Search results for 'tag:Clauses tag:Predicates' matching tags 'Clauses' and 'Predicates'

Re: Direct object and clauses

Avangi — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:31:48 GMT

Cute572
We both thought that this novel was one of the finest books we have ever read.
I read that direct object recives the action. Here book get the action "read" which make its a direct object. But preposition Of make me confuse. Whether its a object of preposition or not. Secondly is ONE is direct object here ?

I think of direct and indirect objects in connection with transitive verbs (action verbs - doing something to somebody). Your example uses a "verb of being," "to be" (something is something). The "that" clause has no direct or indirect object.
Novel was one. The subject of the clause is "Novel," and the verb is "was." There's no action, so there's no object. In the 40's we used to call "one" the "predicate nominative," but now I guess they call it the "verb compliment."

"Books" is object of the preposition, as you suspect, not object of the verb (where we would use direct/indirect). The prepositional phrase modifies "one."

"We have ever read" is a clause, modifying "books." I can understand why you think "books" might be object of the verb "read," and I'm not sure how to explain why it's not.

To back way up, if you're looking for a true action verb that functions as a true action verb, you'll find it in the main clause, We thought. It's intransitive, so it has a direct object but no indirect object. The direct object is the "that" clause. (What did we both think??)

Huevos
It gives me pleasure to introduce you to Paul. It = subject; "to introduce you to Paul" = direct object; (to) me = indirect object.

Cute572
Could you please explain why "to introduce you to Paul" is direct object and not object of preposition ? As its starts with preposition

"To" is not a preposition here. It's part of the infinitive form of the verb, "to introduce." "To introduce you to Paul" is an infinitive phrase acting as a noun, not a prepositional phrase.

Best wishes, - A.

Re: whats a complete predicate??

Mister Micawber — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:00:46 GMT

.
A complete predicate is all of the sentence except for the subject.

An appositive is 'an expression that has 'the same function and the same relation to other elements in the sentence [as a previous noun], the second expression identifying or supplementing the first. In Washington, our first president, the phrase our first president is in apposition with Washington.'

Absolute (besides being a kind of vodka) probably refers to absolute construction, a phrasal structure somewhat like an appositive, in that it has no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence: The day being sunny, we decided to go on a picnic.

A non-clause (not a term I am familiar with) appears to be any phrase or nonfinite clause that is not a finite clause. I found these examples on the Web:

Clauses	Non-Clauses
.
I went home	Going home
Because I went home	Alone and depressed
She is pretty	Becoming pretty
If she skips the appointment	Skipping the appointment
The boy hit the ball	Light weight and fluffy
While the parents cheered	Cheering parents
She laughed	The homework done
That he was wrong	On the table
Who wore the hat	Absent from class
Which we respected	The president of the club
Where the boys found the missing glove	One of the most admired members of the class

Analyzing WH-questions the H&P CGEL way

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:18:39 GMT

Hi!

I am reading Huddleston & Pullum's CGEL, and I've run into a problem. I don't understand how to analyze WH-questions with both subject-auxiliary inversion and . Couldn't somebody help me out?

Let us take the sentence What did the Captain say? as an example. Here the Captain is obviously the subject. But what is the predicate? Is it say ___, with the gap as the object, or what is it?

This is the solution I've come to, but I'm at all sure it is not altogether wrong:

[Clause[Prenucleus:NP_i [Head:N What]] [Nucleus:Clause [Prenucleus:V_j did] [Nucleus:Clause [Subject:NP [Det:D the] [Head:N Captain]] [Predicate:VP [Predicator:GAP_j ___] [CatComp:Clause [Predicate:VP [Predicator:V say] [Object:GAP_i ___]]]]]]]

Looks totally weird to me. Any ideas?

//AC

Re: "Three nuclei with one proton are known ?that? contain 0,1 and 2 neutrons, respectively."

CalifJim — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:07:34 GMT

to is an interesting suggestion, and that works.

The original, with that, is a case of a 'heavy' relative clause 'floating' to the right. The underlying form is

Three nuclei [that contain 0, 1, and 2 neutrons, respectively], with one proton are known.

You can float the relative clause to the right a little:

Three nuclei with one proton [that contain 0, 1, and 2 neutrons, respectively], are known.

Or a lot:

Three nuclei with one proton are known [that contain 0, 1, and 2 neutrons, respectively].

The author got himself into a grammatical corner and chose this last version as the least awkward!

Compare:

The little girl is back today that was here yesterday with so little money that she was unable to buy the three different kinds of candy she had picked out with her mother's help in the Sweets Department at the back of the store.

Here the 'heavy' relative clause would not likely be placed in the usual place, right after girl, because it is so long that the reader would forget the subject before he got to the predicate of the same sentence!

English Grammer

Anonymous — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:38:08 GMT

I want brief explanations about following topics:

1- Narrations( Active Passive and Direct Indirect)

2- Clauses(Adjective,Noun,Adverb & Preposition clauses)

3- Predicate nominative.

Re: subject of subordinate clause

Avangi — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:03:44 GMT

#1 John who took my pen is here.

#2 John who is wearing my jacket is here.

How firm a grasp would you like to obtain? (I know I shouldn't have written that, but I couldn't resist.)

The thing that works for me is to take out the the subject and the "verb" and see if it still makes sense. (That may even be the "rule.")

