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Thu 14 Jun, 2007 11:45 am
Sentence:
However, he was a writer with a number of plays to his credit, none of them great successes but all worthy of note.
Dear teachers, my questions about the above sentence are:
How do you call the function of the underlined part from the grammatical constituent's point of view? (independent nominative? )
Is it VERY commonly used?
Should we include it purposively in our compositions in order to increase the variety of sentence patterns?
The underlined portion is an adjectival phrase, modifying "plays." Grammatically, it serves the same function as the other adjectival phrase in that sentence:
However, he was a writer with a number of plays to his credit, none of them great successes but all worthy of note.
Just as "with a number of plays to his credit" is a phrase modifying "writer," "none of them great successes but all worthy of note" is a phrase modifying "plays."
Adjectival phrases are extremely common. Usually they appear directly after the nouns they are modifying, but not always. The author of this sentence chose not to do so. If the author had wanted to, he or she could just as easily written:
However, he was a writer with a number of plays, none of them great successes but all worthy of note, to his credit.
Thank you shapleless for your help!
Cheers!
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