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ESL forum >
Ask for help > Could you please help me?
Could you please help me?
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vaglio
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Could you please help me?
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Dear collegues:
I have been studying the difference between a phrase and a clause with my eleventh grade students and I got stuck in an evaluation question from our text book. Could you plese help me?
Please the following fragment of a sentence and tell me what do you think:
"A leading expert in the field of nutrition...."
Is this a phrase or a clause?
There are some options to cross out in order to classify the last fragment. The options are the following:
a. participial phrase
b. dependent clause
c. independent clause
d. prepositional phrase
I think it is a dependent clause, but it doesnt have a verb, so ...........I got pretty confused.............. Could you help me???? Which option is the correct one???
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24 Aug 2010
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Zora
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Hi there,
It looks as if it �s a "participial phrase"... a participial phrase has a present or past participle (-ing or -ed verb ending) and any modifiers, objects or any other complements. Although, "leading" is more an adjective than a verb here... not too sure on this one.
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25 Aug 2010
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Olindalima ( F )
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Hi
Is the fragment you gave the beginning of the sentence ??? you wrote with .......
or as you said afterwards " is it the last fragment?
( There are some options to cross out in order to classify the last fragment. )
These tricky questions are always difficult to understand and, I am allways to feel them only as tricky. We can usually start a fight about n different ways to read and understnad them.
We can understand a sentence if and only if it is in a determined context, otherwise everyone can step ahead and give some other explanation.
Have you ever heard that silly joke
A teacher says:
Please, Bob, say a sentence starting with I
And Bob says:
I is ...
And teacher corrects:
No, no, no: Always say : I am... , ok ?
And Little Bob says:
Ok; I am the the ninth letter of the alfabeth
Just to tell you that these are very, very difficult and can lead to uncountable different ways of answers.
Yours, will be , most probably right, under certain circunstances
hugs
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25 Aug 2010
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PhilipR
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I �d say it �s a noun phrase (most important words is �expert �), but since that �s not among the options, I �d go for dependent clause as well (although the misguided makers of this question seem not to know that most clauses usually contain a verb).
One could argue that this is a question without a correct answer. It is definitely not suitable for a test where questions should be crystal clear and not lead to confusion or discussion.
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25 Aug 2010
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Angelesbi
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Hello there! It �s a phrase due to the fact that clauses have a subject and a verb, and this example you gave here has not a verb.
A clause contain phrases (noun phrase, verb phrase, etc, etc)
A leading expert in the field of nutrition...." (noun phrase)
A leading expert in the field of nutrition has opend a debate on whether to shorten the amount of cola that children ...." (clause)
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25 Aug 2010
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MarianaC
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I completely agree with PhilipR, none of the options is right to me either. As Angelesbi has pointed out in her example, your phrase seems to be the subject of a clause - a noun phrase, no verb in it... nothing more, nothing less. |
25 Aug 2010
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