Kibbitzer 15 | Which Verb for the Adverb? |
| Original | Revision |
|---|---|
| ... immigrant families could contain distant relatives immigrating from their home country as a result of housing and communicating problems. | ... immigrant families could, as a result of housing and communication problems, contain distant relatives from their home country, |
Making it clear which adverb modifies which verb is a recurrent problem uncovered in 1-2-1 consutlations. Here, it is not clear in the original whether the adverb phrase 'as a result of housing and communicating problems' modifies the verb 'contains' or the verb 'immigrating'. It took only a little discussion to establish that irt was the verb 'contains' that was modified: with the adverb phrase moved to show the modification unambiguously, the phrase 'immigrating from their home country' could be simplified without loss of meaning to 'from their home country'.
| 11th December 1996 | Consultant: Tim Johns |
| Back to Tim Johns EAP page |