Finding Clauses
Practice Exercise # 5
Directions: [Work through the text one sentence at a time.]
1. First place parentheses ( ) around every prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every finite verb twice, and label
complements (PA, PN, IO or DO). [Reminder: A predicate adjective describes
the subject; a predicate noun "equals" the subject; an indirect object
is someone or thing "to" or "for" whom (or what) the action of the verb
is performed. Any other complement has to be a direct object.]
The text is: |
And one particular four-year-old
prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash
in our baskets." |
Note: In creating these pages, I cannot create a double underline.
I will therefore underline both subjects and finite verbs once, but subjects
will be in green; finite verbs in blue. |
Work your way through
the text one sentence at a time. The first sentence is: |
And one particular
four-year-oldprayed,
"And forgiveus
(IO) our trash
baskets (DO)
as weforgivethose
(IO) whoput
trash
(DO) (in
our baskets)." |
As usual, we need to begin with the last S/V/C pattern and work backward.
What is the last word in the "who put trash" clause? Because a clause
is an S/V/C pattern and all the words that chunk to it, the "who put trash"
clause obviously includes the prepositional phrase "in our baskets." When
we look for the first word in the clause, we find that the subject
is "who," a word that can also function as a subordinate conjunction. In
front of "who," we find "those," but "those" goes with the "we forgive"
pattern. Thus the first word in the last clause is "who," and the last
word is "baskets." The "who," as noted, suggests that the clause is
subordinate, but to be sure we need to find a word outside the clause
that the clause chunks to. We find that word in "those." The
last clause describes (modifies) "those" because is tells us who "those"
are. |
And one particular
four-year-oldprayed,
"And forgiveus
(IO) our trash
baskets (DO)
as weforgivethose
(IO)[Adjective
to "those" whoput
trash(in
our baskets)]." |
Finished with that clause, we turn to the next one (working backwards).
Because a clause is a subject / finite verb / complement pattern and
all the words that chunk to it, the "we forgive" clause has to include
the "who" clause that chunks to "those." Thus the last word in the
"we forgive" clause is "baskets."
To find the first word in this clause,
we need to look at the word in front of the subject ("we"). What we find
is the subordinate conjunction, "as." This tells us that the clause
is subordinate, but what does it chunk to? If we look at the meaning
of the sentence, this "as" is saying that the Lord should forgive in the
same way that "we forgive." The clause is thus adverbial to the first "forgive." |
And one particular
four-year-oldprayed,
"And forgiveus
(IO) our trash
baskets
(DO) [Adverb
to preceding "forgive"as
weforgivethose[Adjective
to "those"whoputtrash
(in our baskets)]]." |
We still have two unanalyzed S/V/C patterns, "four-year-old
prayed" and "forgive us our trash baskets." Working backward, we
look at "forgive us our trash baskets." Where does this clause end?
Because a clause is a subject / finite verb / complement pattern and
all the words that chunk to it, this clause must go all the way to
"baskets" because we just noted that the "as we forgive those" clause
chunks to the first "forgive."
To find the first word in this clause, we
need to look at the word in front of the first "forgive." Does the "And"
go with "forgive us," or does it go with the "prayed" pattern? In this
case, the quotation mark in front of "And" clearly indicates that it goes
with the "forgive us" clause. Thus the "forgive us" clause begins with
"And" and ends with "baskets."
Is it a subordinate clause, or a main clause?
In analyzing the S/V/C patterns in this sentence,
we noted that the entire quotation (which is identical to this clause)
functions as the direct object of "prayed." Because main clauses cannot
have such functions, this clause has to be subordinate. |
And one particular four-year-oldprayed,
[DO
of "prayed""And
forgiveus
(IO) our trash
baskets (DO)[Adverb
to preceding "forgive"as
weforgivethose[Adjective
to "those"whoputtrash(in
our baskets)]]]." |
We are now down to one unanalyzed pattern. All we need to do
is to put a vertical line at the end of the sentence. |
And one particular four-year-oldprayed,
[DO
of "prayed""And
forgiveus
(IO) our trash
baskets (DO)[Adverb
to preceding "forgive"as
weforgivethose[Adjective
to "those"whoputtrash(in
our baskets)]]]."/ |
Note that, because a clause is a subject / finite verb / complement
pattern and all the words that chunk to it, the main clause includes
all the subordinate clauses and is the same as the entire sentence. |
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