I have some questions.
1:"The author is ( ) to the way his ideas have been underreported."
I am given three three alternatives "sensitive", "susceptive", and "susceptible". Which is correct for the answer.

2:Please explain the following sentence in plain English, especially about the "at the top" part.
"An obvious change of attitude at the top will permeate the system."

3:"Mrs. Kent didn't want the envelope opened before she came back home but her sun had opened opened it unintentionally."
I　thought that "Verb Object Past　participle"-structure is used for "a verb of perception" and "a causative verb", like "saw him killed", and in other cases, goes like "leave the door open". So at first, I thought the sentence goes like "want the envelope to be opened" but it isn't. Is this an omission, or any other reason?

4;( ) did I expected to be treated like this.
the correct answer to fill in the blank is "Little". Why isn't "Not" suitable for this sentence?

Thanks a lot.

Question

I have some questions.
1:"The author is (  )  to the way his ideas have been underreported."
I am given three three alternatives "sensitive", "susceptive", and "susceptible". Which is correct for the answer.

2:Please explain the following sentence in plain English, especially about the "at the top" part.
"An obvious change of attitude at the top will permeate the system."

3:"Mrs. Kent didn't want the envelope opened before she came back home but her sun had opened opened it unintentionally."
I　thought that "Verb Object Past　participle"-structure is used for "a verb of perception" and "a causative verb", like "saw him killed", and in other cases, goes like "leave the door open". So at first, I thought the sentence goes like "want the envelope to be opened" but it isn't. Is this an omission, or any other reason?

4;(   ) did I expected to be treated like this.
the correct answer to fill in the blank is "Little". Why isn't "Not" suitable for this sentence?

Thanks a lot.

Answer

1. Sensitive

2. "At the top" is an idiom meaning the people who are the leaders of the group. So if someone very high in a business changes his attitude about something, then everything can change.

3. The word 'opened' in the sentence, "didn't want the envelope opened," feels more like an adjective to me or at the very least, an intransitive verb. Both sound fine to me as a native speaker. Of course, I am one of those people that strongly believes that, when it comes to English, as long as the meaning is clear and not filled with fads, it is acceptable.

4. I believe it should be, "Little did I expect to be treated like this." I'm not sure if that was a typo from you or your source.

Answer

3. The "accusative and infinitive" construction is used for verbs of wishing, saying and perception in English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_and_infinitive), and this extends to the "accusative and (passive) participle" usage. Here, it's a verb of wishing ("want"). "Didn't want the envelope to be opened" should be also correct.

4. "Not" can never be in first position if it negates a verb. For this sentence, the usual order would be "I did little expect to ...", and in this position, you can indeed replace "little" with "not". However, as an exception, in phrases like "Little did  ", English can still use the more flexible word order of Anglo-Saxon (similar to German), and put the adverb in first position for emphasis, while the subject moves after the (auxiliary) verb. This doesn't work for "not".

Answer

Thank you all.