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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
Question or inversion
Hi,
It's from The Independent:
"In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Mr Alexander made clear that Tuesday's meeting built on the tradition of Labour and the Democrats working together. "We talked both about how to frame and secure a progressive future in tough economic times, how do you give people the prospect of a better life, productive work, more opportunities, amid all the challenges facing the economies of Britain and America today. The strength of our ties with the Democrats remains strong and is very useful to Labour rebuilding."
In the sentence "We talked both about how to frame and secure a progressive future in tough economic times, how do you give people the prospect of a better life, productive work, more opportunities..." there is a construction: verb (talked) + preposition (about) + how + do + pronoun (you) + infinitive (give).
My question is: is the "do you give" here a genuine interrogative or is it a declarative with emphasis, a sort of "...you do give people the prospect..." expressed by inversion where the auxiliary 'do' comes before the subject 'you'?
Thank you.
It's from The Independent:
"In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Mr Alexander made clear that Tuesday's meeting built on the tradition of Labour and the Democrats working together. "We talked both about how to frame and secure a progressive future in tough economic times, how do you give people the prospect of a better life, productive work, more opportunities, amid all the challenges facing the economies of Britain and America today. The strength of our ties with the Democrats remains strong and is very useful to Labour rebuilding."
In the sentence "We talked both about how to frame and secure a progressive future in tough economic times, how do you give people the prospect of a better life, productive work, more opportunities..." there is a construction: verb (talked) + preposition (about) + how + do + pronoun (you) + infinitive (give).
My question is: is the "do you give" here a genuine interrogative or is it a declarative with emphasis, a sort of "...you do give people the prospect..." expressed by inversion where the auxiliary 'do' comes before the subject 'you'?
Thank you.
Top answer
-- It is a declarative, but with no special emphasis. Spoken language is not careful with its grammar, and this is a common inversion in such utterances. You might notice that the grammar of the sentence as a whole will not survive careful analysis and should be repaired if it were written text: We talked about both how to frame and secure a progressive future in tough economic times and how to give people the prospect of a better life, productive work, and more opportunities, amid all the challenges facing the economies of Britain and America today.
- -- It is a declarative, but with no special emphasis.
- Spoken language is not careful with its grammar, and this is a common inversion in such utterances.
- You might notice that the grammar of the sentence as a whole will not survive careful analysis and should be repaired if it were written text: We talked about both how to frame and secure a progressive future in tough economic times and how to give people the prospect of a better life, productive work, and more opportunities, amid all the challenges facing the economies of Britain and America today.
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1 Answers
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Is the "do you give" here a genuine interrogative or is it a declarative with emphasis, a sort of "...you do give people the prospect..." expressed by inversion where the auxiliary 'do' comes before the subject 'you'?-- It is a declarative, but with no special emphasis. Spoken language is not careful with its grammar, and this is a common inversion in such utterances. You might notice that the g
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