Topic 10 (session A) - Prose analysis > Bilgewater: Foregrounding > Task G

Bilgewater: Foregrounded features

Task G - deviant sentences

The final task on this section is to do with what turns out to be an unusual, yet pervasive phenomenon in the grammar of the passage.

Consider the following groups of sentences (which we have numbered for ease of reference). What is odd about them grammatically (each of the sentences have something in common), and what effects do they have (a) locally and (b) more generally as a pervasive feature of the passage?

We have already looked at the first two groups when we looked at parallelism in the passage. You may also like to consider how pervasive the phenomenon is in the passage as a whole - we have not listed all the examples in the passage, by any means! When you have thought about them all, compare your comments with ours by clicking on the button below.

(16) Typical Cambridge. (17) A sign of the times.

(20) Polite though. (21) Not so bad.

(27) Considered suicide? (28) Cried in the cinema? (29) Clung to somebody in bed?

(59) Fur. (60) Nice fur. (61) Something human then about her somewhere.

(66) A fountain, a gateway.

Our answer

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