Taka
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2004
- Member Type
- Other
- Native Language
- Japanese
- Home Country
- Japan
- Current Location
- Japan
The sentences:
Our fairy-tales, with their helpful animals, talking birds and wise reptiles are fossilized remains of a period when animals took equal place with man and were sometimes messengers or servants of the hidden gods. So today it may be seen a great many of our superstitions about birds and animals are based on their supposed wisdom, cunning or magical powers rather than their inferiority in the scheme of things.
Question#1:
About their helpful animals, talking birds and wise reptiles, my book says talking birds and wise reptiles are the restatement of helpful animals (i.e. apposition). Is it really true? To me, in this particular case, animals are different from birds and reptiles, and they are just a series of creatures.
Question#2:
About "cunning", is it a noun, or an adjective modifying "powers"?
Our fairy-tales, with their helpful animals, talking birds and wise reptiles are fossilized remains of a period when animals took equal place with man and were sometimes messengers or servants of the hidden gods. So today it may be seen a great many of our superstitions about birds and animals are based on their supposed wisdom, cunning or magical powers rather than their inferiority in the scheme of things.
Question#1:
About their helpful animals, talking birds and wise reptiles, my book says talking birds and wise reptiles are the restatement of helpful animals (i.e. apposition). Is it really true? To me, in this particular case, animals are different from birds and reptiles, and they are just a series of creatures.
Question#2:
About "cunning", is it a noun, or an adjective modifying "powers"?