主题：请帮忙翻译和分析一下，谢谢

亚洲各交易国说它们无法承担坐等谈判恢复的损失。它们辩称，更好的解决之道是在两三个国家之间先解决问题。如果你真的很有雄心，那就四五个一起来吧。
这个不是我翻译的，是我从网站上找到的。相关链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=23737
句子的意思既然已经了解了，句子的语法和成分就很容易理解：Better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful. 可以完整成They argue that it is better to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, (to loosen up trade with simpler deals between ) a handful (of countries).

刚开始看了题目就晕的慌，沙发很厉害啊。Good job.

This is how I analyze the sentence.
To understand the grammatical structure of this sentence “Better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful”, let me rewrite it a bit differently as follows (the words that are italic and underlined are the additional words):
“They argue that it’s better to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries, or that it’s also better to loosen up trade between a handful of countries if you are truly ambitious.”
1.      Subject and Predicate

The Subject is just one word - “They”, and the rest is the Predicate.

2.      Predicate

In the Predicate, there is an intransitive verb “argue” followed by two Adverbial Phrases that modify the verb “argue”: (a) that it’s better to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries (b) that it’s also better to loosen up trade between a handful of countries if you are truly ambitious.

The two Adverbial Phrases are linked by the conjunction “or”.

The second Adverbial Phrase is a bit complicated. The adjective “better” is modified by an Adverbial Phrase in the form of an Infinitive Phrase: “to loosen up trade between a handful of countries”. That Adverbial Phrase is in turn modified by another Adverbial Phrase “if you are truly ambitious”.

3.      Abbreviation and Rearrange Adverbial Phase

In English, some words are often abbreviated to keep the sentence crisp.

For example, look at this sentence: “I will go to school, and I will study very hard.” The two underlined words “I will” are always abbreviated so that the sentence you normally see becomes “I will go to school and study very hard.”

The writer did two things to the sentence I suggest: (a) abbreviated the words that are underlined and italic, and (b) moved part of the first Adverbial Phrase “better” to the top of the sentence.

I have no problem moving part of the Adverbial Phrase to the top because grammatically you can move adverbs and adverbial phrases around in a sentence.

I also have no problem abbreviating most of those underlined and italic words, except in my opinion, the writer should not abbreviate the word “it’s”. It’s just not grammatical without the subject “it” and the tensed verb “is” if my sentence reads: “They argue better to loosen up trade…”, and it should be “They argue it’s better to loosen up trade…”.

The sentence should read: “It’s better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful”, or “That it’s better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful”

4.      Why “it’s”

This part is rather technical.

The Adverbial Phrase embedding the word “better” starts with the “Subordinating Conjunction” – “that”. Grammatically that Adverbial Phrase is an Adverbial Clause. A “clause” by definition must consist of a Subject and Predicate (a predicate must contain a “Tensed Verb”). Therefore without the “it’s” composing of the Subject “it” and Tensed Verb “is”, the Adverbial Clause cannot be a “Clause” and therefore it is ungrammatical.

最后由 Alexcwlin 于 2009-09-22 08:58:11编辑

老鹰大哥的解释相当精辟且完整，非常感谢

就是有一点还是搞不懂，that it’s better to loosen up .... 为什么不是宾语从句而是 Adverbial Phrase

引用xiaozhouC于2009-09-22 22:12发表的文章:
就是有一点还是搞不懂，that it’s better to loosen up .... 为什么不是宾语从句而是 Adverbial Phrase

This is a very good question, and that was the issue I had to struggle with when I made my analysis.

If you take a look at the dictionary definition of "argue" at http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/argue.html you can see it can either be a transitive verb or an intransitive verb.

"Expressing disagreement" is Intransitive verb (subordinated by an adverbial clause), but "giving reason" is transitive verb (subordinated by a noun phrase).

Grammar is often not that cut-and-dried. If the sentence reads: "They argue that it's better to ...", then it seems you can make an argument for either case (i.e., the subordinate clause can either be a noun case or an adverbial case).

But it's more common grammatically that part or all of an adverbial clause can be moved around in a sentence than of a noun phrase. By moving part of the clause "It's better" to the top, it suggests to me that the clause is more of an adverbial than a noun nature.

And that is the way I see it.

Thanks for asking that question because many people would ask that same question too, including I.
最后由 Alexcwlin 于 2009-09-23 06:36:05编辑

Your answer is very clear and incisive indeed, Thanks for your great help.
最后由 xiaozhouC 于 2009-09-22 23:19:12编辑