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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Not in prose?

Hi. Is this sentence form allowed in poetry but not in prose? I believe normally we would put the phrase "the people around him" after the verb "harassed" and before the adverb phrase "a lot." (I think it is an adverbial phrase, but not sure though.)

He harassed a lot the people around him.
  

Top answer

'He harassed a lot of the people around him' and 'He harassed a lot of people around him' are both fine.

— Rover_KE

  • 'He harassed a lot of the people around him' and 'He harassed a lot of people around him' are both fine.
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2 Answers
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'He harassed a lot of the people around him' and 'He harassed a lot of people around him' are both fine.
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AnonymousIs this sentence form allowed in poetry but not in prose?
I don't think you're likely to see it in either style. English very, very rarely puts any words between a verb and its object. That kind of construction is a typical non-native production.

I don't even quite believe that it's an inversion of "He harassed the people around him a lot".
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