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Topic 2 (session B) - Being creative with words and phrases > Uncovering your intuitions about phrases > Task A
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Session Overview
Uncovering your intuitions about phrases
Playing with phrases
Phrases in the structure of sentences
Being creative with noun phrases: Edwin Morgan
Topic 2 tool summary
 
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Uncovering your intuitions about phrases

Accessible / text version of Task A

Rearrange the following four words into sentences and compare your version with ours:

Mary amorous quickly became

Our sentence is:

Quickly Mary became amorous.

This well-formed English sentence is composed of an adverb followed by a noun and then a verb and then an adjective.

You may have got a different one (e.g. 'Mary became amorous quickly'), but note that some orderings feel unnatural. Linguists usually mark such very unnatural sentences by putting an asterisk (*) in front of them (e.g. *Amorous became quickly Mary), and once they feel are a bit strange by putting a question mark (?) in front of them (e.g. ?Quickly amorous became Mary.)

 

 

 

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