Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each example by its FREQUENCY type.
Groups: Singulative · Repeating · Iterative
- In bed early for years
- We walked every Sunday
- Quarrel in three chapters
- Murder told by four witnesses
- Duel told once, happened once
- Opened and read the letter
Hints
- Compare how many tellings there are with how many occurrences.
- Habitual "every Sunday" and "for years" are the iterative signature.
Show the answer
Singulative: Duel told once, happened once, Opened and read the letter
Repeating: Murder told by four witnesses, Quarrel in three chapters
Iterative: We walked every Sunday, In bed early for years
Why
The iterative is the hardest to notice because it reads as ordinary description. Proust's opening pages are almost entirely iterative, a childhood of what used to happen, which is why the eventual shift into a single narrated evening lands so hard.
Practise Narratology II. Duration, Frequency and Voice
The app has 6 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Literature I is free to start.
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