Is "It's a sunny night" a valid sentence?

[cyphever1]

Can the word "sunny" be applied to night time?

[joannap73]

Of course grammatically it's correct, but semantically it's a just a little weird! There's no sun shining on a person when it's "night" for them, so I'd say the sentence doesn't fly. However, perhaps the author meant it was "hot" and got the words confused? That's my best guess!

[Jump Start !]

Joannap73, hello.
you are diffenitely right. yeah that's grammatically right; but not generally true. however, i have a guess that the author is trying to make his own idiom....??? could be...hehe

[joannap73]

An-yong-ha-sae- yo, Jump! :)

Good theory :). I like the idea of a sunny night as an idiom! Who knows what the writer meant, but I like it as an idiom - kind of pretty! Like a happy, wonderful night.

[GiddyGad]

I understood it as an oxymoron.

Cheers,

GiddyGad

[Jump Start !]

so, could be also that the author is happy and feel so bright on that night he said it...hehehe

[joannap73]

So one thing is for sure: We don't know what the author meant, because we can't ask him or her. :wink: I remember my professors always having really strange interpretations of literature, and I thought, "Where did they get THAT meaning???" You can invent anything, I guess, if you don't know the author's intentions for sure. :) As for this 'sunny night' sentence, the last post-er's idea (Seoul, Korea) is my favorite! Very poetic. I might even use it as an example in my ELL class this year. :D

[SaudQ8]

This question remindes me in a famous sentence written by Chomsky "Colorless green Idea walks furtiously." When we look at this sentence from a grammatical angle, it's absouloutly correct but it lacks the semantic feature. So, this is something weakening the Traditional Grammar that concerns only with the form instead of paying attention to both form and function. Anyway, I can say your phrase "a sunny night" is right but if ur intention is associated to a literary meaning because the literary language breaks the grammar and this is clear even in the canonical writers as Wordsworth and Shakespeare.

My Pleasure,

Saud :)

[joannap73]

Great example! I think it's "colorless green ideas sleep furiously (not walk)".
You sound as much of a grammar nut as I am. :) (See my first post in this string.)

[Jump Start !]

Thanks joann... :)