"Make sth possible" or "make possible sth"?

2010-08-08 3:27 pm
Hi, I'm confounded recently to see a sentence as follows:

"The systems make POSSIBLE the growth of 40% of the world's food"

But, as I've learned, why don't we say:

"The system make the growth of 40% of the world's food POSSIBLE"
(i.e. "make sth adj" instead of "make adj sth")

I do believe that the second sentence is grammatically correct while I seldom see the pattern of the first one.

Can someone good at English explains the difference between the two?

Thanks
更新1:

Thanks for the answers given. I appreciate them so much. Yet I want to say the adjective after "sth" in "make sth adj" is an object complement. According to PEU, an object complement should follow its object. In the sentence in question, "the growth of 40% in the world" is the object, isn't it? and "possible" is used after it to add more details to "the growth" Any comment?

回答 (2)

2010-08-08 4:15 pm
✔ 最佳答案
In my opinion, there is no difference - in meaning, anyway - between the two sentences. They both mean the same thing, but the words have been moved around, that's all.
If you put a pistol to my head, and forced me to choose one sentence as being "better" than the other one, then I would choose the first one. I shall explain my reason:
A sentence is a string of words, and a sentence is intended to tell the reader/listener something. The individual words may not tell the reader very much, but it is the putting together - in a logical order - of the individual words that conveys the message. As the words are read, the reader begins to form an opinion about what he is about to be told. This mental process is called "using contextual clues". Look at your second sentence.
"The systems": the reader knows that he is going to read something about "systems", but he does not yet know what it is that he will be told about them.
"make the growth": ah! so, "the systems make the growth" (i.e. they create the growth; they are responsible for the growth). Now, says the reader, I've been told something, but "growth" of what?
"of 40% of the world's food": that's interesting, says the reader. I didn't know that "the systems" were responsible for all that growth of the world's food.
Yet, what the reader has read - up to this point - is not what the writer of the sentence means to say! The writer's true intention is revealed only in the final word: "possible". Therefore, I think that the adjective "possible" should be placed where it is in the first sentence. The reader is thus told that "the systems" make something possible, and that "something" is revealed in the final part of the sentence. The reader who reads the first sentence is under no illusions about the meaning of the string of words.
Having said that, I shall end by saying this: the first sentence is rather formal, and the second sentence is more informal. There is nothing wrong with either of them.
I wish you the best of luck.
參考: 30 years of teaching English to 11- and 12-year-old children, plus a lifetime of being picky about the correct use of the language (spelling; grammar; punctuation; etc.).
2010-08-08 10:47 pm
The second sentence is definitely correct. The first one is a bit awkward, but it is used when the incidental sentence (in your case "the growth of 40% of the world food" ) gets to be too long, and "possible" would end up too far from "make".


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