Is it a gramatical sentence?

Question

My mother is in the kitchen cooking dinner.(1)
Is it a gramatical sentence?
and what does it mean?
I think it should be "My mother is in the kitchen to cook dinner"(2)

and what is the difference between (1) and (2)?

thank you very much
have a nice day

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

"My mother is in the kitchen cooking dinner."
This is grammatically correct. In this case it means that your mother is performing the action of cooking dinner right now. What is she doing? She is "cooking dinner."

You could say "My mother is in the kitchen to cook dinner," but if you say it this way, you are stating more of a reason why she is in the kitchen. If you say it this way, why she is doing this is more important than what she is doing.

Ferdis · Answer

Yes, both are grammatically fine, but the first technically requires a comma before 'cooking'. Otherwise, 'cooking dinner' could be understood to modify 'kitchen' instead of 'my mother' -- however strange that would be.

My mother is in the kitchen, cooking dinner. She is in the kitchen, and she is busy cooking dinner now.

My mother is in the kitchen to cook dinner. She is in the kitchen, and her purpose of being in the kitchen is to cook dinner, but she is not necessarily cooking right now -- she may be chatting.

Dimsumexpress · Answer

ferdisYes, both are grammatically fine, but the first technically requires a comma before 'cooking'. Otherwise, 'cooking dinner' could be understood to modify 'kitchen' instead of 'my mother' -- however strange that would be.

Ummm....not exactrly! The first question: My mother is in the kitchen<,> cooking dinner. The comma actually stops the flow of the sentence. It should not be there. Grammatically, [cooking dinner] is a particple phrase modifying the main clause which is [my mother is in the kitchen]. Particple phrase is adverbial in nature. It provides additional information to the main sentence.

Secondly, "My mother is in the kitchen [to cook dinner]" is not something natives would say and is considered unidiomatic (perhaps even wrong) even though it may look grammatical.

Ferdis · Answer

dimsumexpressUmmm..not exactrly! The first question: My mother is in the kitchen<,> cooking dinner. The comma actually stops the flow of the sentence. It should not be there. Grammatically, [cooking dinner] is a particple phrase modifying the main clause which is [my mother is in the kitchen]. Particple phrase is adverbial in nature. It provides additional information to the main sentence.

According to me, it (cooking dinner) is simply a participle phrase functioning as an adjective modifying 'mother'. Because it modifies 'mother' and not 'kitchen', a comma is required. Cooking dinner, my mother is in the kitchen. My dinner-cooking mother is in the kitchen. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an adverbial participle phrase in English.

dimsumexpressSecondly, "My mother is in the kitchen [to cook dinner]" is not something natives would say and is considered unidiomatic (perhaps even wrong) even though it may look grammatical.

Isn't it a perfectly fine answer to the question:

Why is your mother in the kitchen?
My mother is in the kitchen to cook dinner.

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Cooking dinner - doesn't modify "kitchen". It modified the whole main clause.

ferdis
According to me, it (cooking dinner) is simply a participle phrase functioning as an adjective modifying 'mother'. Because it modifies 'mother' and not 'kitchen', a comma is required. Cooking dinner, my mother is in the kitchen. My dinner-cooking mother is in the kitchen. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an adverbial participle phrase in English.

Accoding to you, there is no such thing as "adverbial phrase". BUT, yes, there is. I've provided 2 links below for your reference.

Adverbial Phrases

An adverbial phrase is a group of related words which play the role of an adverb. Like all phrases, an adverbial phrase does not include a subject

Perhaps, this may help you clear the confusion.

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/participle_phrases.htm

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/adverbial_phrases.htm

ferdis
Why is your mother in the kitchen?
My mother is in the kitchen ~~to cook dinner~~.

For discussion purpose, let's look at it from another angle: My mother is cooking dinner [in the kitchen]. Now, [cooking dinner] is no longer a particple functioning adverbially but a present particple in progressive tense. The meaning hasn't changed. Agree? And, [in the kitchen] is a prep. phrase modifying the present progressive sentence.

Preposition phrase and participle phrase are called adverbial phrase collectively.

Ferdis · Answer

dimsumexpressAccoding to you, there is no such thing as "adverbial phrase". BUT, yes, there is. I've provided 2 links below for your reference.

Perhaps, this may help you clear the confusion.

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/participle_phrases.htm

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/adverbial_phrases.htm

I never said there is no such thing as an adverbial phrase (or a prepositional phrase functioning as adverb). What I said is that there is no such thing as a participle phrase functioning as an adverb. A participle phrase always functions as an adjective. And "cooking dinner" is a participle phrase because it starts with a participle here.

