REX BARKS

EASY

Phyllis Davenport
 REX BARKS
Diagramming Sentences Made Easy

by Phyllis Davenport

A systematic method of sentence analysis to assist you in

understanding our language and using it well. Lessons
and exercises include:

+ Parts of Speech
+ Diagramming Forms
+ Kinds of Verbs
+ Dependent Clauses
+ Verbals
+ Compound and Complex Sentences
+ And More

~ R '=
REX BARKS
REX BARKS
DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES
MADE EASY

Phyllis Davenport
Copyright © 2004 by Phyllis Davenport
All rights reserved.

First Paper Tiger Printing

Published by
The Paper Tiger, Inc.
722 Upper Cherrytown Rd.
Kerhonkson, NY 12446
(845) 626-5354
www .papertig.com

ISBN: 1-889439-35-5
 CONTENTS

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1
Preface .............................................................................................................................. 3
Foreword ........................................................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER ONE-PARTS OF SPEECH ...................................................................... 7
CHAPTER TWO - DIAGRAMMING BEGINS ......................................................... 12
2-A. Helping Verbs .................................................................................... 13
2-B. Questions ........................................................................................... 13
2-C. Modifiers: Adjectives and Adverbs ................................................... 14
2-D. Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases ............................................. 18
2-E. Coordinating Conjunctions ................................................................ 22
2-F. Compound Elements .......................................................................... 22
2-G. Understood "You" ............................................................................. 23
2-H. Direct Address ................................................................................... 24
2-1. Interjections ....................................................................................... 24
2-J. Introductory Words ............................................................................ 25
CHAPTER THREE - KINDS OF VERBS .................................................................. 28
3-A. Intransitive Complete Verbs .............................................................. 28
3-B. Transitive Active Verbs ..................................................................... 29
3-C. Transitive Passive Verbs ................................................................... 32
3-D. Intransitive Linking Verbs ................................................................. 39
CHAPTER FOUR - DEPENDENT CLAUSES .......................................................... 46
4-A. Adverb Clauses .................................................................................. 48
4-B. Adjective Clauses .............................................................................. 53
4-C. Noun Clauses ..................................................................................... 60
CHAPTER FIVE - VERBALS .................................................................................... 67
5-A. Gerunds .............................................................................................. 67
5-B. Participles .......................................................................................... 70
5-C. Infinitives ........................................................................................... 76
CHAPTER SIX - ADDITIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS .............................................. 80
6-A. Appositives ........................................................................................ 80
6-B. Objective Complement ...................................................................... 81
6-C. Adverbial Noun ................................................................................. 82
CHAPTER SEVEN - COMPOUND AND COMPLEX SENTENCES ...................... 87
CHAPTER EIGHT - MISCELLANY ......................................................................... 89
8-A. About Adjective Clauses ................................................................... 89
8-B. About Adverb Clauses ....................................................................... 90
8-C. About Pronouns ................................................................................. 92
8-D. About Prepositional Phrases .............................................................. 95
8-E. About Nouns ...................................................................................... 97
Challenge ........................................................................................................................ 99
Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 101
Mystery Challenge ....................................................................................................... 108
Answers ........................................................................................................................ I 09
Index ............................................................................................................................. 151
 INTRODUCTION

I began my career as a private teacher for a few families committed to providing

their children with a real education. These parents had abandoned a fruitless search
for a school in which their children would read the classics of literature, learn the
story of history, grasp the fundamental principles of science, and develop the clar-
ity and precision of thought that comes from an understanding of grammar.
I knew that a rigorous course in English grammar must include the art of dia-
gramming sentences, but it was no easy task to find a good diagramming textbook
in an age when grammar itself is unfashionable. Then, one day. a student's mother
brought me a copy of Phyllis Davenport's Rex Barks. Here was a masterful presen-
tation of grammar-a well-structured, incremental course in diagramming with
clear explanations and memorable illustrations of each new principle-housed in a
hand-folded, typewritten book with a stapled binding and a tattered yellow cover.
Such is the state of education today.
Schools everywhere have abandoned grammar either as unnecessary or as in-
compatible with the principles they hold most sacred. Educational theorists insist
that the fundamental goal of education is to socialize the child, not to force upon
him so rigid and academic a skill as grammar. Prominent linguists tell teachers that
grammar is an innate faculty and cannot be taught. The self-esteem movement calls
for teachers to encourage and praise, not to correct. The diversity movement grants
equality to all forms of speech and rejects the notion of a universal standard. Lend-
ing support to the myriad of reasons for expelling grammar from the curriculum is
the often-repeated and self-contradictory view, "You don't need grammar; you just
have to make yourself understood."

Phyllis Davenport understands that if you want to make yourself understood,

you need grammar. Her textbook abounds with examples of the ambiguities that
result from an ignorance of grammatical rules. Without knowledge of pronouns
and elliptical clauses, you lose the distinction between, "You like Millie better than
I" (which means, "You like Millie better than I like Millie"), and "You like Millie
better than me" (which means, "You like Millie better than you like me"). This
subtle distinction can have profound consequences if you and your wife are en-
gaged in a deep discussion about your relationship with Millie. Or consider the
confusion that results from the misplacement of a modifier. To cite a memorable
example from Rex Barks: "Hanging over the side of the ship, his eye was caught by
a piece of rope." (The author wryly comments: "There goes that eye, like a fried
egg or one of Dali's watches!") Clarity is impossible without grammar. As Mrs.
Davenport points out, "Even the 'educationists' who write books about the unim-
portance of 'grammar' do so with sentences technically correct."
2

Even among educators who acknowledge the value of grammar, diagramming

has been scorned as an old-fashioned exercise in mental rigor. On the contrary, Rex
Barks shows us that the value of diagramming lies not primarily in the mental
gymnastics it requires, but in its presentation of a systematic method of identifying
the relationships among words in a sentence. To any student who has studied this
book and is struggling to identify the function of a word, you need only say, "Pic-
ture the diagram!"

Diagramming serves another purpose not served by other approaches to sen-

tence analysis. A diagram brings the relationship among the words of a sentence to
the perceptual level. Upon completing a diagram, students are given a visual re-
minder that, for example, the subject and verb are the core of the sentence, that
prepositional phrases are modifiers that add clarification to other words in the sen-
tence, and that dependent clauses are subordinate to main clauses. Through the
process of diagramming, you both understand and see the functions of various
parts of a sentence.

The art of diagramming sentences provides students with an indispensable foun-

dation for the study of grammar, and Rex Barks makes the process of learning this
skill manageable and fun. The book is laid out in logical, incremental steps, and
students are given the opportunity to master one concept before proceeding to the
next. They begin with sentences like "Rex barks," and work their way up through
modifiers, prepositions, verbs, clauses, verbals, and other complexities of gram-
mar, until, to their delight, they are able to diagram the first sentence in the U.S.
Constitution.

One of the best features of Rex Barks is the ever-present personality of the
author. Mrs. Davenport reminds the reader of that teacher we all once knew: the
strict, demanding teacher who made her students think and work hard, who knew
her subject and required that her students learn it, who never accepted excuses-
and who was loved best by everyone in the school. The book is filled with her firm
admonitions for students to stay in focus. (In response to the question of how one
can ever learn the difficult task of distinguishing among the various types of verbs,
she says, "By THINKING.") It contains many clever devices to help students with
tricky concepts (e.g., prepositions are to be remembered as "anything a squirrel can
do to a tree.") And it is pervaded by her sense of humor and enthusiasm for her
subject.
I am delighted that The Paper Tiger is republishing this gem of grammar in-
struction. If today's schools awaken to the importance of grammar, Rex Barks will
be available to help them teach their students the lost art of diagramming. Such, I
hope, will be the state of education tomorrow.
Lisa VanDamme
Director, VanDamme Academy
Laguna Hills, CA
December 2003
 3

PREFACE

When I published this book in 1976, I ordered 500 copies. I wanted to use them
with my high school English classes, and I hoped I could sell the rest. Soon the 500
were nearly gone, so I had 1000 more printed. These lasted so many years that I
felt like Thoreau commenting on his library of I 000 books-hundreds of which, he
wryly admitted, he had written himself.

Recently the last little stack was snatched up by a local network of home-
I
schoolers. While REX BARKS had not become the cult book of my fantasies, I
began to hope again.

In the years since I wrote Rex, the education establishment has seemed to me to
have become even less friendly to disciplined, orderly learning of skills and
knowledge: The brain chip in children's heads that used to be programmed with
multiplication tables has only rap lyrics on it now, and precision in language, if it is
acquired, must be caught, rather than taught, by those who read widely in
unrequired volumes. Most people will never be sure why "with Joe and I" is wrong,
or even that it is.

I have read that diagramming is taught in the private school our President's
daughter attended; other little bands in elite settings are probably quietly gathering
this knowledge. Here it is for you.

Phyllis Davenport
1999
 5

FOREWORD

If you have opened this book and are reading these words, I hope it is because
you find language deeply interesting.

If you are a word-puzzle fan, or if you like logical solutions to problems-

mysteries solved with no loose ends-then diagramming will be fun for you.

Of course, you may be faced with the problem of passing an English course
which requires you to understand such things as objects and modifiers and
participles. In that case, whether or not you find this book exciting, you wiJJ be
helped by it.

A friend asked me, "How can you write a whole book about diagramming
sentences?"

I needed a "whole book" about it.

For diagramming has been in the shadows. If you find a grammar text that deals
with diagramming at all, it will do so in two or three almost apologetic pages. I
didn't learn it that way. Nor did I learn it from a book. Step by step, Miss Chalfant
drilled it into me. I don't know where she learned it.

Now it seems that people are talking about diagramming sentences again. Or
talking about NOT diagramming them. They are wondering where it went. Well,
one place it went was into my head, thanks to Miss C., and through the years I have
taught it to anyone who would listen (and to many more who would not). Often I
have been asked, "Why isn't all this in a book?"

So now it is. I hope it will give you value and pleasure. Naturally, what you
harvest wiJJ depend on your labor.

You will also need to look at things in a new way, and we shall begin with the
most important of such things, the SENTENCE.
6

THE SENTENCE

Did you ever stop to ask yourself, "What is a sentence?" Or did you just
memorize the definition the teacher gave: "A sentence is a group of words
expressing a complete thought." (That's what Miss Wible taught me.) Some
definitions include the phrase, "with a subject and verb."

The more I have thought about a sentence, the less I have been satisfied by that
definition. Why do we have sentences, anyway? My guess is that the sentence is
the only way we can express the things we want to communicate. What do we want
to tell? Or find out? We are interested when

SOMEBODY DOES ORIS

OR
SOMETHING SOMETHING

That is my definition of a sentence. Here are some illustrations:

Harry stole the cheese.

A.
(Harry did something.)

The dog was so hungry that he ate my shoes.

B.
(The dog ~ something: very hungry.)

C.
Somebody I broke the window.

(We want to know who did the action.)

D.
Norman I did it.

(Now we know.)

WHY STUDY TIIB SENTENCE? We all speak them naturally, so why study
how a sentence is constructed? There are many reasons.

1. Power continues to be, generally, in the hands of the educated, who notice
when a sentence has something dreadfully wrong with it. Even the "educationists"
who write books about the unimportance of "grammar" do so with sentences
technically correct.
 6a

2. Much poetic writing cannot be understood, and therefore cannot be enjoyed,

without the skill of turning around unusual word order, "finding the subject and the
verb."

3. The study of foreign languages is heavy work without the knowledge of how
a sentence operates.
4. Finally, it is satisfying to understand something. You know this. Whether
your skill is rebuilding a carburetor or programming a VCR, or getting a grilled
cheese sandwich toasty but not burned, you have surely tasted the pleasure of
competence. Knowledge can bring joy!
WHAT IS DIAGRAMMING, ANYWAY? Diagramming is a form of sentence
analysis which requires one to take the sentence apart and show the relationship of
EACH WORD to the rest of the sentence. A sentence diagram is like a puzzle
which is not solved until all the parts are in the right place, and none are left over.

You may think of diagramming as a kind of dissection; as each part is taken out,
it is identified and its relationship to the rest of the whole is revealed. And, of
course, when you are finished with the sentence, you can put it back together more
successfully than you can a dissected frog!
And so, let us get to work. Each section of this book will give you some new
steps to learn. Work on the practice exercises after you have studied each step,
check your answers, and move along to the next level.

CAUTION: STAY AWAKE! SLEEP-LEARNING WON'T WORK!

(Thousands of my students have proved this.)
6b

/'

TREE f
~

A preposition
is
"anything a squirrel can do to a tree"
 7

CHAPTER ONE
PARTS OF SPEECH

Every word in a sentence does some job. A WORD'S PART OF SPEECH IS

THE JOB IT DOES IN ITS SENTENCE.

Every word in a sentence is doing one of eight jobs. We cannot be sure what
part of speech a word is until we see what it is doing in its sentence.

You may already know the parts of speech. Check the first part of the
APPENDIX of this book for a quick overview of them. If you have never learned
them before, you mu:it absolutely do so now. Go over each one until you
thoroughly understand it. Try to think up examples of each kind. Check the
dictionary to see if you got them right. Progress in learning about sentence
structure is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. It starts here.

1. NOUN-A noun names a person, place, thing, or idea.

Find the NOUNS in this sentence:

Bill called me "Cutie," so I gave him a valentine with candy in it.

(You should have found two persons and two things.)

Full of ambition, she attended college in the nearest city, Forestville.

(You should have found an idea and three places.)

Answers: Bill, Cutie, valentine, candy, ambition, college, city, Forestville.

Bill, Cutie, and Forestville are "proper" nouns-they start with capital letters.
The rest are "common" nouns-they are not capitalized.

There is only one "abstract" noun, "ambition." It is an idea that you can't
perceive with the senses. The rest are "concrete nouns."
"Me," "I," and "him" DO refer to people, but since they take the place of"Bill"
and "Cutie," they are pronouns. "She" is also a pronoun, but we don't know its
antecedent (the name or word a pronoun refers to.)

While the basic NOUN JOB is naming things, NOUNS will be subdivided into
quite a few categorit:s. They will still NAME things, but they will have various
functions in the sentence: SUBJECTS, OBJECTS, APPOSITIVES, etc. Don't let
this frighten you. IF IT'S A NAME, IT'S A NOUN in some capacity, even being
adjectives and adverbs! (You'll see this later).
8

Exercise 1-1: Write down all the nouns you can find in these sentences. Then
check with the answers in the back of the book.

I. The lean black cat sat on the rusty fence singing to the Siamese in the window.
2. Rex, who had chewed up the slippe,r, licked father with his tongue.
3. My birthday, next Tuesday, will be celebrated in peace and quiet, since all my
friends have gone on vacation.
4. Medicine Hat, Nebraska, is far from Boston; its culture is somewhat different,
but it is home to Harry.

Perhaps you have heard "the" called a "determiner." This means that when you
see "the," you can expect a noun to follow. It may follow immediately: the wolf.
Or there may be adjectives before the noun: the big bad wolf.

2. PRONOUN-A pronoun takes the place of a noun.

You are familiar with PERSONAL pronouns-I, you, he, etc.-that take the
place of names of people. Other pronouns stand for indefinite quantities or
unknown persons - some, someone, any, etc. You will learn more about some
pronouns in this book, but we will not cover all of them. If you find a word
DOING A NOUN JOB but NOT definitely naming a person, place, thing, or
quality, you probably have a pronoun.

Exercise 1-2: See how many pronouns you can find in these sentences and then
check with the answers.

