The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific detail but in
the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that reduce the credibility of the work.
(A) the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that
(B) fact that it depicts marine world scenes of life and death as having emotional overtones that
(C) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones
(D) depiction of marine world scenes of life and death, which have emotional overtones and thus
(E) fact that if depicts scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones
C.whose应该修饰depiction,但是whose从句被无理地与depiction分隔开,变成好像是修饰world。应改为:dipiction, whose emotional overtones reduce the credibility of the work, of scenes of life and death in the marine world. 但即使改为这样,句义仍然有问题,因为一般来说非限制性从句应该不影响句义,但这里,一旦我们拿掉whose从句,句意则无法理解。
分隔修饰在特定情况下是可以的,但不可以无理使用,特别是非限制性定语从句,分隔一个错一个。
A采用了分隔修饰,the dipiction with emotinal overtones that reduce the credibility of the work 被of the life and death in the marine world分隔开, 但这里with介词词组是一个限制性修饰成分, 而且the dipiction 是the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world 的中心词。
关于分隔修饰,章振邦的《新编英语语法》名词修饰语一章有解释,好一点的语法书都应该有详细解释,请参阅。
同时,即使C的分隔修饰和非限制从句可以接受,A使用介词结构准确的表达了含义,仍然A更简洁。 一般情况下,除非定语从句包含了更充足的信息(时态或语态等等),才采用定语从句。 但如果介词短语,形容词短语或分词短语等已经包含了足够的信息,优先使用短语修饰。
-- by 会员 tianwan (2004/2/16 22:59:00)