Embedded questions

My plan is to tackle one English mistake at a time, and try to explain why the grammar is incorrect. Today I heard someone say: "Do you know where's Robert?" Within the overall sentence (question) we have the question: "Where's Robert?" In this kind of sentence, the embedded question cannot be put into the sentence as it is. Let's recreate the sentence. Do you know X? X= Where's Robert? 1) Make the question X into a statement (by making up an answer): Robert is at the store. 2) Replace the unknown part (in bold) with a WH-word (who, where, when, etc): Robert is where. 3) Move the WH-word to the front of the clause: where Robert is 4) Embed the clause in the sentence: Do you know where Robert is 5) Add the question mark: Do you know where Robert is? (correct sentence) So, in the correct sentence "Do you know where Robert is?" the 's of where's was changed to is. (We can't have: "Do you know where Robert's?" We just don't use that contraction in English). I hope this makes sense.

use of "a lot" as an adverb

I was inspired by talking to foreigners recently to revive my blog about English language and grammar. I hope it will be helpful to English learners. In addition it will help me review English grammar for teaching. I heard a common error in English recently in the use of adverbs. The example was: "I held a lot the baby." The mistake has to do with the placement of "a lot". In this sentence, "I" is the subject, "held" is the verb, "the baby" is the direct object and "a lot" is an adverb. In this case the adverb describes "how much". (How much did I hold the baby? A lot). The correct form of the sentence is "I held the baby a lot." What did we do? We just moved "a lot" from its position between the verb and the direct object to the end of the sentence. There is no other place for it to go. The following are also incorrect: "I a lot held the baby";"A lot I held the baby". Why not? I was told this is just something you have to memorize. The adverb "a lot" always goes 'at the end of the sentence'*. Other correct examples: "I haven't been to the movies a lot". "They had dinner at that restaurant a lot". In these cases "to the movies" and "at that restaurant" are also adverbs (of place) describing where I haven't been or where they went to dinner which precede the adverb "a lot". *At times another adverb could also follow "a lot", such as: "I haven't been to the movies a lot recently." Whew! That's enough for one lesson :)