Language: text structure and punctuation
Transforming sentences
Rewrite a sentence in another form — statement, question, exclamation or negative — without changing what it means.
The same idea can be dressed in several different sentences. Transformation means changing the dress without changing the person underneath: the new sentence must mean exactly what the old one meant. That last part is the whole difficulty.
Four kinds of sentence
An assertive sentence states: The garden is lovely. An interrogative asks: Is the garden lovely? An exclamatory exclaims: How lovely the garden is! An imperative orders or requests: Water the garden.
What before a noun, how before an adjective
What a sad story it is! — story is a noun, so it takes What, and What always brings a or an with it. How sad it is! — sad is an adjective on its own, so it takes How, with no a.
Too...to becomes so...that...not
The gate is too narrow to drive through means The gate is so narrow that you cannot drive through it. The not appears in the new sentence even though there was no not in the old one — that is the pattern, not a mistake.
Only becomes none but
Only Ravi knew the answer means Nobody but Ravi knew the answer. Watch the trap: Nobody knew the answer on its own says the opposite, because it has thrown Ravi away.
A negative rewrite has to turn twice
Everybody agreed becomes Nobody objected, not Nobody agreed. If you make one word negative you must make the other one its opposite as well, or the meaning flips over.
Worked example
Rewrite without changing the meaning: "The tea is too hot to drink."
Spot the pattern: too + adjective + to + verb.
That pattern has exactly one rewrite, so you do not have to invent anything.
Try it together
Let us make three transformations.
Each answer is a single word, and each one is fixed by the pattern rather than by taste.
1.To turn "It is a very interesting book" into an exclamation, we begin with either "What" or "How". The next word is the noun "book", so which one do we begin with? Write the word.
Have a go
Which sentence means the same as "She is too young to drive"?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.