These links support my argument

dimsumexpressFor discussion purpose, let's look at it from another angle: My mother is cooking dinner [in the kitchen]. Now, [cooking dinner] is no longer a particple functioning adverbially but a present particple in progressive tense. The meaning hasn't changed. Agree? And, [in the kitchen] is a prep. phrase modifying the present progressive sentence.

Preposition phrase and participle phrase are called adverbial phrase collectively.

Again, a participle can not function as an adverb.

Your sentence has a completely different structure.

[My mother] [is cooking] [dinner] [in the kitchen.]

Here, is cooking is the present continuous verb. 'Dinner' is an object noun, and 'in the kitchen' is a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverb (adverbial phrase) modifying 'is cooking'.

Clive · Answer

Hi guys,

My mother is in the kitchen cooking dinner.

Let me suggest another way to think about the question of a comma in this sentence.

A comma represents a pause in speech. It's easy to forget that fact when we get involved in discussions like this, but essentially all the grammatical rules relating to commas try to explain why we pause or don't pause.

So, would I pause after 'kitchen'?

When I first saw the sentence above and 'spoke it in my mind', I didn't pause. The result is that both pieces of information about my mother (in the kitchen + cooking dinner) receive equal importance. When I think about it, I could indeed pause after 'kitchen'. However, the result of that would be to reduce the importance of 'cooking dinner' in the statement. So, it depends on my intention in making the statement.

I'm not arguing in the least that all the rules for when one should write a comma are unimportant. They are very helpful, particularly for English learners who can't simply 'speak a sentence' to see if there is a natural pause. What concers me is just that, in such discussions. it's very common to forget that written language represents speech. Instead, commas seem to take on a life of their own, in which speech is completely forgotten!

Best wishes, Clive

Dimsumexpress · Answer

ferdis
Again, a participle can not function as an adverb.

But it can function as an adverbial phrase to modify the main clause!

Your sentence has a completely different structure.

It appeared to me that you didn't understand the point of my making your sentence present progressive, and I illustrated clearly what each part of the structure does.

[My mother] [is cooking] [dinner] [in the kitchen.]

ferdisWhat I said is that there is no such thing as a participle phrase functioning as an adverb. A participle phrase always functions as an adjective. And "cooking dinner" is a participle phrase because it starts with a participle here.

I wanted to show you [cooking dinner] and [in the kitchen] are both adverbial phrases, and [cooking dinner] is a participle phrase which is also a type of adverbial that you said you never heard of.

Tommy is in his room [playing video games]. By your definition, the blue underlined is adjectival. Is that my understanding? I see it as a participle phrase.

Tommy is playing video games [in his room] - The red underlined is a prep. phrase and I think we can agree. So you see the structure and the sentence components changed places. But the meaning is retained. Now [Playing video games] phored from being a particple phrase to a present partciple describing what Tommy is doing.

Perhaps, we acquired our English from different sources and apparently, one of us is misinformed or confused. As far as a "mother is in the kitchen [to cook], is concerned, you approved it as correct, and I already expressed my opinion otherwise. I just want to clarify the points to the leaners.

The explanations contained in the 2 links should have given any reader a good idea what the difference and similarity are between adverbs and adverbial phrases, and how they behave.
ferdisThese links support my argument

I have no further comments.

Ferdis · Answer

Dimsumexpress, in terms of grammar, all elements have both a form and a function. The form describes what something is, what type of word or phrase, while the function describes what something does, what the purpose is in the sentence.

The term 'participial phrase' indicates form; it's function is always adjectival (in English).

Since you don't appear to believe me, I'll quote a paragraph from "Line by Line" by Claire Cook (p.159) that may clarify this:

"The present and past participles of verbs, the ing and ed forms used with auxiliary verbs in various inflections, function on their own as adjectives. Sometimes it makes little difference whether you construe a participle following the verb to be as part of the verb phrase or as a predicative adjective. In We are impressed, for example, you may either consider are impressed the first-person plural present passive form of impress or regard impressed as an adjective modifying We. But even when participles appear without auxiliaries and clearly serve as adjectives, they - like infinitives - still act in some ways like verbs, taking objects or complements (Choosing my words carefully, I told them the whole story; This procedure, once considered daring, has become common-place). The participle, the words it governs, and any modifiers of these elements constitute a participial phrase. [emphasis mine]"

Furthermore, for example, this website "link", among other sources, states:

"Present participles, verbals ending in -ing, and past participles, verbals that end in -ed (for regular verbs) or other forms (for irregular verbs), are combined with complements and modifiers and become part of important phrasal structures. Participial phrases always act as adjectives."

