| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
|
 Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 4:25 am Post subject: Inverted Sentences |
 |
|
A Korean friend asked me to help with re-writing inverted sentences. These are the ones I couldn't do with a great degree of certainty. You may or may not recognize some quotes from famous authors or books.
"Desire. Desire! I have too dearly bought"
"With grace of mangled mind, they worthless ware"
"Too long. Too long. asleep thou has me brought.
(Thou has brought me asleep too long, too long)
"Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare"
"Within myself to seek my only hire" |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 5:40 pm Post subject: Re: Inverted Sentences |
|
|
| sirius black wrote: |
A Korean friend asked me to help with re-writing inverted sentences. These are the ones I couldn't do with a great degree of certainty. You may or may not recognize some quotes from famous authors or books.
"Desire. Desire! I have too dearly bought"
"With grace of mangled mind, they worthless ware"
"Too long. Too long. asleep thou has me brought.
(Thou has brought me asleep too long, too long)
"Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare"
"Within myself to seek my only hire" |
Say what?
These are not some quotes from famous authors or books.
They are all from "Thou Blind Man's Mark" - Sir Philip Sydney....yes?
And the sentences you have chosen are not inverted sentences.
Perhaps you are using that term incorrectly?
Poetry is not the best place to search for grammar structure; however, if you would like to let us know what you are hoping to do with this exercise, perhaps we could be of more use to you.
Best of luck with this. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Allthechildrenareinsane
Joined: 23 Jun 2011
Location: Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:24 pm Post subject: Re: Inverted Sentences |
|
|
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| sirius black wrote: |
A Korean friend asked me to help with re-writing inverted sentences. These are the ones I couldn't do with a great degree of certainty. You may or may not recognize some quotes from famous authors or books.
"Desire. Desire! I have too dearly bought"
"With grace of mangled mind, they worthless ware"
"Too long. Too long. asleep thou has me brought.
(Thou has brought me asleep too long, too long)
"Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare"
"Within myself to seek my only hire" |
Say what?
These are not some quotes from famous authors or books.
They are all from "Thou Blind Man's Mark" - Sir Philip Sydney....yes?
And the sentences you have chosen are not inverted sentences.
Perhaps you are using that term incorrectly?
Poetry is not the best place to search for grammar structure; however, if you would like to let us know what you are hoping to do with this exercise, perhaps we could be of more use to you.
Best of luck with this. |
Cosmic Hum is right, these are all quotes (or near-quotes; the line is actually "With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware") from Sidney's sonnet "Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare." Here's a link: http://rapgenius.com/Sir-philip-sidney-thou-blind-mans-mark-thou-fools-self-chosen-snare-lyrics#lyric
Most of the quotes you cite are clauses w/in larger grammatical structures in the poem, so in order to rewrite them according to contemporary, prosaic English syntax, you'd need to consider their function in that context.
For example, the first quatrain is composed of sentence-level modifiers that act on the main clause "Desire, Desire! I have too dearly bought, / With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware" (lines 5-6).
Now, if by "inverted" you mean clauses where the predicate comes before the subject, then that main clause above isn't inverted. It's simply what's known as a "non-canonical" clause, since the prepositional phrase with price of mangled mind would usually be positioned at the end of the clause like so: Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought they worthless ware with price of mangled mind. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mr. Peabody
Joined: 24 Sep 2010
Location: here
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 3:04 am Post subject: Re: Inverted Sentences |
|
|
| sirius black wrote: |
| A Korean friend asked me to help with re-writing inverted sentences. |
If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are ... a different game you should play.
--Yoda |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
YTMND
Joined: 16 Jan 2012
Location: You're the man now dog!!
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 3:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Now, if by "inverted" you mean clauses where the predicate comes before the subject, then that main clause above isn't inverted. It's simply what's known as a "non-canonical" clause, since the prepositional phrase with price of mangled mind would usually be positioned at the end of the clause like so: Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought they worthless ware with price of mangled mind. |
I am not claiming to know more about this. However, it seems like this is what inverted is.
http://www.ang.pl/forum/english-only/70870
Non-canonical inversions in English |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Allthechildrenareinsane
Joined: 23 Jun 2011
Location: Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 6:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| YTMND wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Now, if by "inverted" you mean clauses where the predicate comes before the subject, then that main clause above isn't inverted. It's simply what's known as a "non-canonical" clause, since the prepositional phrase with price of mangled mind would usually be positioned at the end of the clause like so: Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought they worthless ware with price of mangled mind. |
I am not claiming to know more about this. However, it seems like this is what inverted is.
http://www.ang.pl/forum/english-only/70870
Non-canonical inversions in English |
Yeah, this is what the OP was talking about. I was getting thrown by the term "inverted". |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
