Veronica
Sentence structure I suppose this is correct: "My friend John communicated with you previously". But would it be ok to put it like this? "Previously communicated with you my friend John". Or it doesn't make sense?
Aug 29, 2015 4:40 PM
Answers · 8
2
No, it wouldn't be correct. You can't play around with word order like that in English. Unlike Russian and other more inflected languages, English doesn't have case endings. So it is impossible to tell, by looking at a noun or noun phrase, whether it is the subject or object of the sentence. The only way we can understand 'who does what' in the sentence is by the word order. We expect the subject of the sentence to come first. For example: "My friend John communicated with you previously" = John communicated "You communicated with my friend John previously" = You communicated As for "Previously communicated with you my friend John", I'm sorry, but that sounds like nonsense. It's just a series of unconnected phrases that don't convey any meaning. Nobody would have any idea what you meant if you said that.
August 29, 2015
1
"My friend John communicated with you previously" You could write it as - "My friend John previously communicated with you" In relation to: "Previously communicated with you my friend John" This would be better wrote as: "Previously you communicated with my friend John" M :)
August 29, 2015
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