Topic 3 (session A) - Patterns, Deviations, Style and Meaning > Parallelism: literary examples > Task C answer

Parallelism: literary examples

Task C - our comments

The Journey of the Magi

The ways deep and the weather sharp

'The ways deep' and 'the weather sharp' are grammatically parallel: they are both noun phrases consisting of the same internal structure, a noun premodified by the definite article and postmodified by an adjective. In context the two phrases have a quasi-synonymous meaning relationship - they are both examples of how cold the journey was. 'The ways deep' can be inferred to refer to the fact that the magi had to struggle through deep snow and 'the weather sharp' appears to refer to the fact that there was a bitingly cold wind.

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