I. He told me who took my pencil, but it was too late to get it back.
2. Somebody wrote something on the board, but no one can read it.
3. Who can say whether this will be a good plan for us?
4. Those are Brussels sprouts; can you tell what these are?
5. The boy whose name I have forgotten left before I paid him everything I owed
him.

3. VERB--A verb is a word of action or being.

Chapter 3 will tell you more about verbs than you want to know. Right now
make sure you can pick out the word of action: !!:!ffi dance; rain; skip; destroy;
sleep; vegetate; economize; think. You can see that some actions are mental
actions, some are very inactive actions. Then get to know the HELPING VERBS
that go ahead of the words of action sometimes:

MAY CAN MUST MIGHT SHALL WILL SHOULD WOULD COULD HA VE

DOBE
 9

Examples: Has run, did dance, might rain, could have been skipping, will be
destroyed, must have slept, shall vegetate, can economize, may have been thinking.

The verbs of being are what we call "linking verbs." Yoii will study those later.
The most important is the verb "to be," which comes in these fonns, or "parts":
AM ARE IS WAS WERE BEING BEEN
These verbs of being can have helpers:
shall have been, was being, might be

Exercise 1-3: Write all the complete verbs-that means include all helpers. There
may be more than one verb per sentence.

I. Laura and Nancy competed for Jeff's attention, but he was interested only in
Gail.
2. Because he has been coming to your house so often, your grocery bill has
increased dramatically.
3. Rex might have been the dog who upset your trash that you had left on your
sidewalk.
4. It has really been snowing since the sun went down.

4. ADJECTIVE-An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun.

What can we know about a certain noun (or pronoun)? Take, for example,
BOX. We can know:
WHICH ONE? THAT box
WHAT KIND? WOODEN box
WHOSE? RALPH'S box
HOW MANY? THREE boxes
The words which answer these questions about nouns are ADJECTIVES.

Exercise 1-4: Find the adjectives. Include the "articles,"!!, an, and the.

I . Three fat blackbirds with red patches on their wings sat on our telephone wire.
2. The only way to make a really good sundae is to include chocolate, vanilla, and
strawberry ice cream, maple syrup, chopped nuts, and marshmallow sauce.
3. After an enormous Sunday dinner, the old farmer walked slowly to the vine-
covered porch and eased into the creaking swing to begin his regular Sunday nap.

5. ADVERB--An adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.

What can we know about a certain verb (or adjective or adverb), for example,
"HAD RUN"? We can know:
WHEN? had run YESTERDAY
10

WHERE? had run AW AY

WHY? (this is hard to do in one word)
HOW? had run QUICKLY

Here are examples of ADVERBS modifying ADJECTIVES:

a VERY big tree (HOW big?) TOO easy REALLY serious

Here are ~xarnples of ADVERBS modifying OTHER ADVERBS:

VERY quickly NEVER again (WHEN again?) QUITE slowly
SO hungrily

Exercise 1-5: Find the adverbs.

1. Suddenly the sky became very dark, the wind blew wildly, and the rain hurriedly
began.
2. When the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, very carefully pour the mixture into
the well-greased pans.
3. She stared gloomily out the window, fully convinced that the snow would not
begin soon enough.
4. I will never tell you a secret again, for you betrayed my trust so very eagerly!

6. CONJUNCTION-A conjunction joins two words, phrases, or clauses.

There are two kinds of CONJUNCTIONS.

COORDINATING conjunction-joins EQUALS

SUBORDINATING conjunction-joins DEPENDENT clause to
INDEPENDENT clause

coordinating conjunctions are: AND BUT OR NOR FOR

Examples: Love AND marriage; cake OR pie; He came BUT I went; He did not
speak, NOR did I; I spoke, FOR he couldn't.

SUBordinating conjunctions include such words as: whenever; since; because;

until; if.

Examples: We cried BECAUSE we were sad. SINCE it rained, we stayed

home. AFTER he spoke, the room was quiet.

NOTE: There is another group of words called CONJUNCTIVE ADVERBS. They

are regarded as ADVERBS.
Examples: I think; THEREFORE, I am. We are tired, YET he stays. The
window is open; NEVERTHELESS, it is hot in here.
 11

7. PREPOSffiON-A preposition connects a noun or pronoun to the rest of

the sentence, showing some relationship.

Chapter 2 will examine prepositions and prepositional phrases in detail.

Meanwhile, see how , 'ell you can recall (or learn) how to spot a prepositional
phrase. PREPOSITIONS ALWAYS OCCUR IN PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES:
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN OBJECT (A NOUN OR PRONOUN) OF
EVERY PREPOSITION.

Example: He glanced into the box. "Into" is the preposition; "box" is the object.

Examine these PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES:

He searched behind the couch, under the table, above the mantel, on the porch,
in the cellar, and beneath the laundry.

Exercise 1-6: Find the prepositional phrases. Note that the object may be delayed
by one or more ADJECTIVES after the preposition.

1. In spring we look eagerly for signs of new life in our yard.

2. After school Jay ran to the store, eager for a way to spend the dollar he got for
his birthday.
3. During this terrible, suffocating heat wave, even the stores have closed, since no
one ventures out of his house.
4. To his credit he told the truth about the robbery.
5. I know that in the dark of the night, things look bigger to children, and I
remember the lion under my bed.

8. INTERJECTION-An interjection expresses emotion. It is not connected

grammatically to the sentence.

Examples: Wow! Look at that! Oh! I forgot my keys! Alas, it is too late.
Hooray! We won!
12

CHAPTER TWO
DIAGRAMMING BEGINS

Get a small straight-edge, a pencil with plenty of eraser, and enough paper so
that you can spread out your work comfortably. Here is your first diagram done for
you:

REX I BARKS

Every sentence MUST have a subject and verb. The subject will be some kind
of noun; the verb will be some word or words of doing or being.

Begin every diagram by asking: WHO or WHAT is DOING or BEING

something? If you can find only an action, ask: who or what is the doer of it? The
SUBJECT is the "doer" or "be-er" of the verb; the VERB is what the subject
"does'' or "is.''

Now draw a horizontal line and divide it with a vertical one. The SUBJECT and
all the things that go with it belong on the left side; the PREDICATE (that means
the verb and all the things that go with it) goes to the right of the vertical line.

SUBJECT I PREDICATE

Exercise 2-1: Diagram these sentences.

l. Rex whined.
2. Rex was panting.
3. Rex might have been scratching.
4. Did Rex bark?
5. Should Rex have howled?
6. Rex could have been growling.
7. Rex must have run.
8. Rex had slept.
9. Rex may be eating.
10. Rex will have been digging.

Check your answers. Some new things were thrown at you in this exercise. Did
you figure them out? If not, don't worry. We are about to take them up in an
orderly manner.
 13

2-A. HELPING VERBS

You have noticed that the verbs in Sentences 2-10 have more than one word.
All the words in those sentences except "Rex," which was always the subject, and
the very last word, which was the main verb, were HELPING VERBS. Our
language shows many fine differences in actions and states of being by the use of
helping verbs. For example, "should have been" is a past tense that never
happened!

Students who mean business will LEARN the following list of helping verbs:

MAY CAN MUST MIGHT SHALL WILL SHOULD WOULD COULD

HAVE DO BE

HA VE includes HAS, HAD, and sometimes HA YING

DO includes DID

BE is a real treasure chest:

AM ARE IS WAS WERE BEING BEEN

Note: HA VE, DO, and BE can be MAIN VERBS, too.

2-B. QUESTIONS

In Sentences 4 and 5, you found that part of the verb came before the subject.
Before you diagram a question, you must tum it around to a declarative statement.
Change 4 to "Rex did bark." Change 5 to "Rex should have howled." Be careful to
include all the helpers in your newly-arranged sentence.

Exercise 2-2: Practice changing questions to declarative statements. (You are not
ready to diagram these.)

I. Has Joe been here?

2. Would you have done that?
3. Why did he leave? (This sounds strange turned around: "He did leave why.")
4. Where have you been all day?
5. What can he mean by that statement?
6. Who came to the door?
7. Could Mary be the one we want?
8. Must Alex always be driving his car?
9. Which one did he pick?
14

I 0. Whom can a poor girl trust?

Check your answers. If this was very hard, make up some more questions.
practice turning them around, and then try the exercise again.

2-C. MODIFIERS: ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

Further sentences will be hopelessly boring unless we add some new elements
to our study. Let us go back to the definition of a sentence:

SOMEBODY DOES or IS
or
SOMETHING SOMETHING

We have seen that

Rex I Barks
fills that definition

So does: birds I sing

To understand how MODIFIERS work, form a picture in your mind of that

sentence, "Birds sing." Are you seeing the birds? Do you imagine them singing?
Now hold that picture while we talk about what it means "to modify" something. If
you modify a room in your house, you change it, don't you? You rip out a wall or
build cupboards. It looks different afterward. That is what our word modifiers do,
too. In addition to wanting to know who or what does or is something, we also
have questions about the doer and the action or state of being. We want to have our
mental picture filled in.

About the BIRDS, we ask:

WHICH ONES? WHAT KINDS? WHOSE? HOW MANY?

These are the ADJECTIVE QUESTIONS.

About the action, SING, we ask:

WHERE? WHEN? WHY? HOW?

These are the ADVERB QUESTIONS.

L*E*A*R*N T*H*E*M N*O*W!

You will ABSOLUTELY have to know these questions if you are to learn how
 15

to analyze sentences. You will constantly be confronting words and wondering

what they are doing in the sentence. You will have to say to yourself, "What
question does this answer about what word?" You will not find the right answers
unless you learn the ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB QUESTIONS!

Now back to your original picture of "Birds sing." How many did you see? If
you had seen only two birds and I say "three birds," your picture is modified, or
changed, by my ADJECTIVE "three," which told "HOW MANY" birds.

Since ADJECTIVES answer the ADJECTIVE QUESTIONS about NOUNS,

they are diagrammed on slanting lines under the noun they modify, thus:

BIRDS SING

Now notice this sentence.

Those three blue birds sing.

We still have the same subject and verb:

BIRDS I SING

but the subject noun is modified by three words that answer three different
ADJECTIVE QUESTIONS.

Exercise 2-3: Diagram the sentence:

Those three blue birds sing.
Tell what question each adjective answers. Then check with the answers in the
back of the book.
By the way, the "articles" (as you may have learned to call them) A, AN, and
THE, will be considered ADJECTIVES. "A" and "an" tell "how many"; "the" tells
"which one."
Can you remember your original picture of "Birds sing"? If I say they were
singing "sorrowfully," your picture is modified again. Words ending in "-ly" are
usually ADVERBS nearly always answering the ADVERB QUESTION: HOW?
16

Notice that, while an adjective usually goes in front of its noun, an adverb can
hop about in the sentence:

Sorrowfully the birds sing.

The hires sorrowfully sing.
The birds sing sorrowfully.

All three sentences are diagrammed in exactly the same way. (See previous page.)

Exercise 2-4: Diagram these sentences. Put adjectives under nouns, adverbs under
verbs. Write what question each modifier answers.

1. Poor Rex whined pitifully.

2. That tired Rex was panting furiously.
3. Yesterday Rex might have been scratching.
4. Did Rex really bark?
5. Why should that naughty Rex have howled so dismally?

There are two tricky things in Sentence 5. First, "why" doesn't answer an
adverb question; it~ an adverb question. Diagram it just as you would an adverb.

Where did you put "so"? That was really sneaky! It answers the ADVERB
QUESTION: HOW. But it does not modify the verb "howled." (How did he howl?
So? No.) No, it answers the question "how" about "dismally." (How dismally? So
dismally.) Remember that "adverbs modify verbs, adjectives a.1d·other adverbs."

So let us take a look at Sentence 5:

Review and Practice

What have we learned so far?

1. In a sentence, SOMEBODY or SOMETHING DOES or IS SOMETHING.

 17

2.

Adjectives answer Adverbs answer

these questions. these questions.

3. Before diagramming a question, tum it into a declarative statement, keeping

every word.

Exercise 2-S: Diagram these sentences. Be sure to find all helping verbs, and be
careful that each modifier is attached to the word it modifies. Don't give up and
check the answers till you have tried your best on each item.

I. Harry has been listening carefully.

2. Harry has not been listening carefully.
(Clue: "not" answers how Harry listens.)
3. Lucy's blue sweater was thrown downstairs.
4. Might that sweet old lady have been sleeping there?
5. Suddenly the booming thunder echoed hollowly.
6. The big bad wolf huffed importantly.
7. What child might be crying now?
8. How they must have been laughing!
9. Away flew the silly geese. (Careful! What IS the verb? What or who DID the
verb?)
I 0. May my sister play here?
11. Who has been whistling?
12. Everyone was sniffling softly.
13. A brilliant sun was streaming everywhere.
14. A very big cookie was being baked.
15. Somewhere fireworks were exploding wildly.
16. Sweetly sings the sparrow.
17. An extremely skinny old cat finally came out.
18. Afterward he talked politely.
19. Now dawn was breaking.
20. Those rather yellow plants have been slowly growing.

After you have checked with the answers, try to figure out why any answer of
yours was different. Review the previous material if you had many errors. Chances
are mistakes resulted from NOT saying, "What question does this answer?"
18

2-0. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

If you want an overview of word groups and .their uses in sentences, check the
Appendix. If this is all new to you, follow carefully as we explore this territory. If
this is review, enjoy it, but make sure you do really know it.

Here are two important definitions:

A PHRASE is a GROUP OF WORDS WITHOUT a SUBJECT AND VERB. (It

acts as a single part of speech.)
A CLAUSE is a GROUP OF WORDS WITH a SUBJECT AND VERB.

All phrases serve as a single part of speech. That means that even though EACH
WORD of a prepositional phrase is acting as a certain part of speech, the whole
PHRASE may be considered as doing one ''job" in the sentence, or being one part
of speech.

Prepositional phrases generally serve as either ADJECTIVES or ADVERBS.

That means that they will modify NOUNS if they are adjective phrases, or
VERBS, ADJECTIVES or other ADVERBS if they are adverb phrases.

What is a preposition? One definition says: "A preposition is anything a squirrel

can do to a tree." You will like that if you already know what a preposition is. If
you don't, nothing but experience will help. Look up a list of prepositions and learn
them if all else fails. Otherwise, carefully consider these examples:

The squirrel ran YQ the tree, down the tree, behind the tree, through the tree,
under the tree, around the tree, into the tree.

All the underlined words connect a noun, "tree," with the rest of the sentence, in
this case through the verb "ran." Notice that each prepositional phrase ("phrase"
means the preposition, its OBJECT- the noun it connects-and any modifiers of
the object) answers the question "where" or possibly "how." These are our old
friends, the ADVERB QUESTIONS, and since the phrase answers where and how
the verb was carried out, we know these phrases are acting as ADVERBS
modifying the verb.

Before we go on to prepositional phrases serving as ADJECTIVES, let's have a

look at that squirrel diagrammed:
 19

v-<> PREPOSITIONAL

PREPOSITIO
J J TREE
~~.._.ADJECTIVE
PHRASE
USED AS
ADVERB

NOUN
(OBJECT OF
PREPOSITION)

Notice that the preposition goes on a slanting line just below the word the
phrase modifies, the object goes on a horizontal line connected to the preposition
line, and any modifier of the noun object goes under it. In these phrases the word
"the" is an adjective telling "which tree." Even though our word order goes:
preposition, adjective, noun object, we diagram it: preposition, noun object,
adjective, because we are showing the importance of the words. Tarzan, you see,
might say, "Squirrel ran up tree," and we would understand. Newspaper headlines
frequently skip words in this manner.

