WCS 230, Resumptive and Summative Modifiers

True or false: Resumptive and summative modifiers are used for providing additional information without sprawling explanatory subordinate clauses.

• True

• False

"She entered the room with a smile on her face and in a stunning red dress, a dress that made everyone else look cheap. "

The sentence is an example of:

• A resumptive modifier

• A summative modifier

• A free modifier

• An ordinary appositive phrase

"A grandmaster sacrificed his knight at g6, a cunning move that no one anticipated. "

This sentence is an example of a resumptive modifier.

• True

• False

What option is NOT a property of a resumptive modifier?

• It restates a word from the main clause.

• It should be a noun

• It substitutes relative clauses in the sentence.

• It adds an informative description to a word.

What option is NOT a property of a summative modifier?

• It restates a word from the main clause.

• It includes the addition of a new word

• It can summarize a whole clause.

• It uses nouns or noun phrases only.

Choose an option where a resumptive modifier is used.

• A real danger in this digital revolution is the potential it holds for dividing society, a society that will divide into two camps, the techno-elite and the techno-peasants, a society where a "wired" few will prosper at the expense of the masses.

• A car that ran through the red light figured in a terrible smashup, a tragic accident in which the wayward vehicle first hit an incoming sedan, creating a domino effect that made the sedan roll over and slam on a parked van, which in turn hurtled toward eight joggers having breakfast at a sidewalk café.

• Most textbooks only teach students the basics, a problem that will become more apparent when those students move into business and find they lack the more advanced skills they need.

• In the last twenty years, the world has moved from the industrial age to the information age, a sociological event that will change forever the way we work and think.

Choose an option where a summative modifier is used.

• During their presentation, she was extremely worried and anxious, worried about the grade, and anxious about the presence of mistakes.

• I’m tired, more tired than I had ever been before.

• We are slowly reaching graduation, a goal we had anticipated for four years of our college life.

• It was American writers who found a voice that was both true and lyrical, true to the rhythms of the working man’s speech and lyrical in its celebration of his labor.

Introduce a resumptive modifier into the following sentence: Since the 1930’s aircraft manufacturers have tried to build airplanes with frictionless wings, shaped so smoothly and perfectly that the air passing over them would not become turbulent. (pay attention to the consistency of grammar)

• wings, shaped so smoothly and perfectly

• wings, wings so smooth and so perfectly shaped

• wings that are shaped so smooth and perfect

• wings, shaped in such a smooth and perfect manner

• wings, wings having been shaped smoothly and perfectly so

Introduce a resumptive modifier into the following sentence: In a crowded, acquisitive world, the disappearance of lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushmen and Australia's aborigines, requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seem inevitably doomed.

(Pay attention to the consistency of grammar)

• requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems to be inevitably doomed

• which require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods, seems to be inevitably doomed

• life-styles that require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods, seem inevitable

• life-stlyes requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods,seems inevitably doomed

Type in the noun from the main clause that can serve as a template for a resumptive modifier:

The orchestra gave a beautiful performance to commemorate their late conductor, James Crotchet.