Exercise 14

Translate the sentences with the Objective Infinitive Construction

1. Historians suppose the name «London» to come from two Celtic words.

2. We sincerely wish good relations to be established between our two countries, — said one of the delegates.

3. In Middle Ages people believed the earth to be the centre of the Universe.

4. We know Australia to be the only continent situated in the southern hemisphere.

5. First we thought the small island to be uninhabited.

6. Presently we saw him emerge from the station, cross the street and disappear into the building.

7. At the Central Station, from behind a convenient pile of luggage the men watched the train come in.

8. The whole problem is so important that I would like you to go over the facts once more.

9. It was explained that, although several authorities had included the Melanesian languages in the Malay-Polynesian family, Leenhardt thought them to be a separate family.

10. All other indications showed death to have taken place slightly later than the approximate time put in the report.

11. It is a carefully prepared essay which proves its author to be a man of cultivation, taste, imagination, education and refinement.

12. We often hear people complain that the materialists seek to reduce everything in the world, including life and mind, to a system of soulless mechanisms. This refers to mechanistic materialism.

13. Ever since I was a child I have watched and helped the men of my clan make their weapons.

14. That language (German) which in Goethe and his contemporaries had achieved the highest excellence of precision of flexibility, we have seen in our time under the nazis reach the very depths to which a language can possibly descend.

15. Supposing this conjecture to be well-founded, these objects acquire a peculiar interest as representing in a certain degree the actual work of the inhabitants.

Exercise 15

Translate the sentences with the Subjective Infinitive Construction

1. Human beings seem to have had the power of speech as far back as history can trace them; and animals, while they can make certain limited sounds and at times give them certain limited meanings, cannot be said to possess speech in the same sense that humans possess it.

2. When a book is greatly admired and often read, the language in which it is written is likely to be imitated to some extent by those who read it.

3. Practically, all of this material turns out under careful scrutiny to have not only value in itself, but some relevance to the subject in hand.

4. This reference to Greece must not however, be taken to mean the Greek civilization of historic times, which belonged to a much later period.

5. Very often, even many English-born speakers may be heard to say that they pronounce letters, not sounds.

6. Later, Armenian and Albanese, and a few ancient languages known to us only from scant written records, proved also to belong to the Indo-European family.

7. The date of the original composition of the play cannot be determined. But it is proved to have been acted at Dresden in 1626, and is commonly supposed to date back much further.

8. No modern writer would be likely to write the following.

9. The relative conciseness of Latin has been thought to be shown by the fact that there are fewer words in a Latin sentence than in a normal English translation of it.

10. 10. In order to explain, or rather better to understand the sudden and glorious rise of Elisabethan literature, it is necessary to take a glance at the historical events which preceded it, and which may be said to have done much to make it possible.

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