Sentence analysis 2

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paco2004

#190660 Mon, 30 Jan 06 05:31 AM

Hello Hela

We might say like "He played (the) first violin in the ROH's orchestra", but "He was/became (the) first violin in the ROH's orchestra" sounds weird to me. I think it should be "He was/became (the) first violin of the ROH's orchestra" and here "(the) first violin of the ROH's orchestra" is a job's title. More grammatically speaking, "of the ROH's orchestra" is a post-posed adjectival phrase (post-modifier) to mean possession or ownership.

paco

[PS] I looked for Miriam's comment on this issue. But I couldn't find it.

paco2004

Joined on Wed, Nov 17 2004

Senior Member (4,095)

In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English.

milky

#190692 Mon, 30 Jan 06 08:24 AM

Paco2004 wrote:

Hello MrP

I'm sorry for the ambiguous writing. I meant "a prepositional phrasal verb" by "a phrasal", not "an adverbial phrasal verb".

paco

Is there suchy a thing as a "prepositional phrasal verb"? I thought there were phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs only.

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

paco2004

#190694 Mon, 30 Jan 06 08:42 AM

Longman English Grammar (L.G.Alexander, 1988) classifies forms of <Verb+prep> into "non-phrasals" and "phrasals".

paco

paco2004

Grammar, Verbs, English Grammar

Hela

#190696 Mon, 30 Jan 06 09:03 AM

Hi paco,

I think things are getting too complicated for me. I really don't understand when people analyse sentence elements as "adjectivals" because according to Quirk & Co a sentence pattern can have a subject, a verb, an object, a complement and/or an adverbial so I don't understand what you mean by:

More grammatically speaking, "of the ROH's orchestra" is a post-posed adjectival phrase (post-modifier) to mean possession or ownership.

See you sooon!

Hela

Joined on Mon, Nov 15 2004

Tunisia

Regular Member (831)

Verbs

paco2004

#190700 Mon, 30 Jan 06 09:17 AM

Hela wrote:

Hi paco,

I think things are getting too complicated for me. I really don't understand when people analyse sentence elements as "adjectivals" because according to Quirk & Co a sentence pattern can have a subject, a verb, an object, a complement and/or an adverbial so I don't understand what you mean by:

More grammatically speaking, "of the ROH's orchestra" is a post-posed adjectival phrase (post-modifier) to mean possession or ownership.

See you sooon!

Have you CGEL by Quirk et al? Then look at pages 321-322 and pages 1274-1284. I'm talking about "post-modification of nouns" by "of-phrases" according to Quirk's terms.

paco

paco2004

Verbs, Nouns

Hela

#190703 Mon, 30 Jan 06 09:27 AM

Ok, i'll look at them and come back to you. Smile [:)]

Hela

MrPedantic

#190933 Tue, 31 Jan 06 01:08 AM

Hela wrote:

4) My best friend’s son has become a first violin in the orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

I think "in" here has the sense of "as a component of". We play "in" an orchestra because we're a part of it; cf. "he plays in a local football team". And perhaps there's also a residual sense of "in the orchestral pit".

If the writer had chosen "with the orchestra", on the other hand, it would have sounded a little detached.

MrP

MrPedantic