读步天下（三）

本期文选

一篇讲述城市发展趋势的文章，颇为热门，了解一下相关背景必定有益，用句亦颇具特色，老邪借文讲点，单讲其中的“倒装”。

Suburbanization

If by "suburb" is meant an urban margin that grows more rapidly than its already developed interior, the process of suburbanization began during the emergence of the industrial city in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Before that period the city was a small highly compact cluster in which people moved about on foot and goods were conveyed by horse and cart. But the early factories built in the 1840's were located along waterways and near railheads at the edges of cities, and housing was needed for the thousands of people drawn by the prospect of employment. In time, the factories were surrounded by proliferating mill towns of apartments and row houses that abutted the older, main cities. As a defense against this encroachment and to enlarge their tax bases, the cities appropriated their industrial neighbors. In 1854, for example, the city of Philadelphia annexed most of Philadelphia County. Similar municipal maneuvers took place in Chicago and in New York. Indeed, most great cities of the United States achieved such status only by incorporating the communities along their borders.

With the acceleration of industrial growth came acute urban crowding and accompanying social stress-conditions that began to approach disastrous proportions when, in 1888, the first commercially successful electric traction line was developed. Within a few years the horse-drawn trolleys were retired and electric streetcar networks crisscrossed and connected every major urban area, fostering a wave of suburbanization that transformed the compact industrial city into a dispersed metropolis. This first phase of mass-scale suburbanization was reinforced by the simultaneous emergence of the urban Middle Class, whose desires for homeownership in neighborhoods far from the aging inner city were satisfied by the developers of single-family housing tracts.

本期入选难句

With the acceleration of industrial growth came acute urban crowding and accompanying social stress-conditions that began to approach disastrous proportions when, in 1888, the first commercially successful electric traction line was developed.

老邪说“渔”

一、倒装结构

倒装之判断：谓动之前无可作主语的名词性结构，为主谓倒装。 Came之前只有with引起的伴随状语，故可判断句子为倒装结构。

倒装之解决：若不能理解，主谓顺过来可也。

此句若见多了，会是顺的：跟什么而来的“是”（此词为依经验自加）……

试再看文首一句：

If by "suburb" is meant an urban margin that grows more rapidly than its already developed interior, the process of suburbanization began during the emergence of the industrial city in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

此句中条件从句的谓动is前为介宾短语“by suburb”，故理解若有问题，当理顺主谓，变成“an urban margin that… is meant by ‘suburb’”, 这个要是还不理解，就不是倒不倒装的问题，而是被动语态。可再变为主动，就成了mean an urban margin by “suburb”, 即“suburb”这个词的意思是……。

二、状语修饰对象

状语前有两个或以上的可能修饰对象时，要根据意思进行判断。

此句的状语从句“when, in 1888, the first commercially successful electric traction line was developed.”是修饰定语从句中的谓语动词。因为定语从句必须是意思完整的句子，若把这个状语拿掉，定语从句意思不完整。

参考译文：工业快速发展带来的城市拥挤和随之而来的社会压力，而这种情况在1988年第一条索道铁路取得商业成功时开始发展成一场灾难。