Exercise 13

Translate the sentences with the For – to – Infinitive Construction

1. It is possible for a word to consist of only one sound, as when you say «a» in «a house».

2. Arrangements were also made for large numbers of books to be made available in that reading-room.

3. He examined the problem and decided that the only solution was for him to return to the order of his old life.

4. When the Heathen king of Kent Ethelbert, heard of Augustin's landing with some forty companions he sent orders for them not to move off Thanet.

5. Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio, and made signs for the visitors to come in.

6. It is less easy for a common language to make its way in a country like Germany which for centuries was politically subdivided and which had no capital.

7. Here, it seems to me, is another very obvious and vital point for a specialist to explain.

8. It is well known, for example, that with people who have often discussed some subject together a few words are enough for them mutually to understand some very complex point, which it would take many words for them to explain to an outsider.

9. It must be almost unheard of for a play to be performed at separate places under completely different titles.

10. The really important conclusion for us to reach is that chance has played an extraordinary part in the survival of the written and graphic evidence of the period under investigation.

11. The normal way in which culture continues is for one generation of a society to transmit its culture to the next generation.

12. I also believe that the general system and terminology indicated briefly in chapter 1 has enabled to state many grammatical facts more clearly than has hitherto been possible. But of this is for others to judge.

13. Though in natural circumstances each race retains its own language, it is possible for a people to abandon its own tongue and to take another, and it is also possible for foreigners to be absorbed in large numbers without any perceptible effect upon the speech.

14. But the exceptions here are too numerous for any rule to be stated.

15. Even in the second century trade was not sufficiently organized for the rural hamlets to be supplied with raw iron from centralized foundries.

16. It is impossible for an author, and it would be impossible for the whole body of writers, to alter at will the prevalent type of sentence-articulation.

17. However, for any empirical data to contribute much to an understanding of a complex phenomenon like the learning of a second language, they need to be related to a fairly comprehensive formulation of theory.