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Tuesday, August 22, 2023

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The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree


Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

There are four possibilities: no modifier, definite article, indefinite article, some other quantitative or possessive adjective like some or my. The task would be to explain why each option occurs here the way it does.  In other words, Frost does not write: "A way the crow shook down on the me a dust of the snow from the hemlock tree..." Imagine it as a Chinese poem: "Crow shook down snow hemlock / heart change part day regret." A speaker of a language without articles would not find it intuitive to place the articles in the right place.   

1 comment:

  1. https://prosedoctor.blogspot.com/2016/03/exercise.html

    I guess I've done this at least twice before. Oh well.

    ReplyDelete