Grammar Exercises

VIII. Translate the following sentences paying attention to some, any, no and their derivatives:

I. 1. Some granite pegmatites carry radioactive minerals which make pos-sible the determination of their absolute ages. 2. Some water is present in nearly all rocks. 3. Some of the water penetrates into the ground; some moves down the slope. 4. Some of these lakes are of glacial origin. 5. The hydrosphere co-vers about seven-tenths of the surface of the earth. The hydrosphere is made up of fresh or salt water, or some form of water such as ice or snow. 6. In some years the average rainfall here is more abundant than in other years. 7. The earth is continually changing. Some changes are great and rapid, while others are small and slow although they are nevertheless active. 8. Observation has shown that parts of the Appalachian Mountains are built of rocks which are some ten times thicker than they are outside the mountain region. 9. Someone, no doubt, will say that the moon produces certain effects, while someone else will declare that it has nothing to do with them. 10. Does it seem almost unbelievable that anything so small and far away as the moon can lift something on the earth as heavy as water? 11. The most beautiful part of the sky centres somewhere around the constellation of Orion.

II. 12. Are there any active volcanoes in the south of the USSR? 13. Have any plant or animal remains been preserved in these rocks? 14. There isn't any direct evidence concerning the chemistry of the earth's interior.

III. 15. Any region which has been worn down by erosive agencies to a condition of very low relief is called a peneplain. 16. Any particular solid is weaker at high temperature than at low. 17. As the glacier moves downward, it tends to follow any irregularities along the surface. 18. Minerals may form anywhere upon or within the earth's body. 19. Anything that is white reflects most of the radiation it receives.

IV. 20. No mountains were formed in North America at the close of the Silurian ([saɪˊljuərɪən] — Силурский период). 21. Even in the most favourable places, weathering is so slow that one can see no marked change in a lifetime (of a man). 22. No orbit is exactly circular. All the bodies that go periodically around the sun travel in ellipses. 23. The water of the Dead Sea is so salty that nothing can live in it. 24. Nothing is permanent except the process of change itself. 25. The air is composed of nitrogen and oxygen in the proportion of nearly four to one, but it is nowhere pure, containing everywhere a small proportion of carbon dioxide and water vapor.

IX. Translate into Russian paying attention to negative constructions. Give ano-ther variant where possible.

Model: There is no direct evidence. — There isn't any direct evidence.

1. Spectroscopic evidence tells us nothing about the composition of the interiors of the planets. 2. No waters could remain on the early earth in the absence of an atmosphere. 3. We know of no deposits of inorganic dolomite on the present sea floor. 4. There was a time when no animals higher than fishes lived on the earth. 5. Neither water nor solid earth is a good conductor of heat. 6. Neither of these two theories is acceptable today, although each may contain an element of the truth. 7. None of these hypotheses can explain the origin of the solar system. 8. No satisfactory explanation has yet been given of the forces which are required to build mountains. 9. No one knows the ultimate cause of earthquakes. 10. Within the mountain regions there are plateau areas which differ in no way in origin from the mountains of which they are a part. 11. The gravitational attraction of a body does not depend in any way upon its physical condition, such as its temperature or its color, but only upon the quantity of mat­ter in the body. 12. Among the nine planets that speed endlessly around the sun the Earth is neither the largest nor the most massive. 13. Even at the surface, the rocks are by no means uniform.14. Scientists no longer believe that petroleum is of inorganic origin.

X. Translate into Russian. Paraphrase the sentences so as to use the nouns instead of the italicized adjectives.

Model: My room is 5 m long. → The length of my room is 5 m.

1. The ocean at places is about 6 miles deep, and its average depth is about 2½ miles. 2. The highest mountain, Mount Everest, is 29,141 feet high. 3. In the central part the ice sheet of Greenland is about 2,400 m thick. 4. Africa is nearly 5,000 miles long from north to south and north of the Gulf of Guinea it is over 4,500 miles broad from east to west. 5. The Mississippi delta is from 30 to 60 miles wide.

XI. Translate the sentences paying attention to Participle I used attributively and adverbially:

1. Boiling springs are a feature of many volcanic regions. 2. Wind is air moving essentially along the surface of the earth. 3. When moving cold masses of air chill warmer air masses. 4. The earth rotates on its axis, moving from west to east. 5. In many parts of the world thick deposits of sediment are being laid down by streams in subsiding basins adjacent to coasts. 6. The lands are being worn down and sediments are accumulating continuously, forming new layers of sedimentary rock. 7. Ancient seas were widespread over areas now making up large parts of all the continents. 8. The process of change resulting from exposure of rocks to the influence of the atmosphere is known as weathering. 9. Rain water falling on the surface of a rock and flowing over it dissolves the rock minerals or decomposes them chemically. 10. Leaving the Straits of Flo-rida, the Gulf Stream is several hundred feet deep and about one hundred miles wide. 11. When altering, many minerals yield clay.

XII. Analyse all the "ing-forms" occurring in the text. State whether the "ing-form" is a participle, gerund, verbal noun or part of the analytical form of the verb. State the functions of the participles.

XIII. Analyse the "ing-forms" in the following sentences. (See Exercise XII for directions.):

1. Denudation is the general term used for the wearing down of land areas by processes originating and acting at the earth's surface. 2. The presence of water in the liquid state plays an important part in determining the nature of the earth's surface. 3. Ultimately the running water, by extending the valleys, obliterates the uplands, bringing back the land to the normal form, the plain. 4. The various phases of the chemical work of ground water may be divided into two main groups, namely solution and deposition. These two processes may be going on simultaneously, for ground water may be dissolving one mineral at the same time that it is depositing another. 5. Limestones, chalk, and dolomites, being soluble in ordinary ground water, pass back into solution during weathe-ring. 6. It is difficult to measure the total load of debris which is being carried by a stream. 7. There is no way of telling the relative ages of these formations at present.