouns are pronouns that are used instead of a noun whose definiteness cannot be established. This means that indefinite pronouns do not refer to anybody or anything in particular. Examples include: anyone, no one, everyone, everybody, nobody, anybody, etc.

Subjective Anaphoric Pronouns are pronouns which are used to refer back to a subject. They are often in subjective case. In ‘The man said that he didn’t understand the lecture’, he is a subjective anaphoric pronoun; it refers back to the subject ‘the man’.

Objective Pronouns are pronouns used instead of nouns which receive action from the process denoted by a verb. Examples include: him, her, it, them, me, us, and you. Him in ‘I know him.’ is an objective pronoun.

Possessive Adjectives are pronouns which are used as adjective. These are: my, our, your, his, her, its and their. In ‘These are my shoes’, my qualifies ‘shoes’ just as ‘new’, an adjective, qualifies ‘shoes’ in the sentence ‘These are new shoes’.

Using Indefinite Pronouns with Subjective Anaphoric Pronouns, Objective Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

Using an indefinite pronoun with any of the three grammatical elements above can best be described along three categories: formal use, informal use and gender bias.

Formal Use

In formal settings, one is expected to make use of he/she, his/her and him/her with indefinite pronouns. Examples:

i.                    Everyone should know when he/she is expected to talk.

ii.                  Everybody knows when he/she is in love.

iii.                Anybody can say what is on his/her own mind. It’s a free world.

iv.                Anyone can just grab his/her gun and shoot you.

v.                  Anybody can climb the fence for him/her to see what is going on.

vi.                Anybody can be appointed provided we can identify him/her.

Informal Use

In informal settings, they, them and their are used with indefinite pronouns. This means when you are with your friends or colleagues you can make use of the following:

i.                    Everyone should know when they are expected to talk.

ii.                  Everybody knows when they are in love.

iii.                Anybody can say what is on their own mind. It’s a free world.

iv.                Anyone can just grab their gun and shoot you.

v.                  Anybody can climb the fence for them to see what is going on.

vi.                Anybody can be appointed provided we can identify them.

Gender Bias: Unacceptable Use

Over the years, the English language has gone through several feministic reviews which have in some ways rendered some erstwhile acceptable uses essentially unacceptable. There are some structures in grammar which assume that the world is composed of only male human beings; these structures are now considered unacceptable. For example, it is now considered unacceptable to say ‘Nobody can say he knows what will happen tomorrow’. Therefore, the following sentences are unacceptable:

i.                    Everyone should know when he is expected to talk.

ii.                  Everybody knows when he is in love.

iii.                Anybody can say what is on his own mind. It’s a free world.

iv.                Anyone can just grab his gun and shoot you.

v.                  Anybody can climb the fence for him to see what is going on.

vi.                Anybody can be appointed provided we can identify him.