Ask & Learn聞問(wèn)切英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ):Relative Clause
讀者 Jennifer 寄來(lái)兩句句子,想問(wèn)哪句正確?
1. Now everything is cleared away that might make trouble.
2. Now everything that might make trouble is cleared away.
簡(jiǎn)單的說(shuō),兩句都符合文法。
一些基本的語(yǔ)法書,建議關(guān)系代名詞(relative pronoun)后應(yīng)該緊接所修飾的名詞,主要是因?yàn)?,若修飾語(yǔ)和被修飾的名詞距離太遠(yuǎn)會(huì)引起混淆。Jennifer 提出的兩句,"that might make trouble" 是修飾語(yǔ),而被修飾的名詞是 everything。 如果按照語(yǔ)法書的建議,句(2)比句 (1)較容易理解。
然而,當(dāng)句子的補(bǔ)語(yǔ)(sentence complement)比修飾語(yǔ)要短的時(shí)候,把補(bǔ)語(yǔ)放在被修飾的名詞后面反而會(huì)更干凈利落。在這兩句,補(bǔ)語(yǔ)是 "is cleared away",補(bǔ)語(yǔ)只有三個(gè)字,而修飾語(yǔ)是 "that might make trouble"。按照這原則,句(1)又會(huì)比句 (2)通順。
由此可見(jiàn),我們討論的不是語(yǔ)法的對(duì)錯(cuò),而是修辭上的取舍。
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