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Jooney Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

In

In the fall, Amazon introduced the iPad's first credible competitior in the $199 Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire is a tablet computer version of Amazon. I'm just wondering if the underlined part could have been written in another way. The reason why I'm saying this is I don't see myself generating a sentence like that. Why not just say:

In the fall, Amazon introduced the iPad's first credible competitor, the $199 Kindle Fire.

Could someone please explain this usage of the preposition phrase?
  

Top answer

jooney Could someone please explain this usage of the preposition phrase? Not easy. This is not the most usual use of "in", as you already know.

  • jooney Could someone please explain this usage of the preposition phrase?
  • Not easy.
  • This is not the most usual use of "in", as you already know.
  • It's the usage of "in" that gives a particular instantiation of the preceding term, as if "in" meant something approximately like "which takes its form as" or more simply "in the form of".
  • The NP after "in" is, as far as I know, always a definite NP.
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2 Answers
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jooneyCould someone please explain this usage of the preposition phrase?
Not easy. This is not the most usual use of "in", as you already know.

It's the usage of "in" that gives a particular instantiation of the preceding term, as if "in" meant something approximately like "which takes its form as" or more simply "in the form of". The NP after "in"
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Now I get the idea of how it is used. I'll keep this usage in mind. Thank you very much for the great insight and helpful examples, CJ.

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