Example sentences of "can [adv] serve [prep] a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | A Soviet statement three days later made it ‘ absolutely clear ’ that the proposal of the EEC states ‘ can not serve as a basis for talks and no-one intends to hold such talks with them ’ . |
| 2 | It can not serve as a term that describes objectively a specific set of conditions . |
| 3 | Removing the current stock and raising water temperature to around 36°C can also serve as a cure . |
| 4 | The virtue of artists ' writings for the reader of criticism is that it can often serve as a touchstone for judging the worth of mediators , particularly those presenting views of what the artist intended ; what the artist said may be more to the point . |
| 5 | The areas which do not receive intervention can then serve as a basis for comparison with the targeted areas after a suitable period of time has elapsed ( see Table 6.1 ) . |
| 6 | Even if the reason does n't seem fully convincing , or seems in itself unimportant , the process of analysing the word can sometimes serve as a trigger which enables you to remember the correct spelling . |
| 7 | The latter declares *John was seen leave ungrammatical because the embedded clause seen leave is " unsupported " , i.e. constitutes " a subject — predicate sequence that exhibits none of the internal inflectional structures of a full sentence or clausal complementation " ( i.e. neither tense , nor infinitival to , nor progressive -ing ) , whereas John was seen to leave is said to be grammatical because here leave is " supported " ( by to ) , and can therefore serve as an argument for the verb see ( pp. 123 – 4 ) . |