Tracing missing persons can take much patientdetective work. But a special kind of “private eye” cantrace the missing ancestors of whole peoples by
studying the clues buried by words. __1__
These philologists, such as the language detectives arecalled, have traced __2__
the word trail back from peoples in Europe, India,South Africa, the Americas,
and the Pacific islands in a tiny nameless, and forgotten tribe that roamed central__3__
Eurasia 5000 to 6000 years ago, before the dawn of writing history. __4__
Since a long time scholars have been puzzled over the striking __5__
difference of words in different languages. In Dutch, vader; in Latin, pater;in __6__
old Irish, athir; in Persian, pidar;in the Sanskrit of distant India, pitr.
These words all sounded likely and meant the same thing—“father” __7__
Where did it happen that widely separated peoples used such __8__
close related sound symbols? The problem baffled linguists for years. The more so__9__
because “father” was but one of a host of such coincidences. Towards the end
of the 18 century it dawned on scholars that perhaps all these words stemmed__10__
from some common language.
参考答案及解析(反白可见)：
1. 将by改为in
(be) buried in 意思为 “被…所掩盖,掩蔽于…”
2. 将such去掉
在这里as是连词,引导状语从句.
3. 将第一个and改为to (这个句子长,小心上当呀)
以便和前文的from构成搭配 “from…to…”,表示 “从……到……”.
4. 将writing改为written`
“有文字记载的历史”英语为 “written history”.
5. 将Since改为 For
因为since做介词, 表示 “自从……起” 之意时,后面一般不跟表示一段时间的名词.
6. 将difference改为similarity
从后面的例子我们可以看出,作者在这里讲述的是文字的惊人的相同之处,而不是不同之处.
7. 将likely改为alike
likely 意思为 “很可能的”,不做 “相同的`,相似的”解.
8. 将where改为why
这里不是问地点而是问原因,从后面的because也可以看出.
9. 将close改为副词closely
因为形容词close不能修饰过去分词related.
10. 将18改为 18th.
The more so because “father” was but one of a host of such coincidences.
这句话的the more so because是什么意思呢, 以为人家出版社错了,不过看两本资料都这么写. 有谁看得懂么?还是说真的是出错了.
原来the more so because意思为: 更何况.
书香门第
