0
Stenka25 Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
Voice of the underlined 'reckoned'
Voice of the underlined 'reckoned'
The passage below comes from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
Living around what is now Adelaide in southern Australia were several patrilineal clans that reckoned descent from the father’s side. These clans bonded together into tribes on a strictly territorial basis. In contrast, some tribes in northern Australia gave more importance to a person’s maternal ancestry, and a person’s tribal identity depended on his or her totem rather than his territory.
In this passage the underlined 'reckoned' seems ungrammatical.
My check up with The Free Dictionary reflects my guess is not a wild guessing.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reckon
3. (usually passive) to consider or regard: he is reckoned clever.
I'm not saying the 'reckoned' in this book is wrong. I know there are plethora of cases that dictionaries cannot cover. They just show the exemplary cases.
This is the conclusion I have drawn from it. Though 'reckon' is in most cases used as Transitive verb like the example sentence in the dictionary, sometimes it can be used as Intransitive as in Sapiens. So there is the possibility that we can change "He is reckoned clever" for the unusual "He reckons clever" and also that "that reckoned descent" for the usual "that was reckoned descent".
Do you agree with my line of thought?
Regards.
The passage below comes from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
Living around what is now Adelaide in southern Australia were several patrilineal clans that reckoned descent from the father’s side. These clans bonded together into tribes on a strictly territorial basis. In contrast, some tribes in northern Australia gave more importance to a person’s maternal ancestry, and a person’s tribal identity depended on his or her totem rather than his territory.
In this passage the underlined 'reckoned' seems ungrammatical.
My check up with The Free Dictionary reflects my guess is not a wild guessing.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reckon
3. (usually passive) to consider or regard: he is reckoned clever.
I'm not saying the 'reckoned' in this book is wrong. I know there are plethora of cases that dictionaries cannot cover. They just show the exemplary cases.
This is the conclusion I have drawn from it. Though 'reckon' is in most cases used as Transitive verb like the example sentence in the dictionary, sometimes it can be used as Intransitive as in Sapiens. So there is the possibility that we can change "He is reckoned clever" for the unusual "He reckons clever" and also that "that reckoned descent" for the usual "that was reckoned descent".
Do you agree with my line of thought?
Regards.
Top answer
Stenka25 sometimes it can be used as Intransitive as in Sapiens. It's transitive: the object is "descent". "reckoned" means something like "established by a process of calculation".
- Stenka25 sometimes it can be used as Intransitive as in Sapiens.
- It's transitive: the object is "descent".
- "reckoned" means something like "established by a process of calculation".
- They established their descent (ancestry) by looking at the father's side of the family rather than the mother's.
- Stenka25 So there is the possibility that we can change "He is reckoned clever" for the unusual "He reckons clever" and also that "that reckoned descent" for the usual "that was reckoned descent".
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
2 Answers
0
Stenka25sometimes it can be used as Intransitive as in Sapiens.It's transitive: the object is "descent". "reckoned" means something like "established by a process of calculation". They established their descent (ancestry) by looking at the father's side of the family rather than the mother's.
Stenka25So there is the possibility that we
00
Related Questions