Jose Carillo's English Forum

Joe Carillo's Desk => You Asked Me This Question => Topic started by: English Maiden on January 17, 2012, 08:38:47 PM

Title: I am Filipino vs I am a Filipino; We are Filipino vs We are Filipinos
Post by: English Maiden on January 17, 2012, 08:38:47 PM

Hi, Sir!

I've always wondered if there's any semantic difference between the sentence pairs that follow:

1A. I am Filipino.
1B. I am a Filipino.

2A. We are Filipino.
2B. We are Filipinos.


Are the sentence pairs above all acceptable and freely interchangeable? To me, the first pair seems like it is; but sentence 2B in the second pair, which uses the plural Filipinos, seems a little awkward to me. I really want to find out if there's any difference at all between these sentences. Your explanation will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance, sir!

Title: Re: I am Filipino vs I am a Filipino; We are Filipino vs We are Filipinos
Post by: Joe Carillo on January 19, 2012, 11:38:07 PM

Both of the sentence pairs below that you presented are grammatically correct and freely interchangeable:

1A. “I am Filipino.” 1B. “I am a Filipino.”

2A. “We are Filipino.” 2B. “We are Filipinos.”

The only difference is that the first sentence of each pair uses “Filipino” as an adjective that identifies a native of the Philippine Islands or a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines, while the second sentence uses “Filipino”/“Filipinos” as a noun complement to denote the same entity as that described by the adjective. A noun complement, we will recall, is an added noun by which the predicate of a sentence is made complete.