GWD 1－20

Q20:

Rivaling the pyramids of Egypt or even the ancient cities of the Maya as an achievement, the army of terra-cotta warriors created to protect Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, in his afterlife is more than 2,000 years old and took 700,000 artisans more than 36 years to complete them.

The answer should be C!

Please refer to the sample sentence cited from Longman.

complete [transitive]
1. to finish doing or making something, especially when it has taken a long time

The students have just completed their course.

The building took two years to complete.

这道题看了前面的讨论，就没有细想了，翻了字典。正确答案还真的应该是C。

This book took years to complete.

习惯表达方式: take sb. some time to do sth

通常会用it 来指代 to do sth, 所以我们经常看到的形式是: It takes sb. some time to do sth.

还有一种变化是, 将sth提作主语:sth takes sb. some time to do. 这时候, 就不能在 to do 后再加一个宾语了.

这就是为什么The building took two years to complete.

我没查字典,不知道这样分析对不对?

今天突然有人问我这道题，我想请教一下LES，

the building took two years to complete 和

the building took workers two years to complete (it)

一定是一样的吗，一定都是要省it吗？总觉得加了sb以后省了it句子意思不完整。你说过it 指代to to sth，如果这句是(to complete the building) took workers two years我就觉得好。

帮忙看看。谢谢！

嗯，我觉得是这样的。

the building took workers two years to complete。这里可以看作the building宾语前置。

it 指代 to do sth. 这里说的it不是通常说的中性的第三人称代词，而是引导词，本身没有实意，只起一种先行引导词的作用。一般做形式主语或形式宾语，主要起到平衡句子的作用，后置真正的主语或宾语。

真正的主语或宾语的形式有两种：

1. to do sth. 即：不定式；

2. that从句