Let us go on to prepositional phrases used as ADJECTIVES.

Exercise 2-6: Think about these sentences. Find the prepositional phrases, decide
what question each answers, and diagram the sentences. ·

I. The boy with the red hat was singing.

2. A basket of food appeared.
3. That cat of Lucy's scratches.
4. An amount of six dollars was owed.

Most prepositional phrases used as adjectives answer the ADJECTIVE

QUESTIONS "which one" and "what kind." However, did you notice that in the
four sentences above, each adjective question was answered once? If you missed it,
go back and look at them again.
Before we review and practice, here is a warning. No, I will go ahead and trick
you, and then you will remember better.

Exercise 2-7: Diagram: The bird in the tree sang happily.

You found the prepositional phrase. You asked, "What question does it
answer?" and you said "Where," didn't you? What the prepositional phrase "in the
tree" really tells is "which one."
It does this by telling "where." Now think about that. We often tell "which one"
about a noun in this way. "Which dress will you wear?" "The one on the bed."
20

NOT the one in the closet, or over the chair, or under the dresser.

This is an example of how you must always THINK about what words and
word groups are really doing. In most cases, word order will be a clue as to what a
prepositional phrase modifies.

It may be well to notice that, in our speech patterns, while one-word adjectives
generally go in front of the nouns they modify, prepositional phrases used as
adjectives go after their nouns.

~
The big bad wolf
~
the bottle (of milk).

One final example to study:

The horse with the star on its forehead galloped through the pastures with angry
snortings at its pursuers.

HORSE GALLOPED

Study the placement of all phrases. Notice "on its forehead" modifies the noun
"star." ("On its forehead" does NOT describe this horse!) Nor did it "gallop" "at its
pursuers." That tells about its "snortings." Any noun, not just the subject noun,
may be modified by a prepositional phrase.

Review and Practice

I. Each word in a sentence is one of the eight parts of speech, depending on the job
it does in the sentence.
2. Groups of words, called phrases, may act as single parts of speech.
3. A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition, a noun object, and perhaps
some adjectives modifying the object.
4. A preposition connects the object with the rest of the sentence and shows how
 21

the object is related to the sentence. Usually the relationship has to do with
direction, space, time, possession, etc.

5. Prepositional phrases usually act as ADJECTIVES or ADVERBS. The whole

phrase will answer one of the ADJECTIVE or ADVERB QUESTIONS.
6. We diagram a prepositional phrase under the word it modifies. The object goes
on a horizontal line connected to the preposition. Any modifiers of the object go
under the object. Example:

PARAKEET HAS BEEN TALKING

LONELINESS

~WHY

Exercise 2-8: Diagram these sentences after you have found each prepositional
phrase and asked yourself, "What question does it answer?"

I . The lamp with the crooked shade leaned against the wall.
2. The carefree moth with the black spots on its wings lunged happily toward the
flames of the sooty lantern.
3. The rich society lady sighed with regret over the column in the paper.
4. After the rain Nellie splashed in the puddles on the walk.
5. John had been reading about space travel in that book with the orange cover.
6. Have you ever looked so closely at a bug before tonight?
(Perhaps you should check your answers up to this point and smooth out any
problems you may be having.)
7. Suzy has been playing with that girl in the house at the comer.
8. During the winter the farmer worked at repairs in his barn.
9. Should Harry have been sleeping on the porch without a blanket?
I 0. In January I walk to school in the dark.
I I . Beside the dry brook she wept for the thirsty violets.
12. Across the bed lay her beautiful gown.
(Careful!)
13. Can he really be sleeping through all this noise?
14. His game of tennis was canceled because of rain. (Treat "because of' as one
word.)
15. Nobody had been looking toward the mountain with its halo of sunset.
16. What can be known of the outcome?
I 7. Whose shoe was thrown down the stairs?
18. She laughed about the incident.
19. He sat on a chair with a purple cushion on its seat.
22

20. With all this practice in diagramming, I am growing in my knowledge of

grammar.

2-E. COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

There are two kinds of CONJUNCTIONS: coordinating and SUBordinating.

Coordinating conjunctions join two EQUAL words, phrases, or clauses.

Learn this list of COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS:

AND BUT OR NOR FOR

Study these examples of coordinating conjunctions at work:

Joe and Suzy (two words)

Up the tree and down the tree (two phrases)
He went but I stayed. (two clauses)
Rain or shine-Neither war nor peace
~either is nearly always used with nor.)

2-F. COMPOUND ELEMENTS

When two or more items are joined by a coordinating conjunction, they form a
COMPOUND ELEMENT. Here are some examples of how these things are
diagrammed:
RUTH

Compound subjects: RAN

ANN

Compound verbs:
Compound objects of prepositions:
LAUGHED
WAVED
HE
JOE

SAM

Compound prepositional
phrases:

DALE
 23

Compound main verbs: .:ACRACKING

_T_H_U_N_D_E_R..,...._H_A_D_B_E_E_N-t-~' N
:o
' RUMBLING

Even compound sentences:

JOE WENT
B ~o SCHOOL
u
T
I I STAYED

~ HOME

Or combinations: '

< ~v------~-l L,,

MARY SANG

SUE
e:
u: STARED
T:
AGONY
:A
:N
;D
· EMBARRASSMENT

2-G. UNDERSTOOD "YOU"

So far you have always, it is hoped, found the subject of each verb. In every
sentence the "doer'' or "be-er" of the verb has been stated. However, what about
this sentence?
Go!
If a large, fierce person says this to you, you will not stick around looking for a
subject. You are immediately aware that the doer of the action is supposed to be
"you." That is quickly understood. In fact, we call the subject of a command the
"understood 'you"' and we diagram it thus:

(you) I go
Most commands are given with the subject (you) understood. "Let me alone."
24

"Give me my purse." "March!" Each of these sentences could have the "you" in
front of it, but the receiver of these commands understands without it. Requests,
like "Pass the butter, please," also have understood "you" as subject. The "please"
is probably an abbreviated condition, "if it pleases you." "Please" is a rather
strange word grammatically; you may enjoy considering it further after you finish
this book.

2-H. DIRECT ADDRESS

Until now, the only NOUN JOBS you have studied are SUBJECT and
OBJECT OF PREPOSITION. There are many more. Now you may add DIRECT
ADDRESS. Here are some examples:

Mary, the flowers are blooming.

Come here, John.
You realize, Harry, that I know the truth.
When we call someone by name in a sentence, we are using a NOUN in
DIRECT ADDRESS.

This is how such nouns are diagrammed:

MARY

FLOWERS I ARE BLOOMING

~
The NOUN of DIRECT ADDRESS has no grammatical connection with the
sentence, so it sits on a line above the main clause of the sentence. So does our next
item.

2-1. INTERJECTIONS!

An interjection merely expresses emotion; it does no grammatical job in the

sentence, so it sits on a line above the sentence, thus:
WOW! Wow! Bob fell down the stairs.

FELL
 25

2-J. INTRODUCTORY WORDS

Like nouns of direct address and interjections, certain INTRODUCTORY

WORDS have no grammatical connection with the sentence and are diagrammed
on a line above the subject.
Examples:
No, he left. Yes, I stayed. Well, Rex was barking.

NO YES

HE LEFT STAYED

WELL

REX I WAS BARKING

Now you have finished all the basic steps to beginning diagramming. To make
sure you have really learned them, the next exercise will review everything
covered. Some basics to remember:
I. Make sure you have found all parts of the verb, all the helpers.
2. Pick out prepositional phrases. Determine what question (adjective or adverb)
they answer.
3. Check to make sure your diagram makes sense. ls your subject the "doer" or the
"be-er" of the verb? Does each modifier answer its question about the word to
which you have attached it?

Exercise 2-9: Diagram carefully and check answers in back of book.

I. The wily fox jumped from the stump of the oak tree.
2. Quickly he ran across the sunlit clearing and into the dark forest.
3. Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go.
4. On the ninth page of the little diary in her bureau drawer was written the secret
of the missing fur scarf.
S. Should you have been tapdancing on her new table or singing so loudly?
6. Mitzi and Helen have definitely been studying for Mrs. Smith's dreadful
geography test.
7. Very slowly the tired, dirty kitten limped toward home.
8. Must you always be riding on that dangerous motorcycle?
9. Fantastic bargains can be found by early shoppers at the weekend sale of
hardware items.
I 0. Look, Nellie, at the strange, furry creatures under your bed!
11. Alas! I have not dusted there for many weeks.
12. Nellie, you have never dusted under that bed or in your room.
26

13. Sometimes I wonder at the stupidity of the human race and long for
membership in a brighter group.
14. Hahl By such a group you would be eliminated in the first cuts at the tryouts!
15. I am truly amazed by my success at this diagramming business, but I wish for a
rest now.
Check your answers and look up any area in which you made a mistake.

BARKED
REX HAS BARKED
BARKED

REX

(YOU) I HUSH
 27

VF.RBS

TRANSITIVE INTRANSITIVE
(Carries action to a receiver) (Does NOT carry action to a
receiver)
A
TRANSITIVE ACTIVE INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE
(TA) (IC) C
A
REX T
I
~DD

REX BIT I JOE

C
Subject does action. Action, but no receiver. 0
Direct Object receives action. Subject does action.
(TA ALWAYS HAS DO) N
T ~..::...::....:::::::::::::::::::::::::::...::.::.::..:...:....:.:....:....:....~~---+-~~~~~~~~~~
TRANSITIVE PASSIVE INTRANSITIVE LINKING
(TP) (IL)
IL PA
B

JOE
~ REX I IS \ HAPPY
E
I
IL PN

Rex REX IS\ DOG

0
No action. V crb acts as equals
Subject receives action. mark.

N Doer of action, if shown, is in Links subject with predicate noun N

prepositional phrase after "by." (PN) or predicate adjective (PA).

MEMORIZE LINKING VERBS: G

BE SOUND
BECOME TASTE
SEEM SMELL
APPEAR REMAIN
LOOK GROW
FEEL STAY
28

CHAPTER THREE
KINDS OF VERBS

Take a look at the chart entitled "VERBS." It shows you that there are four
kinds of verbs. They are divided under two headings:

TRANSITIVE and INTRANSITIVE

Remember that you learned that a VERB is a word of ACTION or BEING.

Notice that three of the four kinds of verbs are ACTION verbs: Transitive Active,
Transitive Passive, and Intransitive Complete. Nearly all the sentences you have
diagrammed so far have had Intransitive Complete verbs. The fourth kind is called
Intransitive Linking: These are the BEING verbs.

Let us go back to the two main headings: TRANSITIVE and INTRANSITIVE.

Memorize these two definitions:

A TRANSITIVE VERB CARRIES ACTION TO A RECEIVER.

AN INTRANSITIVE VERB DOES NOT CARRY ACTION TO A

RECEIVER.

You can remember that a transit system is supposed to carry people to a depot
or station where they get off the bus or train. A transitive verb is in the same
business.

The "in-" of "intransitive" means "not," so an intransitive verb simply does

NOT carry action to a receiver. (Sometimes that is because there is no receiver;
sometimes there is no action to be carried.)

3-A. INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE VERBS

We are starting with the simplest type of verb to understand and to diagram:
INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE (IC). Our title, Rex Barks, is a sentence with an IC
verb. An IC verb has ACTION but NO RECEIVER OF THE ACTION. Rex barks,
 29

but he doesn't "bark SOMETI--IlNG." Nothing "gets barked." An IC verb can have
helping verbs: Rex was barking, has barked, might have been barking, etc. All
these are IC verbs. The SUBJECT DOES the action: The ACTION has NO
RECEIVER.

Sometimes the action we describe doesn't seem very lively. All these examples
are ACTION verbs, all IC:

Rex !ID'. in the kennel. The rat had died in the trap. He existed in a coma. We
had been sleeping on the porch.

Also, sometimes there IS a sort of receiver, at least in real life. In the sentence,
"Rex barks at Joe," really Joe receives some action from the barking. He must hear
it! But not GRAMMATI CALLY! "At Joe" is a prepositional phrase telling how or
where or possibly why Rex barks. (You knew that already, didn't you?)

As you have been doing, continue to place the verb with all its helpers on the
verb line to the right of the subject. But now check to make sure the subject is
doing the action and that there is no receiver of the action. Then label such verbs
IC for INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE.

IC
YOU HAVE BEEN LEARNING

3-B. TRANSITIVE ACTIVE VERBS

If I say to you, "Rex bit," you do not feel I have made a complete sentence, do
you? Yet there is a subject (Rex) and a verb (bit). But the thought is not complete.
You wait for me to answer the question, "What?" What in the world did Rex bite?
Or"Whom?"

So I say, "Rex bit Joe." Now the idea is complete.

Here we definitely have a verb of ACTION. The subject (Rex) DID the action.
The action, as poor Joe will quickly agree, has been RECEIVED. We are ready for
our first TRANSITIVE ACTIVE (TA) verb:

~DD

REX I BIT I JOE

Perhaps you already know the grammatical term for the noun that receives the
30

action of a TRANSITIVE ACTIVE (TA) verb? DO stands for DIRECT OBJECT.

You will NEVER have a TA without a DO; you will NEVER have a DO without
a TA. The action arrow is not urgently necessary in diagramming, but until you
have really mastered verbs, it may be helpful to draw at least a mental arrow as
you make sure that the SUBJECT really DID THIS VERB to the DIRECT
OBJECT. Did Rex DO the biting? Yes. Did Joe RECEIVE the biting? Yes. OK,
TA and DO it is.

Exercise 3-1: Think of a word to fill in each missing element, and label all TA' s
and DO's. Then diagram the sentences. Remember to put a vertical line just to the
base line between the TA verb and the DO.

I. Nellie _ _ _ _ the dishes in the sink.

2. Have you seen the cat's ?
3. On Friday all the quit their jobs.
4. I do not believe those - - - -
5. Otto food to the squirrels.

You have now studied one kind of INTRANSITIVE verb (IC) and one kind of
TRANSITIVE verb (TA). Remember the difference? (Of course you do: IC has no
receiver of action; TA has a DO receiver.)

One of the strengths of our language is that it is flexibte. We may bend a single
word into many uses. And so, you should not be surprised to learn that some verbs
can be, in different sentences, EITHER transitive or intransitive.

Here are two sentences. Look at them carefully and see the difference between
the verbs.

Rex has been running in the woods. Rex ran the cat up the tree.

In the first sentence, the verb, "has been running," shows the action Rex did.
Did anything RECEIVE the action? No, Rex just did it. "In the woods" is a
prepositional phrase telling "where" he did it.

But in the second sentence, Rex ran SOMETHING. Something received the
action of his running; something "got run."

Let us diagram these two sentences:

TA DO
REX REX
 31

Now you will be ready to understand this explanation:

Have you ever noticed, when you look up a verb in the dictionary, the little
letters in italics, v.i. or v.t.? Every verb will have one set of the letters usually
placed right after the pronunciation guide. Look up, for example, the verb "run."**
It is followed by "v .i." There will be a long definition which may begin: "to move
swiftly." Read on through that definition and you should come to "v.t." Then
another definition follows, perhaps: "to cause to run."

Let's go back to our two sentences: Rex has been running in the woods. Rex ~
the cat up the tree.

Surely you can guess what "v.i." stands for now? "Verb Intransitive," of course.
And "v.t." means Verb Transitive.

Check it out. In the first sentence (intransitive) Rex has indeed "been moving
swiftly" through the woods. In the second Rex has "caused" the cat "to run."
(transitive).

