italki - Talking about objects - “sit” or “stand”? - for native speakers of English. In Danish an object can’

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Talking about objects - “sit” or “stand”? - for native speakers of English. In Danish an object can’t sit. It can lie or stand, but sitting is reserved for humans and animals. For that reason I have difficulty getting used to saying that an object “sits” even though I encounter it in writing. I haven’t been able to find an explanation of when to use “sit” and when to use “stand”. I have written some example sentences from dictionaries with “sit” below. I believe I can replace “sit” with “stand” in sentence 1 to 4 below and “sit” with ”lie” in sentence 5. Do you agree? Can you explain to me or give me examples of when I should use “sit” and not “stand”? 1. The limousine is sitting outside. 2. A vase sat on the table. 3. The sled sits unused in the garage during the summer. 4. Out on the patio table sat a tape recorder, a notebook, and the evaluation forms. 5. Resting unattended on the bench of a nearby picnic table sat a large, ripe watermelon.

16 Ara 2016 10:53

Yanıtlar · 14

I'd be interested to know whether the following rationale matches the way you'd choose between "stand" and "lie" in Danish. My guess would be that it does, since language flows from human thought. My understanding of these expressions is that the object is being anthropomorphized. The aspect ratio (tall and thin, short and flat, or square-shaped) of the object *as placed* (so, not necessarily its normal intrinsic shape) determines the corresponding human attitude used to represent the object. There is some wiggle-room. The limousine is flatter than it is tall, but it's not as flat as a sheet of paper, so I'd be happy saying that a limousine is either standing or sitting outside, but not lying. Let's take the example of a phone, if someone says "sit/lie your phone on that table," then that would sound fairly normal (although "put" would be even more normal) and I'd place it down flat. If they said "stand your phone on that table" then that would sound unusual, and I'd probably try and stand the phone on end if I were feeling cooperative enough. A vase can sit or stand, but most vases are taller than they are wide so "stand" would be more usual for such a shape. As I say, there's wiggle-room for objects with aspect ratios close to 1, so even in #5 you could use "lie". But be aware of "lie" versus "lay". You can either say "Today, on the bench, lies a watermelon." or "Yesterday, a watermelon lay on the bench."

16 Aralık 2016

They're correct as written. Your replacements would be wrong in AmE. However, we can say "the sled is standing in the corner" if in fact it is placed on its end, (the runners) If it's flat as in use, then it's sitting. As for why we choose which to use, I can't think of a reason at the moment. At first glance, I would say that it's merely habit and custom from centuries of development.

16 Aralık 2016

Well your tense in wrong so you would have to modify "stand" to fit into 1 and 4 But yes you could swop ( or swap) all 1-5 as suggested. I like Steve's thinking and a limo cannot lie, but a boat can. So "I kept my boat lying in the harbour".

16 Aralık 2016