292 CHAPTER 6. LANGUAGE PATTERNS
expectation:
”You should have taken responsibility.”
Here the clause , ”to take responsibility”, is illustrated as
being something that is socially expected from someone in whichever con-
text this phrase was said in. Sometimes this social expectation is a given, or
common sense, but sometimes the expectation is very context dependent,
such as:
”(You) should study English seriously.”
Here the clause , ”to study English se-
riously”, is turned into a social expectation because of the behaviour of
whoever it is said to right now. Probably, they are goofing off, while a
”proper” person would be studying hard in order to meet the social stan-
dards.
This sentence also shows a special contraction when using with
, in that it turns into instead of as expected.
Truly, there is nothing simple, or ordinary, about this word.
6.2.10 Indicating a moment in time using ( )
This word takes a clause and turns it into a nominalisation representing a
point in space time. For instance:
”The ceremony will start soon.”
This sentence literally says ”We will soon be at the point where the
ceremony starts”.
”Just as (I) was (together) with my girlfriend, (I) was imposed upon
by a friend.”
This sentence literally says ”at the point of being with my girlfriend,
I was ...”. While on its own means ”place”, and can be followed by
several particles, as nominaliser it is typically followed by either or ,
depending on whether the focus of the sentence has to lie with the place
or time, or with the event that occurs. Also note the use of , which
should be interpreted as a ”passive form of bother” here.