Exercise 3-2: Now examine, diagram, and label these sentences, which give
further examples of verbs used both intransitively (NO receiver of the action) and
transitively (action has receiver.)

I. Birds sing. Birds sing songs.

2. Bill was fighting. Ali was fighting Joe for the title.
3. Dawn broke over the mountain. Did you break that cup?
4. She swept through the room like a queen. I swept the porch.

Check your answers. Study any errors until you understand what went wrong.

Here is further practice in diagramming sentences containing the two kinds of

verbs you have studied: INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE (IC) and TRANSITIVE
ACTIVE (TA). Sort them out.

Make sure you don't confuse a modifier with a receiver. A receiver won't be
answering ADJECTIVE or ADVERB QUESTIONS, for it will be a NOUN. A
DIRECT OBJECT answers "What?" or "Whom?"

Exercise 3-3: Diagram the sentences and label IC, TA and DO where appropriate.

** A verb is referred to in its INFINITIVE form; that is, the one that "to" would
introduce: to run, to speak, to be, to crawl, etc. Be aware that this "to" is NOT a
PREPOSITION.
32

I. Rex bit into his toy cat.

2. Rex bit the mailman.
3. Can Rex jump over the fence?
4. Yes, he can jump that fence with no trouble.
5. Where did Rex bury his bone?
6. Eagerly Rex raced toward the barn.
7. That bad Rex has been racing cars again.
8. Should I have tied Rex to the fence?
9. Can you stand his pitiful whining?
I0. He escaped yesterday and followed Ann to school.

Now check your answers. If you made mistakes, review this section and make
sure you understand what you did wrong.

In the last exercise you were diagramming two of the four kinds of verbs:
Intransitive Complete and Transitive Active. There are two more kinds: Transitive
Passive and Intransitive Linking. How are you ever going to learn all four kinds?
How will you know which verb is which kind? Answer: By T*H*l*N*K*I*N*G!

You will have to follow every step carefully, memorize definitions, and practice
thoughtfully.

DO

YOU

DO'S

I
TA DO

(YOU) REMEMBER ITHEM

3-C. TRANSITIVE PASSIVE VERBS

Recite the definition of TRANSITIVE VERB. Does it say anything about

carrying action FROM A DOER to a receiver? No, indeed. It just says that a
TRANSITIVE VERB carries action to a RECEIVER. There is a good reason.
 33

Sometimes the doer of a received action is not known. Sometimes we want to

emphasize the receiver of the action. Sometimes we want to hide the doer.

When the dictionary says a verb is "v.t.," it does not know whether the verb will
be in the
ACTIVE or PASSIVE VOICE.

The dictionary is only telling you that the verb can be TRANSITIVE, that it can
carry action to a RECEIVER.

All the transitive verbs you have studied so far have carried action from a
SUBJECT doer of the action to a DrRECT OBJECT receiver of the action:
Rex bit Joe.
~DO

REX I IBIT JOE

But hark! What about this sentence?

Joe was bitten by Rex.

This sentence describes the same action as the first, doesn't it? There is
ACTION, some biting going on. There is a DOER of the action, good old Rex.
And poor Joe is still RECEIVING the action. What has happened to the sentence?
When in doubt, diagram:

~TP
JOE WAS BITIEN

(SI.I- REX

Suddenly, the RECEIVER of the action is the SUBJECT!!! Think about that
carefully. Both verbs we studied before always had the SUBJECT DOING the
action. Now the SUBJECT is sitting there being acted on.

Consider the sentence: Bob has been hurt!

Is there action? Yes, "to hurt" is an action. ls there a receiver of the action? Yes,
Bob received the "hurting." We know, therefore, that "has been hurt" is transitive.
Let us diagram the sentence and see whether the verb is ACTIVE or PASS IVE
VOICE.

~
I
BOB HAS BEEN HURT
34

Since Bob, the RECEIVER of the action, is also the SUBJECT of the verb, we
know that "has been hurt" is TRANSITIVE PASSIVE (TP). Now, do we know the
doer of the action? No, we don't know who or what did the "hurting" to Bob. Yet
the sentence is complete. If the doer of the action is shown, it will be the object of
the preposition "by" in a prepositional phrase modifying the verb and answering
the question "how?"

Bob has been hurt by the snowball.

The sentences below have TA verbs. Rewrite each to make it a TP verb. What
will become the subject? If you don't figure that out right away, refer to the Verb
Chart. See how "Rex bit Joe" (TA-DO) was changed to "Joe was bitten by Rex"
(TP). The DO becomes subject of the TP verb.

You will soon see that, while verbs are sometimes without helpers, ALL TP
VERBS will have SOME part of the VERB "TO BE." Other helpers may be used,
too: Joe was bitten, had been bitten, must have been bitten, etc.

Exercise 3-4: Observe this example:

TA DO TP
Rex chased the cat. The cat was chased by Rex.

You do the same thing; that is, rewrite the sentence in passive voice.

I. Harry lost the ball.

2. The force of the blow had broken the antique safe.
3. Everyone in the room heard the tinkle of breaking glass.
4. All the people had a good time.
5. With the arrival of Harry, we began the rehearsal.

Notice how strange some of them sound when you make them passive. Did you
get them all right?

Now try turning TP verbs around to TA. Note: Unless the doer of the action is
shown in a "by" prepositional phrase, you will have to make up a doer. Example:

TP TA DO
The window has been broken! Somebody broke the window!

Exercise 3-5:

I. Dorothy was hit on the head by the shutter.

2. Often Melinda has been seen at the opera.
 35

3. In some countries girls are guarded by chaperones.

4. George might have been bitten by a spider.
5. Mother, your favorite lamp has been smashed.
(Remember about wanting to hide the doer?)

Let us see if you are ready to diagram some sentences with active and passive
transitive verbs. By the way, you don't worry about active or passive voice in IN-
transitive verbs. Diagram each sentence and label each verb TA or TP. Remember:
if you have a TA (TRANSITIVE ACTIVE verb) you will ALWAYS ALWAYS
ALWAYS have a DO (DIRECT OBJECT). So label the direct objects, too. You
don't have to put the arrows for the direction of the action, but be aware that in the
ACTIVE voice, the SUBJECT IS ACTIVE; in the PASSIVE voice, the SUBJECT
IS PASSIVE. a passive person just sits there and lets life happen to him; the subject
of a passive verb just sits there and receives the action.

Exercise 3-6:

1. Harry was writing a letter to Suzy.

2. That letter was written on Thursday.
3. Who stole the pig?
4. This pig was stolen by the piper's son.
5. A good time was had by all.
6. Nelly was overcome with disgust.
7. The criminal might have been caught in another town.
8. Should Mary have been eating so much candy?
9. The battle was won by the courage of the troops.
I 0. George broke the record for homeruns.

Check your answers. Look closely at any errors. Do you have the wrong word
for the subject? Always re-read your diagram "headline" to see if it makes sense.
Nearly always it will sound sensible if you have done it correctly. Did you miss a
direct object? Ask yourself, "Was the subject 'verbing something'?" In Sentence I
Harry was writing. Was Harry writing something? Yes, a letter.
TP

YOU

TA DO

YOU
36

Now that you have studied the three types of action verbs - IC, TA, TP - (and
know those symbols so well!) you will have a chance to diagram sentences and
detennine the types of verbs. First, here are models of the three types:

IC

I I
~DO

BIRDS SING BIRDS I

SING SONGS

(action, no receiver) (subj. does action;

DO receives it)

SONGS
~TP

I ARE SUNG

(subject receives action)

Exercise 3-7: Diagram these sentences carefully. LABEL all verbs and all
DIRECT OBJECTS. If action arrows help, draw them.

1. The dog bit the man.

2. The man bit the dog.
3. The dog was bitten by the man.
4. Harry was seen at the opera.
5. Nellie has been riding on her new motorcycle.
6. Cecil came out of the house and jumped into the car.
7. Has Rex been digging up the shrubbery?
(Careful!)
8. Julia never comes here on Saturday.
9. Nothing could keep Joe away.
IO Have you been visiting Aunt Helen regularly?
11. I have been going there very often.
12. Somewhere I have seen him before.
13. From the kitchen came a clatter of dishes.
14. Why did you tell the secret to Nellie?
15. One perfect rose he gave to me!
16. The paper had been thrown under the porch.
17. Behind the door Brenda was listening carefully.
18. There stood the girl of his dreams.
19. I will neither see him nor be seen with him.
20. With great dignity Rex walked toward the door with the small dog in his
mouth.

How well did you do on these? If you were really confused or inaccurate, here
are sentences for additional practice. If you feel you are ready to move on, at least
look through these sentences to make sure.
 37

Exercise 3-8: All TA and DO but one; find it as you diagram these sentences.

I. He might have found the missing button in the washer.

2. That large mouse has eaten Harry's cheese.
3. Can you see the flag by the dawn's early light?
4. The tuxedo was thrown carelessly on the bed.
5. Beside the road the ducks were eating the grain.

Exercise 3-9: ALL IC or TP; make sure which is which as you diagram and label.
(Subject does verb= IC; Verb acts on subject= TP.)

I. Beside the still waters, the sheep were being pastured.

2. Herman has been singing sourly in the shower.
3. The king's presence was awaited in the room.
4. Another storm might have been expected.
5. Might the bundle have fallen off the truck?
6. Suddenly the forest was glowing in the moonlight.
7. Mighty Mouse came to the rescue in time.
8. Could Joe have been pretending?
9. Will her story be remembered?
10. He has forgotten about it completely.

If you have still made errors in this last exercise, study the area that troubles
you. If, for example, you labeled a TP verb IC, review TP verbs. Make sure you
understand why the answers differ from your work. Prove your case before you
decide the answer is wrong.

Before we go on to the fourth and last type of verbs, INTRANSITIVE

LINKING, (they are SOOO hard) let us learn one more thing about transitive
verbs:

Some TRANSITIVE ACTIVE verbs have INDIRECT OBJECTS. Of course

you remember that ALL TA verbs have DO's. But certain verbs of giving, sending,
throwing, making, etc., do a tricky thing sometimes. Look at this sentence:

I made a valentine for Suzy.

No indirect object there. Just a good old TA and DO with a prepositional phrase
telling for whom I made the valentine. But our language has another way to say
th~ ~ 00
I made Suzy a valentine.
It is diagrammed:
38

See that the diagrams are nearly alike. An (x) takes the place of a missing
preposition. The WORD ORDER has changed. When a prepositional phrase telling
"to whom" or "for whom" something is done becomes an INDIRECT OBJECT,
the preposition disappears and the noun moves BETWEEN the TA and DO. Read
these practice sentences carefully. Rewrite where necessary to make INDIRECT
OBJECTS. Then diagram the new sentence and label TA, DO, and IO.

Exercise 3-10:

I. I threw the ball to Harry. I threw Harry the ball (Most beginning diagrammers
will find themselves "throwing Harry." The ball receives the DIRECT action. It
gets thrown. So ball is DO.)
2. Did he write a letter to you? Did he write you a letter?
3. By November I had mailed a present to Vernon.
4. He had saved a seat for Ann in the front row.
5. Lottie gives a pain to Mervin.
6. Throw a rope to me!
7. Have you baked a cake for the class?
8. Zelda did knit a sweater for him.

One more way we can put off those INTRANSITIVE LINKING verbs is to
study the RETAINED OBJECT. But this is so complicated, you may find it more
fun to go on to the IL's. Anyway, you do remember practicing turning TA's to
TP's and vice versa? Thus, you could take "I threw Harry the ball" and tum it right
around and say, "The ball was thrown TO Harry by me." That would be quite
correct. As usual, you made the DO (ball) the subject and then the TP verb (was
thrown) carried the action to the subject. Well, sometimes you will see a sentence
like this:

Harry was thrown the ball.

Oh! What to do? Well, when in doubt, diagram:
TP
HARRY WAS THROWN

When an INDIRECT OBJECT becomes the SUBJECT of a TP verb, the

receiver of the action becomes the RETAINED OBJECT. (This won't happen
often.)

Here are some more examples of RETAINED OBJECT so you won't forget it:

Jill was sent money. They had been given many kisses. Joan was handed the
problem.
 39

Well, we could learn about objective complements, but no, we'll save them for
later and go on to our last and most miserable kind of verb.

3-D. INTRANSITIVE LINKING VERBS

All together now, what were our three kinds of ACTION verbs? Intransitive
Complete, Transitive Active and Transitive Passive. Good. But since a VERB is a
word of ACTION or BEING, we must have some BEING verbs, and here they are.

If you have studied any grammar, you have probably heard of LINKING verbs.
Just remember that their full name is INTRANSITIVE LINKING and label them
IL.

Can you guess WHY they are INTRANSITIVE? Because they 00 NOT
CARRY ACTION TO A RECEIVER.

And why don't they? BECAUSE THERE IS NO ACTION!

We have just covered the easy part.

While many of our sentences in life deal with actions, because we are interested
in what things do, we also need a sentence pattern for talking about what a thing IS.
We have our five senses, and we wish to express what those senses perceive about
things and people. We want to say that

SOMEBODY
or IS SOMETHING
SOMETHING

And so we have the INTRANSITIVE LINKING verbs to act as EQUALS

MARKS between the SOMEBODY or SOMETHING and the THING or
QUALITY it IS.

Study the Verb Chart. At the bottom is a list of INTRANSITIVE LINKING

verbs. MEMORIZE THEM NOW. Notice that the first one is BE. Review the
many forms that the verb "to be" may take (called parts of the verb) and LEARN
THEM:

AM ARE IS WAS WERE BEING BEEN

Until now, we have seen the verb "be" and its parts used only as helpers. Now
we are ready to use "be" as a main verb. You may have been advised that "be" is
40

not a very strong or interesting verb and now you can see why. It has no ACTION.
It doesn't crash or bum or dance or terrify. But what would we do without it?
Well, perhaps we would sound like Tarzan: "Jane pretty."

With our linking verbs, however, we can express Jane's prettiness with many
shades of meaning:
Jane IS (or was or had been, etc.) pretty. Jane BECAME pretty. Jane SMELLS
pretty. Jane SEEMED pretty. Jane REMAINS pretty.
Jane APPEARED pretty. Jane GREW pretty (or prettier). Jane STAYED pretty.

We can also have helpers with IL verbs:

Jane MIGHT HAVE BEEN GROWING prettier.

Naturally, if an IL verb is to act as an EQUALS MARK, there has to be

something on the other side of the mark. In math you don't leave an equation:
2+2=
So, just as a TA ALWAYS has a DO (you hadn't forgotten?), an IL verb will be
completed by a PREDICATE NOUN (PN) OR PREDICATE ADJECTIVE (PA).
The form for the diagram will be:

SUBJECT I IL \ PA OR SUBJECT I IL \ PN

Before we forget, since DO's, PA's and PN's COMPLETE the verb, they are
called COMPLEMENTS, which means "completers." So two kinds of verbs take
COMPLEMENTS. Quick, what are they? TA's and IL's, you say? Right. (Try to
keep awake, please.)

Did you notice in the diagram form for IL verbs that the line between IL and
PA or PN slants? Unlike the vertical line between TA and DO, which is like a
fence, the slanted ·line before the PA or PN POINTS BACK TO THE SUBJECT.
This is very important. Notice:

TA DO IL PN

REX BIT JOE OR REX IS \ DOG

~
Are Rex and Joe the same thing? Are Rex and dog the same thing?
Or does Joe describe Rex? Yes. Rex equals dog is the message
Heavens, NO! of the sentence.
(At least not in this sentence.)
 41

IL PA
REX IS \ HAPPY

Does happy describe Rex?

