Re: Is this sentense correct?

Duy Lam wrote:
Nick wrote:
>> This is a sentence and I'm sure that it's correct.
"The only ones present were John and myself."

This is correct.

And it is similar to "The only one who were present were John and myself."

That is nearly correct, it should be "ones" or "people", not "one".

You agreed that the clause
"The only ones present were John and myself" and
"The only one who were present were John and myself."
is correct and similar. So why can't the clause

No I haven't. "The only one who were present were John and myself" isn't correct. It must be "ones".

"I will give you the book when it is avaiable"
"I will give you the book when it avaiable"
be the same?
I see they has no diferrent grammar form.

They appear utterly different to me.

Can you explain why they seem to be same grammatical form to you?

Try turning the first one round:

"When the book is available, I will give it to you".

This works fine. But

"When the book available, I will give it to you" is clearly missing a verb from the first clause.

In the "John and myself" sentences they become (with the second corrected):

"John and myself were the only ones present"
and
"John and myself were the only ones who were present".

These both work and - critically - aren't sentences with two partly independent clauses.

In the first the two don't mean quite the same thing - the first means he will phone us when he arrives, and the second when about to depart or during the journey.

Yes, I see.
When I wrote a reduced clause "He will phone us when coming", the reader can't know exactly what the original clause is; it will lead to a misunderstand. Because the orginal clause can be
"He will phone us when he comes" or
"He will phone us when he is coming".
Am I right?

Yes. It's "misunderstanding" there by the way - we can misunderstand each other, but there is a misunderstanding between us.

> In the second I'd much prefer "will" to "is".

That because I used present continous tense (to say a plan) in first clause?

Yes, and it doesn't seem to work for something that has a clear end point like that. Like many native English speakers, when it comes to these rather messy futures in English I can easily say what "feels" right, but find it very hard to explain why.
.

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