0
Park sang joon Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

The analyses of a text #1

The narrator recalls his adolescence.
He invited a despicable, he think, lawyer-to-be Uriah to have some coffee at his apartment.
Agnes is his old friend and Uriah is to become the partner of her father, the local lawyer.
Mrs. Cupp is his landlady.
Agnes is his old friend and Uriah is to become the partner of her father, a local lawyer.

................................
As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt.
[David Copperfield by Charles Dickens]
1. I'd like to know why just the phrase in blue is nominal whereas the other underlined are participle phrases.
2. I'd like to know if the subject of "turned towards me" is "red eyes."
3. I'd like to know why it is "described in," not "described as."
4. And I'd like to know if the subject of "coming and going" is dints.
Thank you in advance for your help.
  

Top answer

1. The blue text is part of a larger phrase: "his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me", where "turned" is a participle. This is parallel with the other phrases.

  • 1.
  • The blue text is part of a larger phrase: "his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me", where "turned" is a participle.
  • This is parallel with the other phrases.
  • 2.
  • "turned towards me" is adjectival/passive: the eyes were turned towards him.
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

1 Answers
0
1. The blue text is part of a larger phrase: "his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me", where "turned" is a participle. This is parallel with the other phrases.

2. "turned towards me" is adjectival/passive: the eyes were turned towards him.

3. The dints were in his nostrils; i.e. it means "the disagre

Related Questions