Yes. Happy points back to Rex.

Now that you have MEMORIZED the linking verbs (and repeat them now just
to be sure you have), let us take a closer look at how they work.

Not every INTRANSITIVE LINKING verb can take a PN. They can ALL take
PA's, however. We showed how Jane could EQUAL pretty, a PA, with all the
IL's that made sense. (She may even have tasted pretty, depending on the flavor of
her lipstick.) Let's check out which ones can take PN's Make Jane EQUAL
cheerleader. (Don't throw in any "to be's" like "appeared to be a"; infinitives are
way down the line.) Fill in the blank with all the IL's that make sense. Remember
that you will need to consider the various fonns of"be" for the first one.

Exercise 3-11:

I \
IL PN
Jane Cheerleader

I found four; how many did you get? Check the answers.

Did you notice that the verbs of the five senses wouldn't work? What our
senses that perceive how things LOOK, FEEL, SOUND; TASTE and SMELL
really do is to answer the ADJECTIVE QUESTION: "What kind?" So they will
connect the subject with a PREDICATE ADJECTIVE (PA) only.

Wouldn't it be nice to know that any time you saw one of your dozen IL verbs
you could pin it down with an IL label? Alas! You have to make sure that it is
really being an EQUALS MARK between a subject and a PA or PN.

When one of the verbs on the IL list is used as another type of verb (IC, TA, or
TP), the MEANING of the verb has changed somewhat. Observe:

I I
IL PA TA DO

Soup tasted \ salty He tasted I soup

Does "soup" EQUAL "salty"? Does "he" EQUAL "soup"?
Certainly salty describes One hopes not! Nor
soup. So here we have an does soup describe "he."
TL and PA. Here taste Here taste means "test
means "to have a certain with the tongue."
flavor."
42

Exercise 3-12: First let's diagram some sentences where au the verbs are IL. You
will have to decide whether the COMPLEMENT is PA or PN. Label verbs and
complements and make sure the line between slants toward the subject.

1. She has been looking sick lately.

2. I am becoming angrier by the minute.
3. The trees in the Blue Ridge Mountains do look blue.
4. After the game, Nancy and Helen sounded very unhappy.
5. This corn must have been fresher yesterday.
6. Can the lake have appeared this blue before?
7. That old man has remained our club's president for years.
8. In Nellie's eyes, Harry is a prince.
9. The actor seemed young at first but grew older during the play.
10. Should he always be the winner of every race?

Exercise 3-13: After you have checked your answers, make sure you understand
any errors you made. Now we will look at some sentences that show verbs from
our IL list doing other things. This will be a good review ofIC, TA, and TP verbs.
Diagram and label all verbs and complements. See how the verb is used differently
from the way it was used as IL.

I. The beggar looked in the window.

2. Suddenly he appeared at the door.
3. Rex smelled the stranger.
4. The fireman sounded the alarm.
5. The pudding had been tasted by the cook.
6. Herman grew rapidly. Herman grew carrots.
7. Stay away from me!
8. That dress really becomes you.
9. The three blind men carefully felt the elephant.
I 0. Is the doctor in his office?

That last one is peculiar, isn't it? Diagrammed, it seems to be an IC. But if you
read the "headline," (doctor is), you feel something is not complete. The sentence
really needs the adverbial prepositional phrase, "in his office," to complete the
meaning. But that phrase answers "where?" Well, who ever said the English
language wasn't full of variety?

Exercise 3-14: Now you will have to sort out a mixture. Diagram these sentences.
Label verbs and complements, test your "headlines" to see if they make sense, and
use mental action arrows and equals marks to make sure you did them properly.

1. Rex grew more nervous in the crowd.

2. Cotton has been grown on this land for years.
 43

3. Before the flood, the city had been growing nonnally.

4. The murderer might have grown a beard since the crime.
5. Popeye smelled spinach and felt hopeful.
6. Edna remained a housewife throughout her marriage.
7. The king became angry but stayed his hand.
8. His wrath had been felt by the people.
9. She might be becoming slim because of her diet.
I 0. He had been a frog but became a prince.

How did you do on those? What did your errors show you? If you are feeling
desperate, review the Verb Chart. Then reread the introductory material for each
type of verb and try a few of the exercises. Perhaps studying the answer section
will give you the most help. Look up WHY each thing is where it is.

And if you did well in all this, HOORAY!

TA
HAVE COMPLETED

YOU

B
u
T

YOU

IC

(YOU)I PRACTICE

Review and Practice: Diagram, label, and check answers.

Exercise 3-15: IC Verbs (Action but no receiver.)

I. Those naughty twins have been jumping on the sofa again.

2. Out the window flew the parakeet.
3. Does that young man still believe in the Easter Bunny?
4. Where can he be going at this hour?
5. Clara should not have been wading in the brook.
44

Exercise 3-16: TA Verbs (Action carried to DO receiver.)

I. Must we carry those heavy baskets to town?

2. That slender girl has thrown the discus for a record distance.
3. She might have sent me the money in the letter. (IO!)
4. Quietly she smelled the sweet aroma of the gardenia.
5. In the last race he had seriously hurt his chances of winning.

Exercise 3-17: TP Verbs (Subject receives action.)

I. A message in a crumpled paper was dropped at her feet.

2. Can such an outrage be allowed?
3. Bill's speech was received by the student body with cheers.
4. The letter had been opened earlier by another Mr. Smith.
5. The ad should not have been published until Friday.

Exercise 3-18: IL Verbs (Equals mark between subject and PN or PA.)

I. The rain felt cool and the breeze smelled fresh.

2. Through all the trouble, Norman has remained my friend.
3. That official has always been surly and arrogant toward us.
4. Might she have become queen of her native country?
5. Look neat, be polite, appear cheerful, and stay healthy.

Exercise 3-19: Mixed Verbs.

I. I can eat anything except liver.

2. Could you possibly be silent for one minute?
3. What did he see at the circus?
4. He was ushered to a front seat.
5. Since yesterday Harry has been constantly thinking about her.
6. At the very end of the highest branch of the apple tree perched the cat.
7. Paul's sweater was lost at the station, but no one turned it in.
8. l11e careless driver was speeding past the police car.
9. Loosen your tie, take your shoes off, and relax.
I0. I feel bad about your loss of your favorite easy chair.
 45

THINGS
F
0
R TP
CLAUSES WILL BE PRESENTED

IC
: (YOU) STUDY

:A
:N
:o
: YOU
TA DO
WILL LEARN THEM
46

CHAPTER FOUR
DEPENDENT CLAUSES
What is a CLAUSE? Memorize these two definitions:

A PHRASE is a GROUP OF WORDS WITHOUT a subject and verb, used as

a SINGLE PART OF SPEECH.

A CLAUSE is a GROUP OF WORDS WITH a SUBJECT and VERB.

You have already studied TWO kinds of PHRASES:

I. VERB PHRASE - a main verb and all its helpers. (Example: Rex has been
chasing cars.)

2. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE - a preposition, its object, and any modifiers of

the object. (Example: Rex ran through the dark woods.)

Notice that a verb phrase has no subject within it. But a SENTENCE always
has a subject and a verb. SO every sentence you have studied so far has BEEN a
CLAUSE.

That means you have already been studying ONE kind of clause:

I. MAIN or INDEPENDENT CLAUSE-a group of words WITH a SUBJECT

and VERB that can STAND ALONE.

Now you will study:

2. DEPENDENT or SUBORDINATE CLAUSE-a group of words WITH

SUBJECT and VERB that CAN NOT STAND ALONE and that is used as a
SINGLE PART OF SPEECH.

For an overview of PHRASES and CLAUSES, you may wish to look at the
Appendix. It is a good idea to keep reviewing the total picture. But now we must
dig into the specifics.

May we assume that you understand that a SENTENCE ALWAYS includes

AT LEAST ONE MAIN CLAUSE? For a SENTENCE is "a group of words
WITH SUBJECT and VERB expressing a COMPLETE thought."

But now we must learn about GROUPS OF WORDS with SUBJECT and
VERB that CANNOT STAND ALONE.
 47

Why does our language need such a construction? Let us think back to our
study of MODIFIERS. We found we needed MORE INFORMATION about our
subjects and verbs. First we studied one-word modifiers:

Rex barked yesterday.

"Yesterday" is a one-word ADVERB answering "When?"

But suppose we wanted to be more specific:

Rex barked in the afternoon.

For this information we needed a prepositional phrase. It includes a preposition,

a noun object, and an adjective modifying the object. The whole PHRASE is used
as a SINGLE PART OF SPEECH, namely an ADVERB answering "When?"

Now look carefully at this:

Rex barked when the mailman came.

We now have something with a conjunction, adjective, noun, and verb. But it is
a unit. Did the "mailman" do the "coming"? Yes, so we have a SUBJECT and
VERB.

What we have in "when the mailman came" is A GROUP OF WORDS

I) with SUBJECT AND VERB
2) that CANNOT STAND ALONE (try it) AND
3) that IS USED AS A SINGLE PART OF SPEECH (an adverb that answers
"When?")

That is exactly the definition of a DEPENDENT or SUBORDINATE

CLAUSE!

Let's review:

When did Rex bark? Yesterday. (An adverb.)

When did Rex bark? In the afternoon. (An adverb phrase.)
When did Rex bark? When the mailman came. (An adverb clause.)

Were you bothered to see a PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE called an ADVERB

PHRASE, or a DEPENDENT CLAUSE called an ADVERB CLAUSE? That is
just like saying, "I am from the USA" and "I am from Virginia." One is a unit
contained within another, thus:
48

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
Adverb phrases
Adjective phrases

DEPENDENT or SUBORDINATE CLAUSES

Adverb clauses
Adjective clauses
Noun clauses

By the way, let's not worry about DEPENDENT and SUBORDINATE. They
mean the same thing and the terms are interchangeable.

MAIN and INDEPENDENT are also interchangeable.

We will begin with the easiest kind of dependent clause.

4-A. ADVERB CLAUSES

We have just studied an example of an adverb clause:

Rex barked when the mailman came.

Here is how we diagram it:

REX I BARKED
\ti,.
· z~,1., MAILMA~ CAME
Read through these sentences and find the adverb clauses:

I. Rex barked after the mailman left.

2. Rex barked because he hates the mailman.
3. Rex barked until the sun went down.
4. Ifhe does not stop barking, Rex will be very sorry.
5. Since Rex started barking, three people have called.

If you were playing detective, what could you learn about adverb clauses from
those five sentences? Go back and study them some more. You may wish to
diagram them. Then compare your list of findings with mine.

I . Adverb clauses answer "why?" and some other strange things. What question
does "if' answer? It tells something like "under what circumstances?" (We can
lump such adverb clauses under things that tell "how.")
 49

2. Adverb clauses are introduced by a connecting word. These sentences had

after, because, until, jf, and since.

3. Adverb clauses, like other adverbs, may move to the front of the sentence. In
Sentences 4 and 5 the adverb clauses came first.

4. When the adverb clause comes first, it is followed by a comma.

That is what you could have observed from the five examples. Did you find it
all? Did you find anything else? You might have noticed that "after" is sometimes
a preposition. Compare these two:

Rex ran after the ball. Rex barked after the mailman came.

The first "after" is a PREPOSITION. The second "after" is a:

SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTION
introducing an ADVERB CLAUSE.

There are many, many subordinating conjunctions. You can make your own list
by seeing how many words make sense on the conjunction line, a dotted line
joining the word the clause modifies and the adverb clause itself.
THEY
-------
I
LEFT
•••• , . - - - - /
SUBORDINATING
CONJUNCTION
IT I RAINED

The word "subordinating" means "making something of lower rank." See what
SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS do to these sentences:

I . The mailman came. When the mailman came

2. He left. After he left
3. Nellie caught the ball. Because Nellie caught the ball
4. You don't pay attention. If you don't pay attention

The first group in each case CAN stand alone. We may desire more information
about the sentence "He left." But we will be satisfied to wait for another sentence
to find out when, why, etc.

But suppose someone comes into the room and says any of those second parts.
You want to know, "Well, what?" What happened when the mailman came? What
happened after he left? The addition of just one word, the SUBORDINATING
50

CONJUNCTION, made us aware that the idea in the clause was not complete, that
the MAIN information was missing.

So we have seen that a subordinating conjunction subordinates. We also know

that a conjunction joins. Remember the definition: A CONJUNCTION joins two
words, phrases, or CLAUSES.

Do you remember learning this? (way back)

There are two kinds of CONJUNCTIONS:

COORDINATING-joins two EQUAL words, phrases or clauses

(AND, BUT, OR, NOR, FOR)
SUBORDINATING

You can now fill in a definition for SUBORDINATING. How about

"introduces an adverb clause and joins it to a main clause."

Exercise 4-1: Diagram these and check your answers. Notice that every sentence
has a MAIN clause. Make sure the main clause is on top in your diagram.

I. While Nero fiddled, Rome burned.

2. She laughed after he turned his back.
3. If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
4. Rex hides in the closet whenever it thunders.
5. When money talks, I listen.
6. As you stand up, the group will sit down.
7. I danced until the musicians were tired.
8. Whither thou goest, I will go.
9. Although I don't like him, I must be kind to him.
I 0. I came because you called.

These are certainly easy, aren't they? But you knew something would
complicate things, didn't you? There are several tricky things which can be put
under the heading of

ELLIPTICAL CLAUSES

An elliptical expression is one which has some words left out. (Now don't ask
me why it is called that.)
Notice these sentences:
Nellie is taller than Harry.
 51

Nellie is as tall as Mary.

Here is how they are diagrammed:

NELLIEI IS\ TALLER NELLIEI IS\ TALL

··.. ~
HARRY
··'.'71'
I
(IS)\ (TALL) MARY I <*
(IS)\ (TALL)

You might have thought that "than Harry" was a prepositional phrase. Not so!
"Than" is AL WA VS a conjunction. It nearly always introduces an elliptical clause.
If you understand that, you can figure out the difference between these two
sentences.

You Iike Mi II ie better than I. You like Millie better than me.

Diagramming is the best way to illustrate the difference:

YOU LIKE
YOUI LIKE~IE
<9.
.>-. ~)-.>-. .>-.~~
··~,i, ~-? ··~,i, ~-?
1 I (LIKE) 1· (MILLIE) (YOU) I (LIKE) I ME

While you can count on "than" to be a conjunction, "as" is much trickier. It

often comes in pairs, as it did in the example:

Nellie is as tall as Mary.

Here is how your thoughts should run as you diagram that. "Nellie" is the
subject of"is." "Tall" seems to be an adjective that completes "is." So

NELLIEI IS\ TALL

is the main clause. Now, how "tall"? "As" tall. Hmmm.

NELLIEI IS\ TALL

How "as"? As tall "as Mary (is) (tall)."

~
52

NELLIEI IS\ TALL

MARY I
>$
(IS)\ (TALL)

The FIRST "as" is an ADVERB modifying "tall" all by itself. This "as" is a
special kind of adverb that needs a modifying clause introduced by another "as,"
this time a subordinating conjunction. Isn't that awful?

Exercise 4-2: Let's diagram some elliptical clauses for practice.

1. Harry can sing louder than Mike can.

2. Can Suzy play the piano as well as Joe?
3. We stayed there longer than here.
4. He came as quickly as he could.
5. Mother gave you more money than me. (Remember IO?)

