a puzzling question.: she wrote a passage, ______ content______ about gestures.
By freshrainer
@freshrainer (284)
China
June 24, 2009 10:58pm CST
I don't know the correct answer, / means nothing. coule you give me the reason? thank you.
she wrote a passage,______ content______ about gestures.
A. its; was B. whose; / C. and its; / D. its; /
2 responses
@phyrre (2317)
• United States
25 Jun 09
Oh boy. I'm not that great at grammar in English, but I'll give this a shot. I'll tell you how it's SAID in English, but that's not necessarily proper grammar. According to how we speak in English, I think it would be B, but none of the answers really sound RIGHT in English. I'll see if I can try to explain.
When we speak about what a passage is about, generally we do tend to leave out the word "content". We would say "She wrote a passage about gestures". That whole clause in the middle is not really used in English and it sounds very awkward.
"She wrote a passage, its content was about gestures"
- This sentence is grammatically wrong because there should be either a period or a semi-colon instead of that comma because these are two complete thoughts and they would need to be linked with something like "and" in order to be correct.
"She wrote a passage, whose content about gestures"
- You can't have content and "about" together like this, there HAS to be a verb in-between there. The "about" is referring to "content" and it can't do that without a verb.
"She wrote a passage, and its content about gestures"
- Same as above. The content needs to have a verb to be about something.
The last one is the same as above, too.
So, I guess, the first one would be correct, as far as I can tell because there has to be a verb following the noun "content". :)
I hope that helped, even if it was only slightly! Let me know if you need any more help on this matter. ^_^
@freshrainer (284)
• China
25 Jun 09
I really appreciate your help.
I have read this sentence often:There being no bus, I had to stay at home. or: He came in, book in hand. so personally, ..., its content about ... is right, because the verb is can be left our. I don't know whether I'm right.
@phyrre (2317)
• United States
25 Jun 09
Well, in the sentence "there being no bus, I had to stay home", there are verbs where needed. "being" is the verb after there, "I had" and then "to stay" are all verbs. So I'm not sure how that's like the sentence in question is similar to that. :)
"He came in, book in hand"
- I'm not really a grammar student, so I can't really say for sure why this is used. It's an omission of sorts. But the phrase "book in hand" is used as an adjective here, which is why there's no verb introducing it, or I think that's what it is. I wish that someone with more of a knowledge in this area would help. xD But I see verbs left off all the time when there is a modifying phrase like that. "Molly said something, mouth full of food, and I didn't quite understand". Things like that.
In the sentence, "its content about gestures", we have a noun (its content) and a prepositional phrase (about gestures). Because of the "its" before the word content and the comma before the its, this is a stand-alone sentence, or it should be. A sentence has to have a verb, though, in order for it to be a real sentence.
Though, again, I am not a grammar expert, I just never hear people say "its content about gestures" and it sounds awkward to me. ^_^ Hopefully someone that knows more than I can come help you!
