Dear BobK,
Thank you very much for your explanation. So in my sentence "B (snow) covers (A) city". That means 'snow' doesn't exist until it began to snow. Is that right?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.
Jiang
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobK  When you cover A with B, B often exists before you start. It could be a blanket or a sheet or a piece of paper; you could pick it up and say 'this is a <whatever-it-is>'. When something covers A in B, B doesn't exist until the process starts - a blanket of snow, a sheet of ice, a layer of dust...
But the with case is not rigidly true. Something can be 'covered with a blanket of snow', but as I hear it - other views may differ - 'with' makes the process sound complete:
The snow was beginning to settle, covering the village in a white blanket
but this is also possible:
When I woke, the village was covered with a thick blanket of snow
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