Did you observe that ''than" and "as" clauses could modify something other
than action verbs? Remember that ADVERBS can modify VERBS,
ADJECTIVES, and other ADVERBS. Go back and see what ''than" and "as"
clauses modified: ADJECTIVES like "tall" and "taller," ADVERBS like "louder"
or even "as."

Exercise 4-3: We need one more practice on adverb clauses. Diagram these and
check your answers.

I. Before Bill arrived, we hid behind the sofa.

2. We jumped out when he came and surprised him.
3. After the party was over, we cleaned the house, since it was a mess.
4. We overslept because the time had changed in the night.
5. I do a better thing than I have ever done.
6. He went where seldom is heard a discouraging word.
7. As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.
8. He gave me food when I was hungry.
9. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
10. If you see Mabel, say "Hi."

Do you have these pretty well conquered? Notice that you have to remember all
the other things you learned. That last practice included all types of verbs, some
compound elements, an understood "you," as well as the new material.
 53

Do not proceed to the next area until you really feel you know adverb clauses.
Study the answers. Reread the explanations. Try the exercises again.

4-B. ADJECTIVE CLAUSES

Dependent clauses can be:

-ADVERB CLAUSES
-ADJECTIVE CLAUSES
-NOUN CLAUSES

An ADJECTIVE CLAUSE is a

-DEPENDENT CLAUSE (group of words with subject and verb

which can't stand alone and which is used as a single
part of speech)
-USED AS AN ADJECTIVE (word which modifies a noun or
pronoun, telling "WHICH ONE, WHAT KIND,
WHOSE, HOW MANY")

Perhaps you didn't need all that review? Let us proceed.

An ADJECTIVE CLAUSE is introduced by a RELATIVE PRONOUN:

WHO WHOSE WHOM THAT WHICH

Look at this sentence:

The dog that barked is Rex.

Here is how it is diagrammed:

IL PN
DOG IS\ REX

~< THAT
IC

BARKED

Suppose you play detective again. How did that sentence differ from a sentence
with an adverb clause?

I. There is a dotted line, but it is vertical and nothing is written on it.

2. A relative pronoun hangs on the end of the dotted line.
3. If you substitute the word above the dotted line for the word at the bottom of
the dotted line, it makes sense: "dog barked."
4. While an adverb clause seemed to come at the beginning of the sentence or
54

after the main clause, this adjective clause came between the subject and the verb
of the main clause. It came RIGHT AFTER THE NOUN IT MODIFIED.

If you didn't discover all those things, learn them now. Nearly all of them apply
to every sentence with an adjective clause in it.

Follow these directions as you diagram sentences with adjective clauses:

I. Find the main clause. Diagram it.

2. HANG THE RELATIVE PRONOUN from the noun or pronoun it refers to.

3. Find the adjective clause. Diagram it with reference to the relative pronoun.
4. Substitute the noun or pronoun at the top of the dotted line for the relative
pronoun.Doesitmakesense?

Exercise 4-4: Diagram according to directions.

l. The dog that followed me was wagging its tail.

2. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
3. He who hesitates is lost.
4. I met the lady who called us.
5. She called about the car that had been sold.

Check your answers and notice why you made mistakes. Did you follow the
directions exactly? Did you HANG the relative pronoun from the thing it referred
to? Or when you got to Sentence 4, did you think the "who" had to hang from the
subject? An adjective clause can modify ANY noun or pronoun in the sentence,
even, as in Sentence 5, a noun that is the object of a preposition.

Notice once more the direction (3) that says: Find the adjective clause. Diagram
it WITH REFERENCE TO THE RELATIVE PRONOUN.

What can that mean? Here is a sentence to illustrate:

I have found the cap that I lost.

Main Clause: I have found the cap.

Diagram:
I I HAVE FOUND I CAP

~1
Hang the relative pronoun: THAT
 55

Now, diagram the adjective clause with reference to the relative pronoun. Let's
see. The adjective clause is "that I lost." The verb is "lost." But ifl put "lost" after
"that," and substitute "cap" for "that," I have the "cap" doing the losing. No,
something's wrong. What IS the subject of "lost"? Who did the losing in "that I
lost"? Why, "I" did! OK, but what happens to "that''? Hmm. If I substitute "cap"
for "that," I could say "I lost CAP." That makes sense. So why not diagram it:

I I LOST I THAT

And that is what Rule 3 means. Figure out the job the RELATIVE PRONOUN
is doing IN ITS OWN CLAUSE! In this case it was being the DIRECT OBJECT.
Yet look at what happened to the word order. Here are a number of adjective
clauses with the same construction:
that I found, whom he saw, which he took, that we wanted
All of these would be diagrammed the same way. HANG the relative pronoun,
then figure out what it's doing in the adjective clause. Let's see if you really can
apply the rule.

Exercise 4-5: Diagram:

I have lost the friend in whom I trusted.

I
TA DO

Did you get this far? I HAVE LOST FRIEND

Then ask what is "whom" doing
in its own clause
Check the answers to see if you got it right.
WHOM

Let's have a look at those relative pronouns again. WHO, WHOSE, and
WHOM are three CASES of the same word.

WHO is NOMINATIVE CASE (used for subjects and predicate

nominatives)
WHOSE is POSSESSIVE CASE (showing ownership)
WHOM is OBJECTIVE CASE (used for objects of verbs or prepositions.)

WHOSE never gives you a problem in English, unless you confuse it with
"who's," a contraction of"who is." But remember where you met WHOSE before?
It is an ADJECTIVE QUESTION! So when WHOSE is a relative pronoun, hang it
on a SLANTED line and put the noun it modifies above it, thus:

The hoy whose bike was stolen cried.

56

IC
BOY CRIED

~; TP
Substitute "boy's"
for "whose" and it
BIKE I WAS STOLEN makes sense.

While WHOSE is easily taken care of, WHO and WHOM are a constant source
of irritation. Now that you understand subjects and objects and predicate
nominatives, you can always figure out the correct case. When WHO and WHOM
are used in main clauses, just see what jobs they are doing. (They are just
pronouns, not relative pronouns in main clauses.)

Who goes there? (Subject, so nominative)

Whom did you see? (You did see whom. DO, so objective)
Whom did he ask about? (He did ask about whom. Obj. of prep., so
objective.)
This is who? (Predicate nominative, so nominative)

When WHO or WHOM is a relative pronoun, its CASE depends on its use in
ITS OWN CLAUSE.

1 know the man who yelled.

I I KNOW I MAN "Who" is the SUBJECT of its

·~ OWN CLAUSE, so it is nominative,
even though it refers to an object.
WHO I YELLED

A man whom I knew yelled.

MAN : I YELLED "Whom" is the DIRECT OBJECT

~
of"knew" in its OWN CLAUSE,
so it is objective, even though

I I KNEW I WHOM
it refers to a subject.
 57

Now you can amaze your friends with your certainty about WHO and WHOM.

The WHO family (WHO, WHOSE, and WHOM) refer to people.

WHICH refers to things.
THAT refers to people OR things.

So much for relative pronouns. Let's practice some sentences with adjective
clauses.

Exercise 4-6:

I. The lawn that he had mowed still looked ragged.

2. Did you see the package that arrived?
3. I received the answer for which I had waited.
4. This house is the one that was vandalized.
5. The kitten which was lost was found behind the door which had been shut.
6. The lady whose number was called screamed with delight.
7. The girls, who had been waiting patiently for hours, giggled and shouted when
the singer came.
8. The person whom you gave the ring to lost it.
9. Henry knows the villain who shaved off his beard while he was asleep.
I 0. This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack
built.

Check your answers carefully. If you had trouble, review the steps m
diagramming these adjective clauses.

There is one more miserable complication to bring in before we finish with

ADJECTIVE CLAUSES. Guess what? SOMETIMES TIIE RELATIVE
PRONOUN ISN'T Tl !ERE!!
Observe:
The book that I want is missing.
The book I want is missing.

Both sentences are equally correct. Both are clear in meaning. Both are
diagrammed in exactly the same way, EXCEPT that you have to supply the
missing RELATIVE PRONOUN. You have to HANG a pronoun that isn't there!
58

BOOK: I IS \ MISSING BOOK: I IS \ MISSING

' '

IWANT I THAT I WANT I (THAT)

These little pronoun-less adjective clauses go by so quickly that it is hard to
catch them. But once you notice that there is an extra subject and verb at large in a
sentence, you can ask yourself if it is answering the ADJECTIVE QUESTION
"Which one?" and if it is, see if a relative pronoun will fit into the sentence. Here
are some sentences with MISSING RELATIVE PRONOUNS.

Exercise 4-7: Diagram:

1. The bird I saw is the bird you described.

2. I heard about the money you saved.
3. I remember the songs he sang, the words he spoke, the promises he made.

4. The house you were born in has been torn down.

5. The life you save may be your own.

If you were able to do these correctly, you will be able to diagram ADJECTIVE
CLAUSES with the relative pronouns, too. But probably we had better practice
some more, so ...

Exercise 4-8: Diagram these sentences. Remember the procedure for finding the
main clause and HANGING THE RELATIVE PRONOUN from the word it
replaces.

1. The one I love belongs to somebody else.

2. Do you know anybody with the nerve he has?
3. After the rain, we resumed the game that we had started.
4. We gasped at the price that had been paid.
5. Nellie's antique cabinet, which had been sold for $500, was appraised at $5000.
6. Mrs. Jones, who was chairman of the committee, asked for silence.
7. The messenger whom you expected never arrived.
8. John, whom they awaited, never came.
9. They elected my sister, whose name had not been among the nominees.
I 0. They chose a person who had never held office.

How did you do this time? These are really hard; if you did well, you should be
pleased, but don't be discouraged if you have to begin again at GO. Study the
answers to see how the sentences are really put together.
 59

In the last exercises, did you notice anything about commas? In some sentences
the adjective clauses are surrounded by commas; in others they are not. Why?

Did you ever hear of

RESTRICTIVE or NON-RESTRICTIVE CLAUSES?

They are sometimes called

ESSENTIAL or NON-ESSENTIAL CLAUSES.

You will hear about them now.

First you need to know what an ANTECEDENT is. An ANTECEDENT is the

word to which a pronoun refers. If I say
Harry rode his bike

the ANTECEDENT of the pronoun "his" is "Harry." The word a RELATIVE

PRONOUN HANGS from is its ANTECEDENT. Got it?

Now, listen carefully. When the ADJECTIVE CLAUSE is NECESSARY to

identify the ANTECEDENT of the RELATIVE PRONOUN, the ADJECTIVE
CLAUSE is called RESTRICTIVE or ESSENTIAL. It is NOT set off by commas.

But, when the ANTECEDENT of the RELATIVE PRONOUN is clearly

identified WITHOUT the adjective clause, and when the adjective clause merely
gives extra information about the ANTECEDENT, the ADJECTIVE CLAUSE is
called NON-RESTRICTIVE or NON-ESSENTIAL, and it is set off by commas.

That takes a while to grasp. But think of the oyster who finds a grain of sand in
his shell. He doesn't need it so he builds something around it to set it off.
COMMAS around a NON-RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE are like the oyster's PEARL
around the UNNECESSARY GRAIN OF SAND. (That is one ofmy favorites.)

To make sure you understand this, look at the last exercise. The first sentence
with a non-restrictive clause is Number 5. Nellie had only one antique cabinet. She
did not have several, causing us to identify a certain one by the price at which it
sold. No, we knew the exact cabinet. The adjective clause gives us interesting
information, important information in understanding the whole sentence. But we
do not need it to identify the ANTECEDENT of WHICH, "cabinet."

Normally, antecedents that are proper names will have non-restrictive clauses.
Notice Sentences 7 and 8. In 7 we need to know which messenger. But in 8 we all
know John. Sentences 9 and IO illustrate the same contrast. "My sister" is known;
"person" is not.
60

Perhaps you had better confront some sentences which have both ADJECTIVE
and ADVERB CLAUSES. Make sure you have them sorted out before we come to
NOUN clauses, which are just dreadful.

Exercise 4-9: Diagram carefully.

I . On the floor lay the drops of wax that had run down from the candle.
2. Wherever he traveled, he met people whom he knew.
3. Because we lost the address he had sent, we did not go.
4. When the helicopter comes, the help for which they have been praying will
arrive.
5. That salad is bigger than the one I brought.
6. While you were asleep, the tooth fairy took the tooth you lost.
7. No one who has never been sick can understand the pain he feels.
8. If you like, we can play the records you brought.
9. Benedict Arnold, whose name stands for treason, has not been forgotten by
history.
I 0. The design which won was ugly, although it was expensive.

They are like puzzles, aren't they? By now you know whether you like these
puzzles or not. But even if you don't fully enjoy this challenge, which is rather like
math, surely you are beginning to appreciate the complexity of your own speech.
And there's much more to come!

4-C. NOUN CLAUSES

Here we are buried deep in a study of DEPENDENT CLAUSES. Remember

the three varieties:
-ADJECTIVE
-ADVERB
-NOUN

Unlike adjective and adverb clauses, which are modifiers, NOUN clauses will
be free to do many things in the sentence. They will be doing NOUN jobs.

So far, you have studied several NOUN jobs. Nouns can be

-SUBJECTS
-DIRECT OBJECTS
-INDIRECT OBJECTS
--OBJECTS OF PREPOSITIONS
-PREDICATE NOMINATIVES
and some other things.
Well, a NOUN CLAUSE is a DEPENDENT CLAUSE that can do a NOUN
job.
 61

Let us start with an example:

I know Harry. I know what I like.
I I LIKE I WHAT

I
I KNOW I HARRY 1KNOW, 1
In the first sentence "Harry," a noun, is the direct object of the verb "know."
"Harry" receives the action of the "knowing"; he is what "gets known."
In the second sentence, what "gets known"? The WHOLE CLAUSE, "what I
like." Since the CLAUSE is the direct object, and since a direct object is a noun
job, "what I like" is a NOUN CLAUSE. Ah, ifit were all that simple ...
Notice that there is a pronoun, "what," that seems to introduce the noun clause
in the same way a relative pronoun introduced an adjective clause. But "what" is
not a relative pronoun, for it does not refer to any noun in the sentence. It stands for
the things the speaker likes. Suppose it stands for, let's see, "hamburgers." Suppose
we had the sentence:
I know I like hamburgers.

I I LIKE I HAMBURGERS

Then look at this:

I know THAT I like hamburgers.

THAT

HAMBURGERS

Well, where would YOU put an extra "that"?

Let's pull this together. What we have just seen is that
I) Sometimes direct object noun clauses begin with a pronoun that does a job in
its own clause (like "what")
2) Sometimes the DO noun clause has NO introductory pronoun ("I like
hamburgers")
3) Sometimes DO noun clauses have an extra "that" which just sits on a
"skyhook."
62

Before we get into noun clauses doing other noun jobs, let's diagram some
noun clauses used just as direct objects.

Exercise 4-10:

1. I heard what you said. I saw what you did.

2. Did Nancy remember that you had called?
3. They should eat whatever you have cooked.
4. I know whom I have believed.
5. Could Mary be wishing she had not come?
6. He said, "I like Sally."
7. "I like Sally," he said.
8. "I," he replied, "like Sally."
9. Take what you can get your hands on.
10. Do you finally understand what I am talking about?

Those were not too hard, were they? Notice in 6, 7, and 8 that a direct quotation
is the direct object of the attributive phrase (the "he said") no matter what the word
order.

Before going on to noun clauses that AREN'T direct objects, perhaps we

should look at some DO noun clauses that look adverbial.

