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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
Leaving out words
Hi,
I'm reading an English novel and I'm finding it hard to understand some sentences due to possible words left out (reduced clauses)
Example taken from the novel
"A delicate yet adventurous woman, Elizabeth Finlay came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage."
The way I understand it
"[As] a delicate yet adventurous woman, Elizabeth Finlay came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage."
Am I right in saying that the As preposition should be at the beginning of the sentence?
I'm reading an English novel and I'm finding it hard to understand some sentences due to possible words left out (reduced clauses)
Example taken from the novel
"A delicate yet adventurous woman, Elizabeth Finlay came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage."
The way I understand it
"[As] a delicate yet adventurous woman, Elizabeth Finlay came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage."
Am I right in saying that the As preposition should be at the beginning of the sentence?
Top answer
No. ") is caused by her being "a delicate yet adventurous woman", which is not a correct interpretation of the sentence. A better way to think of the sentence is with a reordering: "Elizabeth Finlay [was] a delicate yet adventurous woman [who] came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage.
- No.
- ") is caused by her being "a delicate yet adventurous woman", which is not a correct interpretation of the sentence.
- A better way to think of the sentence is with a reordering: "Elizabeth Finlay [was] a delicate yet adventurous woman [who] came from a long line of Canadian settlers and was fiercely proud of her heritage.
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4 Answers
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No. Putting "as" at the beginning of the sentence implies that the clause following Elizabeth Finlay ("came from a long line...") is caused by her being "a delicate yet adventurous woman", which is not a correct interpretation of the sentence. A better way to think of the sentence is with a reordering: "Elizabeth Finlay [was] a delicate yet adventurous woman [who] came from a long line of Canadi
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AnonymousA delicate yet adventurous woman, Elizabeth Finlay came from ...You can think of the first phrase as parenthetical.
Elizabeth Finlay (a delicate yet adventurous woman) came from ...
Or as a full relative clause.
Elizabeth Finlay, who was a delicate yet adventurous woman, came from ...
CJ
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Thanks! But can't we just also use the As preposition in descriptive sense without any connection to the rest of the sentence?
Example
"As a tired but happy person he walked over the street."
We are just describing that a tired but happy person walked over the street.
Example
"As a tired but happy person he walked over the street."
We are just describing that a tired but happy person walked over the street.
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Because of the ambiguity I described above, constructions like that are generally avoided.
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