The reason it works in #2 and not in #1 is the difference in tenses and in verb forms. In "who took my pen" vs "who is wearing my jacket" "who" is the subject in each case, so that's not the difference. (If you took out "who," what would you propose for the subject? Without a subject you have no clause. You might think to claim "John" as the subject, but it can't be the subject of both clauses. You could use a compound predicate: "John is wearing my jacket and is here." )

Notice that in #2 both clauses are present tense. The verb is actually "is wearing," present progressive of "to wear." So you don't actually take out the verb - only the helping verb "is," which leaves you with the present participle, "wearing." You now have a participial phrase, "wearing my jacket," which is just fine. He's wearing it now and he's here now.

In #1, there's no helping verb to take out. You could take out the "who," leaving you with a compound predicate, but you'd need to add a conjunction. "John took my pen and is here." (The two different tenses work, but "is here" is no longer the dominant idea.)

If the original were, "John, who is taking my pulse, is Russian," then it works like #2. "John, taking my pulse, is Russian."

If you use two different tenses, as in the original #1, you'd have, "John, who was taking my pulse, is Russian." That leads to, "John, taking my pulse, is Russian." What happened to your past tense?

So try it, and ask yourself if the meaning is still the same.

Best wishes, - A.

Please Check My Answers

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:47:54 GMT

1. An adjective modifies a:
A. verb. B. noun. C. pronoun. D. both b & c.
Answer D.

2. Adverbs modify:
A. verbs. B. adjectives. C. other adverbs. D. all the above
Answer D.

3. The purpose of a preposition is to connect:
A. nouns to other words in the sentence. B. pronouns to other words in the sentence. C. a group of words acting as a noun to another word in the sentence. D. all of the above
Answer D.

4. Which of the following words is not a preposition?
A. aboard B. by C. beside D. himself
Answer D.

5. The main parts of a sentence are:
A. the subject and the predicate. B. an adjective and adverb. C. a verb and adverb. D. the capital and punctuation.
Answer A.

6. A sentence fragment may be lacking :
A. a subject. B. a verb. C. both a subject and a verb. D. all of the above.
Answer D.

7. Phrases and clauses are incorrectly used when they are:
A. deleted. B. left dangling. C. misplaced. D. both b & c
Answer D.

8. A dangling modifier is a word or group of words that:
A. does not seem to modify any word in a sentence. B. can be placed anywhere in a sentence. C. both a & b D. neither a nor b
Answer A.

Re: conjunctive adverbs

miriam — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:13:39 GMT

Conjunctive adverbs, or simply "conjuncts", do exist, and are different from sentence adverbials.These conjuncts link sentences or paragraphs and usually appear at the beginning of a sentence.

The adverbials Anonymous mentioned in their first post, those that tell us something about the verb (why, when, where, how, what for, etc.) are adjuncts (as opposed to conjuncts. Unlike conjuncts, adjuncts are part of the structure of the sentence (from the point of view of syntax); they will appear in the predicate. You also have âsentence adverbialsâ, which modify an entire clause or sentence and are placed, usually, at the beginning of the sentence).

Adverb: a part of speech whose main function is that of modifying a verb, an adjective or another adverb.

Adverbial: a syntactic function that may be realised by a number of structures (and even single words): adverbs, prepositional phrases, clauses (both finite and non-finite), noun phrases.

Both conjuncts and adjuncts are adverbials, only they are of different types.

Most conjuncts are adverbs or prepositional phrases: however, consequently, yet (meaning âhoweverâ), firstly, lastly, anyway, nonetheless, nevertheless, meanwhile, by the way, on the one hand, on the other hand, to begin with, to sum up, in short, etc. Even some conjunctions can function as conjuncts, as long as they appear at the very beginning of the sentence (for example âandâ and âbutâ). again, these are not part of either the subject or the predicate, but remain outside the structure of the sentence and act as links to the previous sentence/s or paragraph.

Miriam

Re: Question about the phrase "I have things to do"

miriam — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:58:49 GMT

Hello, Twinkletoes.

No, that's not what I'm saying. "things to do" is the direct object of "have", the main verb of the sentence. "To do" would be a clause (a non-finite one) even if "things" weren't there or if it had some other type of complementation/modification. In this case, inside the clause, "things" is the subject and "to do" is the predicate.

"Have" is the main verb of the sentence; "to do" is the main verb in the subordinate clause "things to do".

I don't know if every single grammarian in the world would analyse the sentence in the same way, but I certainly know of some who do. What I posted before appears in grammar books. It doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with it, though. Disagreement is often the basis on which new thories are developed.

Anyway, let me give another example of what I said in my first post here:

"She wanted him to call her."

Here, "him to call her" is another to-infinitive clause (with a subject of its own) acting as direct object of the main verb "wanted". "Him" is the subject of the clause (in non-finite clauses, when they have a subject and if that subject is a pronoun, it will be in its "objective" form), "to call" is the main verb of the clause, and "her" the direct object inside the clause.

I'm sorry if that was confusing.

Miriam

Re: They say he's genius

Avangi — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:16:03 GMT

Hi LiJ, I haven't heard "genius" used as an adjective, but perhaps someone else has. Anyway, I'd have to scratch your #1 sentence.

I would say that in the first pair, which refers to the predicate adjective.

In the second pair, I'd say which refers to the nouns, genius and guy. Actually, you'd have to include the "shy," since he's probably a guy. So it would be the phrase, "shy guy."

Which can't refer to the clauses, because you'd be saying, "he is he is a genius."

Edit. I've heard people say things like, "What a genius idea!" or "What a genius of an idea!" but I think they're ill advised.