# 玛丽发现她的儿子很有音乐才能



## yuxin

请问地道的说法是什么？ 
这样说对吗

Marry discovered her child to be musical.
Marry found her child possess musical talent . 
Marry found her child in the possession of musical talent.


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## lyx1692

不敢说对不对。但是,我不会用possess这个词的, have即可。
我来写这个句子,会是下面这个样子。
Marry found her son had a great gift for music. 
Marry found her son was very musically inclined.
Marry found her son had a great musical talent. 
Marry found her son had a great talent for music.


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## yuxin

非常谢谢你，我面明白了！


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## BODYholic

yuxin said:


> 请问地道的说法是什么？
> 这样说对吗
> 
> Marry discovered her child to be musical.
> Marry found her child *possess *musical talent .
> Marry found her child in the possession of musical talent.



Marry found out her child possesses musical talent.

#1 may also be possible but I am not exactly sure if one is musical, he/she is therefore talented in that field. 
#3 You need the verb 'to be' after the child.


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## kun2kun

玛丽应该是Ｍａｒｙ　或　Ｍａｒｉｅ　吧。
我还真没听过有人叫Ｍａｒｒｙ。


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## yuxin

不好意思，我写错了！: D 这么细心都被你发现～

Bodyholic,为什么要加to be 而不可以直接加介词in 在第三句中。


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## BODYholic

yuxin said:


> Bodyholic,为什么要加to be 而不可以直接加介词in 在第三句中。



If you compare these two sentences,
#2 Her child possesses musical talent
#3 Her child (is) in possession of musical talent.

They've similar sentence structure. Except that in lieu of a verb (possesses) in #2, #3 uses a prepositional phrase. A phrase needs a verb to link to its subject. Hence, you can't omit the verb _to be_ here.


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## SuperXW

yuxin said:


> Bodyholic,为什么要加to be 而不可以直接加介词in 在第三句中。


The verb "to be" 是「be动词」的意思，不是让你加「to be」两个词进去，而是说这句缺少be动词，要加is。

类似的句型，除非你说Mary found her child in the park. 那可以不加be动词，in the park 直接修饰主句；但那与 Mary found (that) her child is in possession of musical talent 结构是不同的。


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## yuxin

还是不太明白， in the park, in possession of不都是介词短语作宾补吗？


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## SuperXW

yuxin said:


> 还是不太明白， in the park, in possession of不都是介词短语作宾补吗？


Mary found her child in the park. 是說Mary在公園裏找到孩子。 
Mary found her child is in possession of musical talent. 總不能說：Mary在音樂天賦中找到孩子吧……？
「在公園裏」是修飾found的地點，也就是修飾Mary的動作，我覺得不是「賓語補足語」。
her child is in possession of musical talent 是個複句，整體做賓語。


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## Skatinginbc

yuxin said:


> Marry found her child _in *the *possession of_ musical talent.


That sentence would mean "Mary found her child possessed (= taken over) by musical talent".  
"Marry found her child _in possession of _musical talent" is correct in my opinion.  And I prefer it over "Marry found her child *to be i*n possession of musical talent".  
Google results:   
The police "found him in possession of firearms" (19,700) vs. The police "found him to be in possession of firearms" (4).


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## SuperXW

請首先參考其他網友的意見，他們英文都比我好。


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## yuxin

Oh, I got it : D  Thank you everybody here. You all are my best teacher for learning English here.    Very appreciated !!


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## BODYholic

yuxin said:


> 还是不太明白， in the park, in possession of不都是介词短语作宾补吗？



*1) Noun phrase*
"_in the park_" is indeed a prepositional phrase.
Mary found "her child _in the park_" --> Those words in blue are called noun phrase. Yes, you see a prepositional phrase ("_in the park_") inside the noun phrase.

To see if it is a valid noun phrase, a pronoun is typically used to substitute the noun phrase.
So "Mary found her child in the park" becomes "Mary found her" which is grammatically correct and its original meaning remains largely intact.

*2) Noun phrase or clause?*
"Marry found out _her child in possession of musical talent_" 
If we consider those words in blue as a noun phrase, the sentence can be rewritten as "Marry found out her". While the new sentence is grammatically ok, it lost its original meaning. Marry did not search for her child but discover her talent in Music.

This explains why I am reluctant to consider those words a noun phrase. Instead, I inserted a verb to be and made the phrase in to a clause below. 

Marry found out her child _*is*_ in possession of musical talent.

While the sentence can be logically sound and grammatically accurate, it may not be something idiomatic to the native speakers which I am not. At any rate, this is not my preferred choice out of the given three. 


(By the way, you need to know the differences between _a phrase_ and _a clause_ which I won't elaborate here.)


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## Skatinginbc

Mary  found her son in the park ≠ Mary found her son that was in the park.   Therefore "her son in the park" cannot be seen as one unit.  Rather, it  should be analyzed as having two elements.  Mary found him (= her son)  there (= in the park) ≠ Mary found him (= her son that was in the park).
Mary found her son in possession of musical talent ≠ Mary found her son that was in possession of musical talent.
Mary  found him (= her son) so (= in possession of musical talent) ≠ Mary  found him (= her son that was in possession of musical talent).


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## FRee^ARouND

I would just say Marry find her son the next Mozart.

But if you really want to translate it literally, my guess would be: Marry found her son having musical talent (wonder if makes sense grammatically, since having... is almost= that has... as I could recall, but that's my natural guess without a second thought, or yet another victim of substandard English ;P)/ is a musical genius.

Another guess is Marry found her son of musical talent. 

not sure if these're right, just few attemps.


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