Example sentences of "[n mass] [pers pn] [vb past] [verb] [be] " in BNC.
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| 1 | Therefore an adjective which has the effect of qualifying a property rather than an entity will not occur in ordinary predicative position ( nor in postnominal attributive position ) ; this prediction is confirmed by the unacceptability of sentences such as : ( 11 ) the sum of $300 she had to pay was total the lecturer who is to greet the Queen is mere a scoundrel complete must have taken my umbrella the cousins distant were put at a separate table If the adjectives in ( 12 ) are acceptable , reflexion shows at once that they are adjectives with more than one meaning , and the one which appears in predicative position is not that in which they are sense-qualifiers : ( 12 ) their village is distant and hard to reach burning his licence was wholly lawful the set complete is worth 1500 francs |
| 2 | To sum up , if examples such as those in ( 28 ) and that in ( 29 ) are all ungrammatical , as we can readily agree , it is for different reasons : ( 28 ) the sum of $300 she had to pay was total the lecturer who is to greet the Queen is mere ( 29 ) the man is very The adjectives in ( 28 ) lead to incoherence because , as already observed , they are specialized to qualify a property , and so they are incoherent in the predicative construction , which assigns the adjective property to the entity of the subject , not to its sense . |
| 3 | The last fish he had landed was a magnificent sea-trout weighing 6lb and , as he applied the priest , he was telling his companions about a similar fish , caught by his father in the dim and distant past : ‘ A beautiful fish , gentlemen , just like this one is . ’ |
| 4 | Some of the people I had interviewed were ridiculed , relegated to a position of insignificance , although one was their senior vice-president in New York . |
| 5 | Once back in London , one of the first people I wanted to meet was Eliot . |
| 6 | The encouraging thing was that all the people he had sentenced were , so far at any rate , in good health . |
| 7 | Mr Fallon said about 3,000 of 26,000 people he had canvassed were still unsure how they would vote tomorrow . |
| 8 | Producing a list of 132 people he said had been murdered in Britain since the beginning of the year , Mr Manwaring blamed the increase in crime on ‘ no bloody deterrent ’ . |