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DH Kim Posted 7 years ago
Grammar

Sentence analysis is needed" ~'I owe to the fact '

The sentence below is the one I need to analysis it with grammatical component(such as subject, verb, adverbial..etc)

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The little I know about the internal combustion engine I owe to the fact that the ones I have owned tend to break down.

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I can understand what this sentence means - ( sentence probably means 'the fact I know about the engine comes from its frequency of breaking down)

but I can't properly say the sentences grammatical component, especially between ' ~ engine I owe to the fact ~' (how these are connected without any conjunction or anything else?. to can mean 'because'(?) in this sentence?)


please analyse this sentence, I need a help for further education and my understanding

Thank you.

  

Top answer

The overall structure of the sentence is "X I owe to Y", which is an inverted way of saying "I owe X to Y", meaning that Y is the cause of or reason for X. The inverted word order gives more prominence or emphasis to X. X = the little I know about the internal combustion engine Y = the fact that the ones I have owned tend to break down

— GPY

  • The overall structure of the sentence is "X I owe to Y", which is an inverted way of saying "I owe X to Y", meaning that Y is the cause of or reason for X.
  • The inverted word order gives more prominence or emphasis to X.
  • X = the little I know about the internal combustion engine Y = the fact that the ones I have owned tend to break down
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2 Answers
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The overall structure of the sentence is "X I owe to Y", which is an inverted way of saying "I owe X to Y", meaning that Y is the cause of or reason for X. The inverted word order gives more prominence or emphasis to X.

X = the little I know about the internal combustion engine
Y = the fact that the ones I have owned tend to break down

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The little (that) I know about the internal combustion engine I owe to the fact that the ones I have owned tend to break down.

The underlined noun phrase means "the small amount of knowledge that I have about internal combustion engines"

Grammatically, it is the complement of the verb "owe."

It is fronted for emphasis. (Read about fronting here:

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