Point out the head and the modifier in each of the following phrases; pick out the reversible ones.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 600.

Point out the phrases of “a jewel of a wife” type. How does the meaning of the components contribute to the overall semantics? Suggest ways of translation.

1. It opened to let a weed of a fellow (K. Mansfield). 2. He saw a scrag of a woman in a black shawl (K. Mansfield). 3. His most tender emotions… lay exposed to that greedy little nose, which wasn't even a proper nose, but only a pug of a nose, a tiny perforated organ (P. Suskind). 4. Imagine being here day in, day out, with that rat of a child (K. Mansfield). 5. His lean triangle of a head is down (K. Mansfield). 6. She was a tiny wishbone of a child (K. Mansfield). 7. They would not keep shut. They were fools of doors (K. Mansfield). 8. Director Inoue Sato was a fearsome specimen—a bristly tempest of a woman... (D. Brown. 9. He was a quick little whippet of a man (A. Cronin). 10. That perhaps the new apprentice, that awkward gnome, this cipher of a man might be implicated in the fabulous blossoming of their business, Chenier would not have believed (P. Suskind).

5. Give the noun phrases related through nominalising transformation to the following sentences (NP₁ is like NP₂ – NP₂ of NP₁). Describe the operations applied in this transformation.

1. The boy is (like) a Spartan. 2. The boy is (like) a duck. 3. Her smile is (like) a ghost. 4. His nose is (like that of) a pug.

6. Comment on the use of “sort (kind) of Adj (V)” in the following:

1. I sort of sorry for him in a way (D. Salinger). 2. I sort of knocked on it anyway… (D. Salinger). 3 I sort of felt like it (D. Salinger).

Note: There are certain N₁ prep N₂ (to be called reversible) which also occur in reverse order N₂ prep N₁ in the same sentence environments. The N₁ here is usually one of a roughly stateable subclass including set, type, group, class: This type of bacteria grows readily; Bacteria of the type grow readily. (it is not claimed that the meaning is identical). A clump of villagers was milling about; Some villagers in a clump were milling about.

a mountain of food, the great majority of letters, a great number of boys, a considerable quantity of water, this sort of thing, books of that kind, a thing of this sort, these kinds of books, a sort of genius, the system of this sort, some sort of man, a kind of golden moss.

8. Give noun-phrases related through nominalizing transformation to the following sentences:

Model: The man has a dark face. – The man with a dark face. – The man dark in (of) face.

1. The boy had a kind heart. 2. The girl had blue eyes. 3. The man had strong muscles. 4. Winifred had strong cheekbones.