What this means is that in a sentence such as "My mother is cooking dinner", you can either see 'is cooking' as the verb phrase or 'is' as the verb (phrase) with the participial phrase 'cooking dinner' in adjectival function, modifying 'mother'.

It also means that in the sentence 'My mother is in the kitchen, cooking dinner," the 'cooking dinner' part is a participial phrase in form, functioning in adjectival fashion with 'mother' as antecedent.

Now, you'll find that many sources -- I do not feel like quoting everything -- state that when a participial phrase ends the sentence, a comma is required when the antecedent is the subject of the sentence and not the word it directly follows.

dimsumexpressTommy is in his room [playing video games]. By your definition, the blue underlined is adjectival. Is that my understanding? I see it as a participle phrase.

The form of the underlined is indeed a participial phrase; it's function is adjectival, and the antecedent is 'tommy'. "Video-games-playing Tommy is in his room." It describes what Tommy is doing, what kind of state he is in. Tommy is a noun. It does not describe the unit "Tommy is in his room"; how could it? What would that mean?

The form of 'in his room' is a prepositional phrase; it's function is adverbial.

dimsumexpressAs far as a "mother is in the kitchen [to cook], is concerned, you approved it as correct, and I already expressed my opinion otherwise. I just want to clarify the points to the leaners.

You have not yet answered what is grammatically wrong with answering the question "Why is your mother in the kithcen?" with "My mother is in the kitchen to cook dinner." I never said that the sentences with 'cooking dinner' and 'to cook dinner' have the same meaning -- on the contrary -- all I said was that both are grammatically OK.

So, what part of this exactly don't you agree with? I was just answering a question and proposed that, technically, the sentence requires a comma -- with good reason. Next, I'm told that I'm wrong. Well, in these cases I'd like to get to the bottom of things because I do not know why I am wrong. If you can explain this to me clearly, with good, grammatical arguments, I'd be very gracious because that would also increase my understanding of English grammar.

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Ferdis,

I have no doubted that you have studied English extenesively by how you have theorized the grammatical property. And I appreciate that. But I am not convinced by your explanations and points.

Mainly, "Mother is in the kitchen to cook" sounds weird and unnatural to me, even if it's grammatical by rules. If you insisit that the infinitive form is correct, of course, by all means.

In all likelihood, I think you may be mixed up with similar sentence pattern like this one:

A- What is John?

I will say: He is at the airport picking up his brother.

He is driving to the airport to pick up his brother".

You may argure, why not "to pick up..." in the first one and why it is ok to use infintive in the second?

I am not a linguist so I can't give you the exact reason why the infinitive form does not work, but my intuition is when we are in the process of doing something to achieve something, we use infintive. i.e. I am studying to become (~~becoming)~~ a computer programmer.

Your reasoning is mother is in the kitchen, why? To cook. It just doesn't work, I perceived it as "doing what"?- Cooking.

We can say however, "mother is in the kitchen getting ready to cook", which fits perfectly to my intuition as described above (getting ready to..).

Secondly, I think our views toward adverbial and present particple is vastly apart. You seemed to believe that prep. phrase is adjectival in form, and my view is, prep phrase is adverbial. i.e. I found the missing keys under your bed / in the garage/ in your coat pocket. These underlined phrases tell where I found it; modifying the main clause "I found your missing keys...." by adding more information to complete the message. without further debating our points, I will offers few sentences with parallel structure and perhaps you can ask yourself which one to use:

Jane is in her room [sleeping] / [to sleep].

Tommy is in his room [to play]/ [playing] video games.

Mike received a phone call from school [to inform]/ [informing] him that his son has not come to school for two days.

ferdis
The form of 'in his room' is a prepositional phrase; it's function is adverbial.

ferdis"The present and past participles of verbs, the ing and ed forms used with auxiliary verbs in various inflections, function on their own as adjectives

This is where we differ in our English conviction. "In his room" tells where he is, not what a room is. So how is this an adjective property? We've learned that where, when how, and who are associated with adverbial property (adverb and adverbial phrases) which modify the main clauses. What you seemed to have expressed and disapporved in your words is that, present particple phrase only described the noun(s) preceeding it, as you described "cooking" modified kitchen, not the main sentence. That sounds quite perplexing to me!

This is certainly a discussion beyond being interesting. The more we add to the previous arguments, the more we revealed how much we undertand, or misunderstand for that matter.

I certainly would appreciate the native experts to help sort out the terminology and the grammatical

idiosyncrasy In this particluar discussion.

Is it a gramatical sentence?

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