20171103 长难句每日一句
Only recently did linguists begin the serious study of languages that were very different from their own. Two anthropologists—linguists, Franz Boas and Edward Sapir, were pioneers in describing many native languages of North and South America during the first half of the twentieth century.
译文1
直到最近语言学家才开始认真研究与自己的母语截然不同的语言。两位人类学家、语言学家Franz Boas 和Edward Sapir 是二十世纪上半叶描述北美和南美很多土著语言的先驱者。
译文2
直到最近语言学家才开始认真研究与自己的母语截然不同的语言。两位人类学家、语言学家佛朗茨·博厄斯和爱德华·萨皮尔在二十世纪上半叶描述了北美和南美许多土著语言，在这方面他们堪称先驱。
We are obliged to them because some of these languages have since vanished，as the people who spoke them died out or became assimilated and lost their native languages.
2. 原因状语从句：because some of these languages have since vanished因为自此这些语言中的一部分消失了
3. 定语从句：as the peoples who spoke them died out or became assimilated and lost their native languages 因为讲它们的人灭亡了或同化了，并且丧失了自己的母语
4. have since vanished从那以后就消失了，不复存在了；此处的since 表示 “从此以后”之意；since 在这句中是副词，一般人只掌握了其作为连词和介词的用法，而本句since后面只有单词vanished，是谓语的一部分。
四六级考研复习中的困惑