and settle them she would.

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vectra

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Hello everyone,

While reading a book called The Runaway by Martina Cole, I came across this construction:
She was really out (of prison), she was home. But she still had old scores to settle and settle them she would.

I am interested in the last part of the last sentence: 'and settle them she would.'

I do understand it is an emphatic construction, to make the meaning stronger. Is there some cliche for this construction, something similar to inversion-for example, not only did he smoke, but he also gambled.

Thank you in advance.
 

azcl

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***Not a teacher***

She was really out (of prison), she was home. But she still had old scores to settle and settle them she would

Your question is around the meaning of '...and settle them she would'

In my opinion, there are a couple of possible ways of interpreting this.

If this is narrative from the point of view of 'she' (whoever 'she' is), then '....and settle them she would' is probably expressing her state of mind - in other words: 'But she still had old scores to settle, and she had determined in her own mind that she was certainly going to settle them'

If the narrative is being viewed from a historical perspective (i.e. we are looking back in time on these events, and with the knowledge that the scores were actually settled subsequently), it could possibly mean the following:
"But she still had old scores to settle, and in the fulness of time, we would come to see that she did actually settle them".

Ade
 

5jj

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azcl, rightly, told us that s/he is ***Not a teacher***.

As a (retired) teacher, I have to say that azcl's response was as good as most teachers could give :up:. S/he covered points that some of us would not have thought of.
 

TheParser

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Hello everyone,

While reading a book called The Runaway by Martina Cole, I came across this construction:
She was really out (of prison), she was home. But she still had old scores to settle and settle them she would.

I am interested in the last part of the last sentence: 'and settle them she would.'

I do understand it is an emphatic construction, to make the meaning stronger. Is there some cliche for this construction, something similar to inversion-for example, not only did he smoke, but he also gambled.

Thank you in advance.


***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Vectra,


(1) As Teacher Fivejedjon said, Member AZCL has given you an

excellent answer as usual.

(2) May I direct my comments to your last paragraph?

(3) Your question intrigued me because I did not know the answer.

So I searched a 1779-page grammar book that has everything

(if you can find it!!!) -- A Comprehensive Grammar of the English

Language (pages 1377 - 1378 in my 1985 edition).

(4) I learned that your sentence is an example of FRONTING.

The authors explain:

Moving into initial position an item which is otherwise

unusual there.

In other words, the "normal" sentence would read:

She had old scores to settle and she would settle them.

The professors explain that sometimes authors use fronting for

"mannered rhetoric." (I guess that means to make things more

dramatic.)

(5) Here is their example. Notice how fronting makes it so much more

interesting and dramatic:

They have promised to finish the work, and finish it they will.


(6) Thank you for your great question, which forced me to learn

more about my native language.


***** NOT A TEACHER *****


P.S. The scholars who wrote that book were:

Professors Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and

Jan Svartvik. Published by Longman in London and New York.
 

azcl

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azcl, rightly, told us that s/he is ***Not a teacher***.

As a (retired) teacher, I have to say that azcl's response was as good as most teachers could give :up:. S/he covered points that some of us would not have thought of.

Thank you fivejedon for your kind comments.

Just for the record, I am a he :cool:
 

vectra

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What comes to mind is a well-known saying:'There is strength in numbers.'
Such informative comments, so many knowledgeable people have participated in discussion, and now I know how I can explain similar constructions to my students. A few months ago we studied inversion and fronting, but somehow it skipped my mind that the sentence I posted on the forum is an example of fronting. The book we use is Cambridge Grammar for CAE and Proficiency with answers by Martin Hewings, CUP 2009.
Here is the definition of fronting:
We can emphasise a particular part of a sentence by moving it to the front of the sentence, changing the usual word order:
She sees making music as a fundamental part of a child's development. - Making music she sees as a fundamental part of a child's development. (fronting of object)
She resisted this. - This she resisted.

Thank you very much indeed.
 
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