I saw how he ate. I remember where he lives. I can guess why he left. I noticed
when he arrived.
The verbs "saw," "remember," "guess," and "noticed" are all TA verbs. The
noun clauses which follow them are all OO's telling WHAT got seen, remembered,
etc. Here is one diagrammed:

HE I ATE

Now you must use your brain and figure out what different NOUN JOBS are
done by the following NOUN CLAUSES. Figure out how they should be
diagrammed and then check with the answers.

Exercise 4-11:

I. Candy is what he likes.

2. What he likes is candy.
 63

3. I care about what he likes.

4. You gave what he likes no consideration. (A nasty one.)

If you recalled the other noun jobs mentioned earlier in this section, you should
have found a noun clause for each job. If you are completely lost, we'll go through
it step by step.

Candy is Joe's favorite food.

Candy is what Joe likes best.
PN
I
I
IL PN LIKES WHAT

IS1
CANDY IS\ FOOD

CANDY'

In the first sentence, a plain old noun is the PREDICATE NOMINATIVE. But
in the second, the whole noun clause is the PREDICATE NOMINATIVE.

Remember that an IL verb is an EQUALS MARK? You know we can say

either 2+2=4 or 4=2+2. So rewrite the second sentence to read:

What Joe likes best is candy.

Now you have a noun clause being SUBJECT of the sentence.

JOE I LIKES I WHAT

~u';. T
A I IS \ CANDY

Here are two more sentences:

Pay attention to Greg.

Pay attention to what he says.
64

(YOU) I PAY I ATIENTION (YOU)

1 PA~Y
AnENTION

"~-----
~ GREG I
-"o _HE SAYS jWHAT
___. . .X......__
.
Both sentences have an object for the preposition "to." The first is the noun,
"Greg." The second is the noun clause, "what he says." Like the other noun
clauses, this one has its own elevated platform.
If you got the fourth sentence right, you have probably taken the rest of the day
off to celebrate. That was an awkward and unusual construction:

You gave what he likes no consideration.

What if it had said: You gave Nellie no consideration. Would you have
recognized "Nellie" as an indirect object? By now you have seen this sentence
diagrammed thus:

YOU GAVE CONSIDERATION

"'o
'1J HE
INDIRECT OBJECT~

You have been shown NOUN CLAUSES used as SUBJECTS, PREDICATE

NOMINATIVES, DIRECT OBJECTS, OBJECTS OF PREPOSITIONS, and
INDIRECT OBJECTS. You have seen them introduced by "what," which
performs a job in the noun clause itself, by ''that," which merely says, "A clause is
coming," and by nothing at all.

Exercise 4-12: Diagram the following sentences and check your answers. Tell
what noun job each noun clause is doing.

l. What you see is what you get.

2. The truth is that I am penniless.
3. The whole town is gossiping about what Nellie did.
4. We gave no thought to where he went.
5. We gave where he went no thought.
6. That I worried about you is no secret.
7. Jerry shouted that the roof was caving in.
8. Tentatively she decided what was best.
9. That Nellie lied about what she knew was what we learned.
I 0. That box might have been what he ordered.
 65

Now it is time to put it all together: NOUN, ADJECTIVE, and ADVERB

CLAUSES. These sentences will require you to use everything you have learned so
far!

Exercise 4-13:

1. While Rex was barking, the thief was stealing the box on the porch.
2. The only thing that was in the box was trash we had collected in the attic.
3. Why no one listened to Rex, I'll never know!
4. The box that had been stolen was later found down the street.
5. Who took the box was anybody's guess.
6. For days Rex gave us a superior look whenever he saw us.
7. It was a look that said, "I told you so."
8. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
9. I returned the letters we received to the person who had sent them.
I 0. Whoso would be a man must be a non-confonnist.
I I. I thank you for what you did for me when I was ill.
12. People who say "I feel BADLY" do not realize that "feel" is a linking verb and
that it should be completed by "bad," which is a predicate adjective.
13. "I feel badly" means "My sense of touch is defective."
14. Above the Arctic Circle, life requires that you stay alert.
15. What I like about Roy is his great sense of humor.
16. If he calls, tell him I am out.
17. Ned and Elmer have decided that, if it rains, they will not go to the picnic.
18. He jests at scars who never felt a wound.
19. He who laughs last laughs best.
20. Because he ran away before the circus came to town, he missed the ad which
offered jobs to whoever could swing a hammer.
66

CLAUSES CAN BE

YOU HAVE LEARNED

THEY ARE DIAGRAMMED

~o'It,
HAVE STUDIED

YOU

THEM
HOPE
CONFIDENCE

YOU I
SHOULD BE\ READY

~ ~ VERBALS
GERUNDS

WHICH INCLUDE
 67

CHAPTER FIVE
VERBALS

Memorize this definition:

A VERBAL is a VERB FORM used as ANOTHER PART OF SPEECH.

You have just seen how a NOUN JOB can be done by a whole clause. You
have also seen how a whole clause could serve as an ADJECTIVE or ADVERB.
Our clever language has another device to expand and pep up NOUNS,
ADJECTIVES, and ADVERBS. It is the VERBAL.

There are three kinds of VERBALS:

-GERUNDS----------always nouns
-PARTICIPLES-------always adjectives
-INFINITIVES-------nouns, adjectives, or adverbs

5-A. GERUNDS

Gerunds are the easiest verbal to learn, so we will start with them. With
gerunds, you can always count on two things:

A GERUND ALWAYS ENDS IN -ING

A GERUND IS ALWAYS A NOUN

If you were asked to diagram "Swimming is fun," you would no doubt say to
yourself," 'Swimming' is the subject." Of course it is. So you would diagram it:

I
IL PN

SWIMMING IS \ FUN

But now you are ready to examine the "verbness" of "swimming." It has been
made out of the verb "to swim." It is the name (as all nouns are names) of an
ACTION (for "to swim" is a verb of action.)

WHEN THE -ING FORM OF A VERB IS USED AS A NOUN, IT IS A

GERUND.

You can immediately name many activities as gerunds: reading, dancing,

running, sleeping, even BEING.

There is a special way GERUNDS are diagrammed to show their "verbness."

At first it may seem silly, but wait till you see all the verb tricks a GERUND can
do, and then you will see the necessity for its special treatment.
68

swr~ :~ \ :c.
Before we examine all the verb things a GERUND can do, let us observe the
noun things. (I suppose the reason for the broken horizontal line is to show that the
gerund is part noun, part verb. Both nouns and verbs sit on horizontal lines.) We
have already said that in "Swimming is fun" the gerund "swimming" was acting as
subject. That's one noun job gerunds can do.

Exercise 5-1: Diagram these and discover for yourself what other noun jobs
gerunds may perform.

I. My hobby is swimming.
2. I like swimming.
3. I am interested in swimming.
4. I give swimming all my time.

You should have been able to find a gerund PN, DO, OP and IO. Check the
answers to see if you diagrammed them correctly. You should have!

So much for the "noun-ness" of GERUNDS. How much "verbness" do they

still have? Well, what can verbs do?

I) Various verbs can take PA, PN or DO COMPLEMENTS.

2) Verbs are modified by ADVERBS.
3) Verbs have SUBJECTS.

Could GERUNDS have COMPLEMENTS?

Swimming the English Channel is dangerous.

Being king is a responsibility.
Staying happy was a challenge.

Let's see how they are diagrammed:

DO PN
SWIM~ ING I E.C. BE1ING\ KING

l 11s \DANGEROUS l 1 ,s\ RESP.

 69

Even though the GERUNDS above, "swimming," "being," and "staying," had
enough "nounness" to be subjects, they proved that GERUNDS have enough
"verbness" to take the verb COMPLEMENTS, DO, PN, and PA.

How about ADVERBIAL MODIFIERS of GERUNDS? Could you say

"swimming against the current," "actually being king," or "staying happy under
those conditions"? Yes.

The expressions "against the current," "actually," and "under those conditions" tell
HOW the verb was carried out. So GERUNDS can have ADVERBIAL
MODIFIERS.

Finally, can GERUNDS have SUBJECTS?

Well, sort of. What is a subject? The "doer or be-er" of the verb. Take a look at
this:
Singing won a prize.

We want to know WI IOSE singing. Who DID the singing?

NELLIE'S singing won a prize.

Here is an interesting rule:

THE "SUBJECT' OF A GERUND IS IN THE POSSESSIVE CASE.

That means we don't say "Nellie singing won a prize." We make "Nellie"
possessive: "Nellie's."

Notice these examples of "subjects" of gerunds:

I like Mike's dancing. His going will not make us happy. I am curious about your
growing vegetables in water.

We speak of the "subject" of a gerund in quotes because after all a gerund is a

noun, not a real verb. Remember the definition of a CLAUSE: a group of words
with a SUBJECT and a VERB. lf"Nellie's singing" were a real subject and verb,
we would call it a "gerund clause." But since "Nellie's" REALLY is telling
"WHOSE" about a NOlJN, we say that it is a GERUND PHRASE.
70

A VERBAL AND THE WORDS THAT GO WITH IT MAKE A PHRASE,

NOT A CLAUSE.

Of course, a verbal can occur without any other words, as in our original
"Swimming is fun" sentence.

Exercise 5-2: Diagram these sentences, which include gerunds and gerund phrases.

1. In the summer Margie enjoys canning tomatoes.

2. Ron's partying has resulted in his mother's worrying about him.
3. At the beginning of winter, skiing became more popular than hiking.
(Remember ''than"?)
4. His thinking was that the producer would tum to directing.
5. Seeing is believing.
6. Through all the arguing, Mary's knitting was never abandoned.
7. Misery is finding a dent in the fender ofyournew car.
8. Reaching the top is easier than staying there.
9. He lost interest in rowing and gave flying his attention.
10. Ed's cooking has improved since he began reading those recipes.

The answers should straighten out any problems. Before we leave these easy
gerunds, though, we should remember that NOT EVERYTHING ending in -ING is
a gerund. Some plain old verbs end in -ing. To make this point clearer:

Molly is baking pies. Her hobby is baking pies.

BAKING PIES

I
TA DO IL
MOLLy IS BAKING I PIES HOBBY IS

"Molly" DOES NOT EQUAL "baking."

"Hobby" DOES EQUAL "baking."

So make certain that an -ing word is really acting as a noun before you call it a
gerund.
As we have seen, these -ing words can be VERBS and GERUNDS. Alas, they
can also be something else:

5-8. PARTICIPLES

Participles are almost as easy as gerunds. But not quite.

 71

-PARTICIPLES ARE ALWAYS ADJECTIVES.

-PRESENT PARTICIPLES END IN -ING.
-PAST PARTICIPLES END IN -D, -T, or-N.

Examine these two sentences:

They ran to the house that was burning.
They ran to the burning house.

In the first sentence, the adjective clause, "that was burning," modifies house. It
answers "Which one?" In the second sentence, the PARTICIPLE "burning"
modifies "house." In this case the PARTICIPLE is in front of the noun it modifies,
like ordinary adjectives. Here is the diagram:
THEY RAN

The line for participles has an "elbow" in it between the slant for adjective and the
horizontal line for verb, since a PARTICIPLE is an ADJECTIVE made out of a
VERB.

Let us look at a past participle:

The burned child fears the fire.

CHILD FEARS FIRE

BURNED

Exercise 5-3: Here are some easy sentences with participles. Diagram them.

I. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

2. The shifting sands of time cause changed circumstances.
3. The detennined boy made a hook with a bent pin.
4. Discouraged, he sat by the dying embers.
S. A worried gardener looked at the wilting plants.

Check the answers to see how you did on your first participles. These were
quite easy. You knew participles would get worse. You may even have guessed
how.

If PARTICIPLES have "verbness" in them (and they do), they will do verb
things. For instance, let us take:
I fc looked at the wilting plants.
72

Suppose we say:
He looked at the plants wilting in the sun.

"In the sun" tells "where" they were wilting. So:

PARTICIPLES CAN TAKE ADVERBIAL MODIFIERS.

This makes sense, since, after all, a PARTICIPLE is an ADJECTIVE, and

adverbs modify adjectives.

Notice that when the participle, ''wilting," got a modifier, it moved to a new
position AFTER the noun it modified. Here are some sentences with participles
that have adverbial modifiers. As you diagram them, notice the word order.

Exercise 5-4:

I. Soaked by the rain, Rex howled at the door.

2. Father, defeated at checkers, tried chess.
3. The tree surgeon looked at the oak, eaten out with rot.
4. Linda, crying dismally over her broken doll, did not see the newly-arrived
package.
5. The sailor, exhausted by his night of duty, rowed the passengers toward their
eagerly waiting relatives.

How were those? There are several things to discuss before we leave this
exercise. Look at Sentence I. The PARTICIPIAL PHRASE (the participle and any
words that go with it) begins the sentence. It is followed by a comma. There is a
comma rule that says, "An introductory participial phrase is followed by a
comma."

Look again at that phrase and the word that follows:

Soaked by the rain, Rex ...

Another rule says:

AN INTRODUCTORY PARTICIPIAL PHRASE MUST MODIFY THE VERY

NEXT NOUN IN THE SENTENCE.

Otherwise, it is a
D* A*N*G*L *I*N*G
P* A*R *T*I*C*I*P*L *E
(A V*E*R*Y B*A*D T*H*I*N*G)

Let me give you an example:

 73

Running down the street, his shoelaces came untied.

Do you see those shoelaces jogging down the street all by themselves? That" s what
the sentence says. Here is another good one:

Hanging over the side of the ship, his eye was caught by a piece of rope.

There goes that eye, like a fried egg or one of Dali's watches!

One more thing: the ..newly-arrived package:· Notice the hyphen. When an
adverb modifies a participle that is in front of its noun, a hyphen often separates the
adverb and participle: freshly-baked bread. plainly-dressed woman. recently-
bereaved widow, etc.
Sometimes a noun or adjective will modify a participle in this way: home-grown
com, smoke-cured ham. new-born baby, old-fashioned goodness. etc.
There is a very confusing thing about some participles. Remember that
sometimes ADJECTIVES are PREDICATE ADJECTIVES.
She was enchanted by his accent.
How can you tell whether the sentence is

TP IL PA

SHE WAS ENCHANTED SHE ENCHANTED

OR

The answer is. you can ·t always be sure. You must decide whether the subject
is really receiving an action (TP) or the past participle is describing a condition
(PA). People will disagree about a given sentence. I lean toward TP in the sentence
abO\'C.

We have seen participles show their --verbness" by having adverbial modifiers.

What other verb traits could participles haYe?
Raking the lawn. Tom found a dollar. Being honest. he returned it.
Becoming a butterfly. the little creature grew beautiful.

TOM FOUND DOLLAR HE RETURNED IT

DO '</ PA
RAKING LAWN BEING HONEST
~~
PA

CREATURE GREW BEAUTIFUL

PN
74

Sure enough, participles CAN have COMPLEMENTS, just like real verbs.
Real verbs have subjects. Even gerunds have "subjects." What could be the
subject of a participle? Look at the sentences above. What or who did the "raking"
and "being" and "becoming"? Why, "Tom," "he," and "creature," the NOUNS the
participles MODIFY. So, unlike gerunds, participles will not have a special rule
about "subjects."
EXCEPT: NOMINATIVE ABSOLUTE

One rather unusual construction is the NOMINATIVE ABSOLUTE. You

MAY find a sentence in which the participle has its own "subject" and the whole
participial phrase seems to stand by itself. For instance:

The work having been finished, the men moved on.

WORK
The NOMINATIVE ABSOLUTE
has NO grammatical connection
~\.;AVING BEEN FINISHED with the sentence and is
diagrammed like an interjection
above the subject.

