Consider the underlined chunk in the following sentence: ‘The wind carried a whisper of blue flames’.

Which of the following options correctly applies the Sentence Fragment Test to the chunk [a whisper of blue flames]?

Question

Consider the underlined chunk in the following sentence: ‘The wind carried a whisper of blue flames’.

Which of the following options correctly applies the Sentence Fragment Test to the chunk [a whisper of blue flames]?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

A correct application of the Sentence Fragment Test produces a grammatical question whose answer is exactly the chunk: "A whisper of blue flames."

1. Relevant concepts
- Sentence Fragment Test: take the chunk and see whether it can serve as a complete answer to a direct question (usually a wh-question) about the sentence. If it can, the chunk is an independent constituent (here, a noun phrase).
- Constituents: Determiner + noun + complement (a whisper [head noun] + of blue flames [prepositional complement]) forms a grammatical noun phrase.

2. Step-by-step reasoning
- Identify what role the chunk plays in the sentence: The wind (subject) carried (verb) [a whisper of blue flames] (object).
- Choose an appropriate wh-question for the object: "What did the wind carry?"
- Supply the chunk as the answer: "A whisper of blue flames."

3. Intermediate steps shown
- Original: The wind carried a whisper of blue flames.
- Question formed: What did the wind carry?
- Answer (chunk): A whisper of blue flames.
- The answer is grammatically complete: determiner (a) + noun (whisper) + PP complement (of blue flames).

4. Why the correct answer is correct
- The chunk stands alone as a grammatical response to the wh-question, which confirms it is a constituent and not a fragment. It preserves the full meaning and structure; nothing essential is omitted, so the test is successful.

5. Why the other options are incorrect
- Option 1 ("The wind carried which blue flames?") uses "which" awkwardly and imposes a choice among blue flames rather than asking for the object; it’s unnatural and not the standard wh-form for the direct object.
- Option 2 ("What blue flames did the wind carry?") presupposes "blue flames" and asks for specification of flames, but the chunk includes "a whisper of" as the head, so this question mismatches the constituent tested.
- Option 4 ("What did the wind carry? *[A whisper of blue].") is incomplete—the answer omits the noun "flames," producing an ungrammatical or semantically incomplete fragment.

6. Conclusion
The correct application is "Q: What did the wind carry? A: [A whisper of blue flames]." This matches the provided answer.

Consider the underlined chunk in the following sentence: ‘The wind carried a whisper of blue flames’. Which of the following options correctly applies the Sentence Fragment Test to the chunk [a whisper of blue flames]?单项选择题

类似问题

Because we needed customer feedback represents a _____.

Because my boss told me to represents a _____.

He wondered what kind of pictures he would send by phone. If he had a phone that could send pictures

Although he had promised his parents he wouldn't stay out until midnight and wake everyone up when he came creeping up the stairs.

The implementation and loading phase of the Database Life Cycle (DBLC) involves _____.

Which of the following parameters is used to determine the concentration of protein in a spectrophotometer?

What are the units of absorbance?

更多留学生实用工具

智能学习助手

风格化写作助手

论文查重助手

文献引用助手

课堂转译助手

课堂笔记助手

Quiz搜索助手

学校历年真题

智能刷题助手

智能匹配练习

希望你的学习变得更简单