Other Sentence Structure - GED Language Arts (RLA)

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Adapted from As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1623)

\[This is a monologue by the character Jacques\]

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;

Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like a snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

To what does the underlined phrase refer?

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Answer

Although the participial phrase "creeping like a snail . . ." comes directly after "face," this latter word is not the antecedent for the phrase. Generally, we do place participial phrases directly after their antecedents. For instance, we would say, "The boy, walking to the park, decided to get some soda." Here, "walking to the park," describes, "boy." In our sentence, the phrase comes at some distance from its antecedent. However, context and meaning clearly indicate that it is referring to the school-boy, who is the one that is creeping along to school with such reluctance.

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