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eagleflych
Joined: 24 Oct 2007
Posts: 14
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 Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 3:16 pm Post subject: what is the meaning of the sentence? |
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I saw a sentence in a novel. The sentence is "It was strange to her to see Peter looking as he looked now", but I can't understand the meaning of the sentence.
What is the meaning of the sentence?
I think the key problems is on grammar relations, but I have no idea.
The novel and the sentence can be found in the webpage:
http://english.zgxue.com/html/75/759144.html
Please help me. Thanks a lot in advance. |
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Lorikeet
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1877
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 10:40 pm Post subject: Re: what is the meaning of the sentence? |
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| eagleflych wrote: |
I saw a sentence in a novel. The sentence is "It was strange to her to see Peter looking as he looked now", but I can't understand the meaning of the sentence.
What is the meaning of the sentence?
I think the key problems is on grammar relations, but I have no idea.
The novel and the sentence can be found in the webpage:
http://english.zgxue.com/html/75/759144.html
Please help me. Thanks a lot in advance. |
It means that Peter's face looked different than it used to look, and it seemed strange to her. In the story, the sentence continues by explaining that his face was now pale and stern and he seemed so much older. That was the change that seemed strange to her. Does that help? |
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eagleflych
Joined: 24 Oct 2007
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 6:56 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for your replies.
If I don't misunderstand, in the sentence, the three words of "see", "looking" and "looked" have the same time quality. That is to say, "see", "looking" and "looked" exist at the same time.
Supposing the time is A time, then "to see Peter looking as he looked now" can be transformed into "at A time, to see that A time's appearance of Peter is the same as A time's appearance of Peter".
It seems to be illogical, doesn't it? |
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Lorikeet
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1877
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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| eagleflych wrote: |
Thank you for your replies.
If I don't misunderstand, in the sentence, the three words of "see", "looking" and "looked" have the same time quality. That is to say, "see", "looking" and "looked" exist at the same time.
Supposing the time is A time, then "to see Peter looking as he looked now" can be transformed into "at A time, to see that A time's appearance of Peter is the same as A time's appearance of Peter".
It seems to be illogical, doesn't it? |
Actually I don't quite understand what you mean, probably because I understood the original sentence's meaning, and didn't stop to think about whether or not it made sense  . |
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TEFLLab Mike
Joined: 15 Jun 2010
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 8:25 am Post subject: the use of 'Now' |
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in the sentence may cause issues with understanding. The author used it because it's dull to list every action in the past simple and sometimes we use the present simple for verbs or words like 'now' for time references to make the action more immediate or nearer to the reader.
Hope that helps. |
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