One of the greatest benefits from learning a new language or teaching your own to a non-native speaker is that it forces you to think outside of the box.
Last night, my roommate and I had an interesting conversation about English brought up by a statement in his textbook:
"I want you home by ten."
Usually, we would say "I want you at home by ten" just like we want might say "I want you at piano lessons by four" or "I want you at school by eight". But if you take out the 'at', it only makes sense in the first example:
"I want you home by ten."
"I want you piano lessons by four."
"I want you school by eight."
Why is that?
I'm sure my readers who have studied linguistics might have a few guesses, but for the most part, we native speakers don't have a clue. We haven't bothered to think about these subtle differences in our everyday utterances.
Language teaching and learning brings out these differences and forces us to grapple for distinctions. This is why I am convinced that the critical thinking skills that we develop as we encounter new languages and cultures are well worth the effort, even if we Americans know that we can almost always get by with English wherever we go.
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I think it's because "home" can function as both a noun (meaning the place) and an adjective (describing something which is at home). (Although it's a rather special adjective; compare "I talked to the girl who is home" with "I talked to the home girl"...) In "I want you home by ten", "home" is functioning as an adjective, whereas in the version with "at" it is a noun. On the flip side, we can say "I want you ready by three" but not *"I want you at ready by three", since "ready" is an adjective, not a noun.
ReplyDeleteJust to add: I was interested in the specific linguistic question, but don't mean to detract from your larger point, with which I agree. =)
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