English sentences acceptability judgement

Question

Dear All,Please help me judge the acceptability of following English sentences. (either acceptable, unacceptable, or marginal)1. Down which hill there rolled a small child?2. Down which hill rolled a small child?3. Down which hill did there roll a small child?4. Down which hill there came a small child?5. Down which hill came a small child?6. Down which hill did there come a small child?Thanks in advance and have a nice day!

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Dear All, Please help me judge the acceptability of following English sentences. (either acceptable, unacceptable, or marginal) 1. Down which ... small child? 6. Down which hill did there come a small child? Thanks in advance and have a nice day![/nq]
Your rubric suggests you should be able to work out the word order of a basic wh- question for yourself, even with the preposition banged on the front. All of these are totally non-communicative - in other words, a native speaker wouldn't use any of them. In the extrordinary circumstances of having to identify said hill down which said infant rolled, you'd say "Which hill did the child roll down?"

At a push, 2,5 and 6 are at least grammatical, so let's go with 'marginal' for them, 'unacceptable' for the rest.
If this is an exercise from a text book, throw it away.

DC

Usenet · Answer

Hi.
All the sentences are pretty akward, but grammatically all seem correct to me.
Kamil

English sentences acceptability judgement

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