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Watson have the right source content?

 
 
Reply Mon 30 May, 2011 08:33 am

Should "Watson have the right source content" be "Watson has the right source content?"

Context:

Q: How much did your algorithm improve
Watson’s performance?
N.S.: We measured its performance on over
1000 Jeopardy! questions. After my 2009
summer internship, Watson’s accuracy as a
percentage of questions it answered correctly
improved 3.1 percentage points. It gained
an additional 1.7 percentage points in the
summer of 2010. The additional 4.8% total
is substantial for Jeopardy! performance. It
confi rms that it is extremely important that
Watson have the right source content. You
have to be very careful about what sources
you provide to Watson.
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contrex
 
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Reply Mon 30 May, 2011 08:53 am
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote:
Should "Watson have the right source content" be "Watson has the right source content?"


Personally I would say "No." Here we see the use of the present subjunctive. Regardless of the subject, the form of the present subjunctive verb is the infinitive unpreceded by "to". It can be used to emphasise urgency or importance. Some people however allege that the present subjunctive is obsolete or at least becoming more rarely used.

It is important that Watson (a computer program) have the right source content.

It is important that he be there.

In British English it is quite common to use the word "should" before the verb e.g. It is important that Watson should have the right source content.

See this link:

http://www.englishpage.com/minitutorials/subjunctive.html



oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Mon 30 May, 2011 09:04 am
@contrex,
Excellent!

Thank you.
0 Replies
 
 

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