English syntax ( advanced )

I was reading the bible in English and Russian - the parallel text language learning method - and came across this sentence in the English text :

“I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

Shouldn’t the the pronoun " it " be omitted here? In other words shouldn’t the sentence be like :

“I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of ”

I very rarely need grammar clarifications in English, but it is kind of a shame that I even need to, given that I have been exposed to English my whole life. Should I be worried?

1 Like

I am guessing you may want a grammatical explanation but, being a native speaker I thought I’d just keep it simple and say it seems quite natural to not omit the “it”. haha :slight_smile: Don’t worry~

of it = of this land
We can’t omit it.
In Russian the pronoun is also necessary: “владеть ею” (=землёй, страной)

2 Likes

But it is ungrammatical to say, for example: " Where is the book I gave it to you yesterday "
The pronoun should be dropped here.

Found the same verse of the bible in my favourite language of Tagalog and it all became much clearer for me! :wink:

At sinabi sa kaniya, Ako ang Panginoon na nagpaalis sa iyo sa Ur ng mga Caldeo, upang ibigay sa iyo ang lupaing ito na manahin mo.

My guess proved to be right, this part literally means, ‘… ang lupang ito na manahin mo, i.e. … this land (the one) for you to inherit.’

In other words, since this is an adverbial clause of purpose (to give for what purpose? To inherit), BOTH versions, i.e. ‘… to take posession of’ and ‘… to take posession of it’ are correct! =))

“I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
This is correct. Possession of what? It. This puts emphasis to show what you have possession of.

“I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of ”
This doesn’t make sense. It’s an incomplete sentence to me.

“I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession"
This is also correct I believe. Though having ‘of it’ is more proper I think.

I got curious and did a little research on this.
My thinking is that both sentences are grammatically and semantically correct, with slightly different nuance.

Here are the simplified versions of the sentences as well as some additional ones I found at Genesis 15:7 The LORD also told him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." (they list well over a dozen bible versions).

  1. I give you this land to take posession of…[ not found ]
  2. I give you this land to take posession of it…[ New International Version ]
  3. I give you this land to possess…[English Standard Version]
  4. I give you this land to possess it…[New American Bible ]
  5. I give you this land so that you will take possession of it…[ God’s Word ]

As I see it, in #1, “to take posession of” describes(targets) “this land”. It looks perfectly correct to me, just as the phrase “the land to grow wheat on” would be correct. #3 bears this out, “take posession of” being the same as “possess” for all intents and purposes.
#2 is also correct. Grammatically, though, the infinitive clause “to take…” is not a noun phrase anymore but is now functioning like a subordinate clause for the main clause “I give you this land” (though technically it’s still a phrase). It is structurally and semantically equivalent to #5, with “to take possession of it” substitued for “so that…”.

So I think they are both correct and has the same meaning. However, #2 seems to read better than #1 to me. Why?
I think it might be because #2 has a better flow (longer breath) to it. #1 is essentially “I give you this land” with additional explanation for “the land”. #2 is more like “I give you this land” followed by “you will take possession of it”, an action followed by its implied purpose. #1 also ends with a preposition, not the best looking kind of sentence to many of us.

How does the parallel text language learning method work (this is the first time I hear it)?

It is precisely because I hear and read so many sentences ending in prepositions that I asked this questions. Knowing that the pronoun “it” could have easily been omitted, I couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t. It seems to have something to do with stylistics, as it would not have been a grammatical error to drop the pronoun, as you have demonstrated with the phrase"the land to grow wheat on".

@Etudiant1 The parallel text method is basically a vocabulary acquisition focused method. You read the same text in your native language then read it again in your target language, trying to notice grammar patterns and, most importantly, learn vocabulary. I have seen many youtubers do it so I decided to coin a term for it.

Thank you! I’ll try this as well.