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Finding Clauses
Practice Exercise # 6
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: |
| My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are we alike?" "You're both old," he replied. |
| 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. |
Sentence # 1
| The first sentence is: | ||
My grandson was
visiting one day when heasked,
"Grandma, doyouknow
how you and Godarealike(PA)?" |
||
As usual, we should begin with the last S/V/C pattern and work backward. The words in the last S/V/C pattern are "you and God," "are," and "alike" so this clause obviously ends with "alike." To find the first word in this clause, we need to look at the word before "you," which is "how." "How" can function as a subordinate conjunction, which means both that it is part of this clause and that this clause is subordinate. Now all we need to do is to figure out how this subordinate clause functions -- what does it chunk to? In working out the S/V/C patterns, I explained that, although you might not know that "How you and God are alike" is a clause, you could still figure out that it is the complement (direct object) of "know." We are finished with this clause. |
||
| My grandsonwas
visiting one day when heasked,
"Grandma, doyouknow
[DO of "know"how
you
and Godarealike(PA)]?" |
||
We turn to the next one (working backwards). That clause is
centered on "do you know." Because a clause is an S/V/C pattern and all
the words that chunk to it, that clause must include the clause we just
analyzed because it functions as the complement of "know." This means that
the "do you know" clause ends with the word "alike."
The last thing we need to do is to determine if the "do you know" clause is subordinate or main? Does it chunk to a word outside itself? In explaining the S/V/C patterns in this sentence, I noted that although you might not know the grammatical name for it, you should have been able to tell that "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" is the direct object of "asked." We now know, therefore, that it is a subordinate clause functioning as a direct object. |
||
| My grandsonwas
visiting one day when heasked,
[DO
of "asked" "Grandma, doyouknow
[DO of "know"how
you
and Godare
alike(PA)]]?" |
||
| We still have two unanalyzed S/V/C patterns, "grandson was visiting"
and "he asked." Working backward, we look at "he asked." Because
a clause is a subject / finite verb / complement pattern and all the
words that chunk to it, this clause must end with "alike" because
we just noted that the "Grandma" clause chunks to "asked."
To find the first word in this clause, we need to look at the word in front of the "he." That word is "when," a word that can function as a subordinate conjunction. Thus we are probably dealing with a subordinate clause, but to be sure we need to see if this clause chunks to a word outside itself. It does, and there are two possible explanations of how it does so. Some people might see the "when" clause as functioning as an adjective to "day." Others may see it as modifying the "was visiting," and thus functioning as an adverb. Either explanation is acceptable. |
||
| My grandsonwas
visiting one day [Adjective
to "day" or adverb to "was visiting" when heasked,
[DO
of "asked" "Grandma, doyouknow
[DO of "know"how
you
and Godarealike(PA)]]]?" |
||
| 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. | ||
| My grandsonwas
visiting one day [Adjective
to "day" or adverb to "was visiting" when heasked,
[DO
of "asked" "Grandma, doyouknow
[DO of "know"how
you
and Godarealike(PA)]]]?"/ |
||
| 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, in this case, is the same as the entire sentence. |
Sentence # 2
| The second sentence is: | ||
| I mentally
polished
my halo(DO)
while Iasked,
"No, how arewealike
(PA)?" |
||
We begin with the last S/V/C pattern and work backward. The words
in the last S/V/C pattern are "are we alike" so this clause obviously
ends with "alike." To find the first word in this clause, we
need to look at the word before "are," which is "how," but since we are
dealing with a quotation, we also need to look at the preceding "No."
The quotation mark before "No" indicates that "No" goes with this clause.
On the other side of the quotation mark, before "No," we find "asked,"
which clearly goes to a different S/V/C pattern. Thus the first word in
this clause is "No."
[That explanation should sound familiar. (See the preceding sentence, where it already appeared twice.) Sentence structure is actually based on a very limited number of "principles." If you follow the analytical procedure, you will soon find yourself mastering these principles.] |
||
| I mentally
polished
my halo(DO)
while Iasked,
[DO
of "asked" "No, how arewealike
(PA)]?" |
||
| Having finished that clause, we move (backward) to the "I asked"
pattern. Because a clause is a subject / finite verb / complement pattern
and
all the words that chunk to it, this clause must end with
"alike"
because we just noted that the "No" clause chunks to "asked."
To find the first word in this clause, we look in front of the "I," where we find "while," a word that can function as a subordinate conjunction. Before "while," we find "halo," which we have already marked as the direct object in a different pattern. Thus the first word in this clause is "while," and it is subordinate. To be sure that it is a subordinate clause, we need to find a word outside the clause to which the clause chunks. "While" indicates that two things happened at the same time, so this "while" connects the subordinate clause to "polished." |
||
| I mentally
polished
my halo(DO)[Adverb
to "polished" while Iasked,
[DO
of "asked" "No, how arewealike
(PA)]]?" |
||
| 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. | ||
| I mentally
polished
my halo(DO)
[Adverb to "polished" while Iasked,
[DO
of "asked" "No, how arewealike
(PA)]]?"/ |
||
| Note that, because a clause is a subject / finite verb / complement pattern and all the words that chunk to it, and because we just said that the "while" clause chunks to "polished," this main clause is the same as the sentence. |
| The last sentence is: | ||
| "You're
both old (PA),"
hereplied. |
||
As it often does, the KISS Approach allows more than one explanation
of the clause structure of this sentence. We'll begin with the "traditional"
explanation.
|
||
| [DO
of "replied""You're
both old (PA),"]hereplied. |
||
| To complete the analysis from the traditional perspective, we are down to one unanalyzed pattern ("he replied"), and this pattern includes the "You're" clause as its complement. Thus all we need to do is to put a vertical line at the end of the sentence. | ||
| [DO
of "replied""You're
both old (PA),"]hereplied./ |
||
| Because it is based on a psycholinguistic
model of how the mind processes language, KISS allows another explanation.
The model suggests that readers process the first free noun or pronoun*
that they see (or hear) as the subject of an S/V/C main clause pattern
(unless that pattern is preceded by a subordinate conjunction). Because
there is no subordinate conjunction before "You're both old," readers are
likely to interpret it at the main S/V/C pattern.
Looking at the sentence from this perspective, we are left with the question of how to explain "he replied." Grammarians can become very complicated in their explanations of this, but KISS keeps it simple by considering the "he replied" clause as an interjection. By definition, an interjection is something that is "thrown in". Thus the "he replied" clause is considered "in," and thus part of, the main clause. |
||
| "You're
both old (PA),"
[Interjectionhereplied]./ |
||
| Note that I consider either explanation acceptable, and in either case we are finished with this sentence and this text. |
* The only exception to this are words that refer to time, since they may be nouns functioning as adverbs:
Monday, I have to go to work.
Monday is my favorite day of the week.