Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
这是主语和动词倒装,也就是说,应该是 sun lies,这里写成 lies sun.
从最基本的开始分析(为了更好理解,最好是你看一条,就在句子主干里补充一条,直到最后重现原句为止)：
句子主干是 lies sun.
“a small unregarded yellow” 是 sun 的形容词：
“Far out in backwaters”是修饰 lies 的状词短语：
“the uncharted” 是修饰 backwaters 的形容词：
“of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy”也是修饰 backwaters 的,是介词短语.
- 其中主干是“of end”.
- the unfashionable 是修饰 end 的形容词.
- of the western spiral arm 是修饰 end 的介词短语.
- of the Galaxy 是修饰 arm 的介词短语.
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Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose apedescended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
这一句也是倒装,原为 planet is orbiting this,现在主干是 Orbiting this is planet.
an insignificant little blue green 是修饰 planet 的形容词
utterly 是修饰 insignificant 的状语
at a distance 是修饰 orbiting 的状语,是介词短语
of roughly ninety-two million miles 是修饰 distance 的介词短语
whose life forms are primitive 是修饰 planet 的定语从句
ape-descended 是修饰 life forms 的形容词
so amazingly 是修饰 primitive 的状语
that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea 是结果状语从句 (正因为这些生命极其原始,以致他们还觉得电子表很了不起)