Whats the grammar of this sentence: I think the city flourishes when its grand institutions work ... Whats the grammar of this sentence: I think that the city flourishes when its grand institutions wo

Daniel

Whats the grammar of this sentence: I think the city flourishes when its grand institutions work ... Whats the grammar of this sentence: I think that the city flourishes when its grand institutions work together. I heard this sentence in a movie, I cant analyse the "its grand institutions work together" part. Specially i have problems with "its" and "-work-" with no ing or anything. I always think of this sentencs instead, delete the "its" and say it like-> when grand institutions are working together. Whats the grammar of that sentence which he used? What are the differences between my sentence and the movie's sentence? Thank you

Feb 12, 2017 3:40 PM

Answers · 4

I think that the city flourishes when its grand institutions work together. You need the it's in this sentence to show possession, regardless of your rewrite. It is a linking verb in this case, it refers back to the city as the subject. Your re-write isn't wrong, but, the it's makes it clear that the main subject of this statement is the city. The reason that we don't have -ing on work is because the subject that that verb is tied to is singular third person, it's 'the city' that's why work is conjugated to 'works', instead of being conjugated to ing for grand institutions. Hope that helps, and sorry if I got too technical

February 12, 2017

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