Gerunds don't have any HELPING VERBS. Participles may.

Tom, raking the lawn, having raked the lawn, having been raking the lawn.
The girl, thrown from the horse, being thrown, having been thrown, etc.

Before diagramming some sentences with all kinds of participial phrases, let's
see how really loaded down a participial phrase might be:

Tom, DILIGENTLY RAKING HIS UNCLE'S WEEDY LAWN WITH

RENEWED ENTHUSIASM BECAUSE HE HAD HEARD THAT SOMEONE
HAD WALKED ACROSS THE GRASS WITH A HOLE IN HIS POCKET,
found a dollar.

That's not a well-constructed sentence, but it is technically correct. Any of you

Superstars want to diagram it just for fun? OK, check the answers, 5-X.

Exercise 5-5: Diagram these sensible sentences. (There are 12 participles, I think.)

I. Taking a lunch break, Jill opened her plastic-wrapped sandwich.

2. She ate a devilled egg, drank a malted milk, and watched the people hurrying
back to the office.
3. Having remained quiet for so long, Jim surprised us with his startling remarks.
 75

4. Having been defeated in the contest, the runner, panting for breath, threw
himself on the ground.
5. Ann, seeing her chance, helped herself to a fattening plate of fried potatoes.

If you were able to manage the last exercise, you are now ready to meet some
sentences with MIXED gerunds and participles. Remember that GERUNDS are
NOUNS, PARTICIPLES are ADJECTIVES!

Exercise 5-6:

I. Stepping on the boat, Jo glanced uneasily toward the lifeboats hanging over the
side.
2. She liked sailing but she was afraid of falling into the churning water.
3. Troubled by the number of dying trees, the farmer began examining the insects
infesting the branches.
4. Swimming faster, Harry neared the screaming child.
5. After grabbing it by the hair, he pulled toward shore, arriving just above the
roaring falls.

Before we leave participles, we should look at a troubling thing about some of

them. As ADJECTIVES, they SHOULD stick to answering the adjective questions
about nouns. BUT frequently they seem to be telling "where" or "how." Look at
this:
I saw him walking toward town.

SAW The "walking toward town" really

tells "where" you saw him, if
WALKING
indeed "him" was the person doing
the walking. Notice that this
particular phrase might be
interpreted as "while! was
walking."

PARTICIPLES ARE STRANGE!

76

GERUNDS
A
N
YOU D
PARTICIPLES

WE WILL PROCEED

5-C. INFINITIVES

Do you recall that you read (many pages ago) that the INFINITIVE form of the
verb is the form used with TO? Examples: to think, to be, to run, to build, etc.

Why is this form called the INFINITIVE? What word do you think of?
"Infinite." Something that is infinite is not limited. It can go on and on. An
INFINITIVE verb is in many ways free. In the infinitive "to see," we don't know:
-WHO IS DOING THE SEEING
-HOW MANY ARE SEEING
-WHEN THE SEEING IS/WAS DONE

In addition to being the BASIC FORM (the one you look up in the dictionary)
of a verb, an INFINITIVE is also a VERBAL. It can be a NOUN, ADJECTIVE, or
ADVERB.

Think of a sentence with an infinitive in it. Probably you made up one with the
infinitive used as a NOUN. Was it like these?

I. I like to swim.
2. I want to see him. SWIM '\o SEX HIM

X I I WANT I
 77

3. To err is human.
4. To dance is to live. '-{o
'\ ERR

A 11s \HUMAN
Number 2 showed you that INFINITIVES can have DO's. You can
immediately (I hope) test out whether infinitives can have PA's and PN's.

PA PN
'o BE HAPPY 'o BE KING

WANT WANT

Can INFINITIVES have adverbial modifiers like real verbs? Gerunds and
participles can. So can INFINITIVES.

I like to swim in the pool. (where) I-like to swim lazily. (how)

I like to swim for exercise. (why) I like to swim at night. (when)

So far we have learned that INFINITIVES can have COMPLEMENTS and

ADVERBIAL MODIFIERS. What about SUBJECTS?

He wants to swim. He wants ME to swim.

They asked to sing. They asked HIM to sing.

The first sentence of each pair indicates that the action of the infinitive is to be
done by the subject. The second sentences of each pair are quite different. The
"ME" and "HIM" are to do the action of the infinitive.

HE WANTS THEY ASKED

An interesting thing about the "ME" and "HIM" is their CASE. Remember
CASE? Nominative, Objective, Possessive? Nominative, you were told, is for
SUBJECTS and PREDICATE NOMINATIVES. But NOT for "subjects" of
INFINITIVES!

THE "SUBJECT" OF AN INFINITIVE JS IN THE OBJECTIVE CASE.

(This rule is similar to: "The 'subject' of a gerund is in the possessive case.")
78

We must also explore INFINITIVES as ADJECTIVES and ADVERBS.

I. The book to read is True Grit.

2. I came to help.

TRUE GRIT

.......__._....__ (WHICH ONE)

Exercise 5-7: Here are some sentences with infinitives. Diagram them,
remembering that infinitives have complements, adverbs, and sometimes
"subjects."

1. I asked him to forgive me.

2. Why do you want to do a parachute jump?
3. He was looking for a movie to see with his grandma.
4. They ordered us to park here.
5. This is the way to paint fences.
6. Some people do not have the sense to come in out of the rain.
7. We ho Id these truths to be self-evident.
8. To see the fireworks we had to climb onto the roof.
9. I am going to see why they asked him to stop singing.
10. He is able to decide things for himself.

In Sentence 9, "to see" can be interpreted as "why" the "I" is doing the "going,"
but we really use the expression "going to" to indicate future action.

There is one more tricky thing about infinitives. They were so nice, weren't
they? You just looked for "to" followed by a verb and figured out what it was
doing. Well, take a look at this:
I saw him take the cookies.

COOKIES

SAW

Certain verbs, such as see, let, and make, may be followed by infinitive
constructions which have a "subject" followed by an infinitive WIIBOUT the
"to." Examples:
They let him go. We made him wait.
 79

Exercise S-8: Now we have covered ALL TI-IE VERBALS! Polish your new skills
by diagramming these sentences, which include gerunds, participles, and
infinitives.

1. Running down the street, he started panting.

2. Jogging had been his hobby for only two days.
3. Rex, straining at his leash, wanted to go along.
4. To move all your things to another place would be costly.
5. Giving his all to overcome the snarling dragon, he advanced toward the cave.
6. He began to speak about the worsening crisis.
7. Suddenly everyone heard a creaking of the timbers.
8. Running for cover as the roof began to cave in, the audience agreed on the need
for improving things.
9. Why did he hope to find an honest man among those twisted cynics?
10 Having been fed on pureed vegetables and unseasoned meats, the baby was
surprised by its first bite of pizza.

If you managed to do that exercise well, you are nearly ready to graduate into
the free-for-all of sentences as they are written and spoken. With only a few more
constructions, you will be ready to diagram-oh, the Declaration of Independence,
if that seems like a good thing to do.

You should have discovered that sometimes our grammatical construction does
not exactly coincide with our meaning, but nearly always there is a logical pattern
to our sentences, even the ones we toss off carelessly in speech. Now that you
understand the basic framework of the sentence, you can use this knowledge to
improve your own sentences and English usage.

I have never been able to understand how a student was to use "stronger" verbs
until he knew what a verb was, or how he could "vary his sentence structure"
before he had seen how main and subordinate clauses differed, or how he could
"avoid dangling participles" without knowing what a participle was supposed to
look like when it wasn't dangling. Diagramming provides a systematic, clear,
interesting method to understand and use our great language.
80

CHAPTER SIX
ADDITIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS

There are three fairly important constructions which have not been mentioned
so far:

-APPOSITIVE
-OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT
-ADVERBIAL NOUN

You may already know them and may have been wondering what had become
of them. The reason they were not included earlier is that when it was logical to
introduce them, there was so much else to cover, it seemed just too much at the
time. So here they are now.

You have learned that NOUNS can do quite a few jobs:

I) SUBJECT (REX barks.)

2) DIRECT OBJECT (I see REX.)
3) PREDICATE NOMINATIVE (Rex is a DOG.)
4) OBJECT OF A PREPOSITION (I yelled at REX.)
5) INDIRECT OBJECT (I gave REX a bone.)
6) DIRECT ADDRESS (REX, you come here.)
7) RETAINED OBJECT (Rex was given a BONE.)
The three new constructions named above are also NOUN JOBS.

6-A. APPOSITIVE

An APPOSITIVE is a NOUN (and any modifiers) that RESTATES

ANOTHER NOUN and SHARES ITS CONSTRUCTION.
That is a rather deadly definition, isn't it? Examples will help:
My friend, Ann Doe, has a car.
FRIEND(ANN DOE) HAS CAR
~).. "1

The APPOSITIVE goes in parentheses beside the word with which it is "in
apposition."
The wicked witch, the one with the wart on her nose, was defeated.
WAS DEFEATED
Notice that a pronoun can
do an appositive job, too.

NOSE
 81

Exercise 6-1: Diagram these sentences with appositives:

I. Nora, the girl with the big smile, was waving at Jim.
2. My sister Nancy gave a present, a big Barbie doll, to her friend Sara on her
birthday, July 20.
3. Rex, the wonderdog, dashed to the rescue of Tabby, the cat.
4. You, the voters of tomorrow, will have to solve these problems: overpopulation,
pollution, and hunger.
5. William the Conqueror brought French influence to England, an Anglo-Saxon
land.

You may have noticed that some appositives and appositive phrases (the noun
and words that go with it) are set off by commas and some are not. Very closely
associated appositives and those that arc essential to the identification of the noun
are not always set off by commas. But if an appositive has a comma in front of it, it
must have one after it (unless it is followed by another mark of punctuation.)
Example:
My sister Mabel is pretty.
OR
My sister, Mabel, is pretty.

In Sentence 4 you found a colon(:) preceding a list. The nouns in the list are in
apposition with the preceding noun, in this case "problems," and share its
construction, here acting as direct object of"to solve."
Appositives can be verbals and even occasionally noun clauses. Observe these
examples:
His dream, to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, is unsound.
His dream, that he can go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, is unsound.

THAT

HE

UNSOUND DREAM

6-8. OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT

They named the baby Bill. They called the dog Rex.

TA DO QC TA DO QC

THEY I NAMED I BABY \BILL I

THEY CALLED I DOG \REX
82

We thought that he was handsome. We thought him handsome.

THAT

HE HANDSOME
TA DO OC

WE THOUGHT I
WE THOUGHT I HIM\ HANDSOME

We chose him to be president. We chose him president.

HIM PRES.
TA DO OC
WE CHOSE WE I CHOSE I HIM\ PRES.

Study the diagrams above carefully. In every case the MAIN verb in the
sentence is TRANSITIVE ACTIVE, requiring a DIRECT OBJECT. In the
sentences with OC (OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENn, the direct object is completed
by either a noun or an adjective.

CERTAIN VERBS OF NAMING, THINKING, OR SELECTING MAY

HAVE THE DIRECT OBJECT COMPLETED BY A NOUN OR ADJECTIVE
CALLED AN OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT.

Notice that you could take each DO-OC pair and make a kind of linking verb
statement:
"baby is Bill," "dog is Rex," "he is handsome," etc.

Exercise 6-2: Diagram these sentences to get practice with OBJECTIVE

COMPLEMENTS.

l. They called her "Frivolous Sal."

2. Melvin considers you his friend.
3. Should they have elected Herman a director of the company?
4. The doctor finally pronounced him able to travel.
5. The captain had already chosen Bill first mate.

6-C. ADVERBIAL NOUN

By now if you don't know that adverbs answer the questions "where, when,
why, and how," you just haven't been trying. You have surely noticed that
sometimes it is hard to know exactly which adverbial question is being answered.
 83

Sometimes "how" means "to what degree" or "under what circumstances," or even
"despite what circumstances" (i.e., an "although" clause). But you have developed,
I hope, an ADVERB SENSE - an awareness that a certain word or expression is
modifying a verb, adjective or other adverb.

So far you have seen the following ADVERB CONSTRUCTIONS:

He came SUDDENLY. (single adverb)

He came IN A BUS. (prepositional phrase)
He came WHEN I CALLED. (adverb clause)
He came TO HELP. (infinitive)

You have not been confronted (at least not intentionally) with these
constructions:
I waited three years. He ran ten yards.

You might immediately think that "years" is the direct object of "waited" After
all, "Waited what?" "Three years." But THINK. "Waited" is really, in this usage
INtransitive. And the sentence might just as well read, "I waited FOR three years."

Here "years" is an ADVERBIAL NOUN, modified by the ADJECTIVE

"three."

l11e ADVERBIAL NOUN is

diagrammed like the indirect object.

The second example, "He ran ten yards," is a little different. You might make a
case that sometimes "run" is transitive with a distance as the direct object: "He ran
the mile in five minutes." Here "mile" would be the DO of"ran."

But since we can say just as well, "He ran FOR ten yards," surely "ten yards"
answers "how" in the sense of"how far."

HE HE

What about "yesterday" and "today"? My dictionary says they are both nouns
AND adverbs. So it is all right to diagram them as adverbs when they answer
"when."
84

HE LEFT YESTERDAY WAS

But the days of the week are nouns.

MARY HE

And don't forget good old

HE WENT

HOME

If you enjoy puzzling over such things, consider the grammatical uses of
money. The dictionary definition of "cost" is hard to figure out (look it up for
yourself), but I suspect you can think of
"It cost three dollars"

as or
TA DO IC
IT COST DOLLARS IT COST
~
~~~

However, what about this one:

It is worth three dollars.

IL PA

IT IS

I'm not at all sure that "dollars" is an adverbial noun. I think perhaps "worth" is
a special case.
 85

A similar construction might be:

I am aware that he lied.

lfwe said, "I know that he lied," we would diagram it:

THAT

~ I
LIED

KNOW IX
IL PA

'AM\ AWARE won't TAKE a NOUN CLAUSE AS OBJECT.

HOWEVER, maybe "that he lied" could be an ADVERBIAL NOUN telling

"how" "I am aware." Thus:

IL PA

AM

-.
THAT

LIED

Exercise 6-3: Diagram these sentences, being on the lookout for whatever you
think might be an ADVERBIAL NOUN.

I. He will leave today or Tuesday.

2. He ran three miles, ate four sandwiches, and went home.
3. Last night the concert seemed to last hours.
4. Nellie and Bob are going fishing.
5. He spent three years researching that book.
86

YOU

:A
:N
:o

(YOU)

: F YOU CAN (DIAGRAM)

:o
:R
: PEOPLE WILL KNOW ENOUGH

CERTAIN

\lz-~
--....--+----'~-.......- -...~1-

(YOU)

* HONORARY LINKING VERB!

 87

CHAPTER SEVEN
COMPOUND AND COMPLEX SENTENCES

If you have studied everything in the book so far, you will have only to learn
the names of the constructions which you have already practiced.
Sentences are sometimes classified by the number and kinds of clauses they
contain.
I. SIMPLE SENTENCE--contains one MAIN (or independent) CLAUSE
2. COMPOUND SENTENCE--contains two or more MAIN CLAUSES
3. COMPLEX SENTENCE--contains one MAIN and one or more
SU BORDIN A TE ( or dependent) CLAUSES
4. COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCE--contains two or more MAIN
CLAUSES and one or more SUBORDINATE CLAUSES

Every sentence MUST have at least one main clause, of course, or it is not a
sentence. The first sentences you diagrammed were all SIMPLE sentences. Then
when you studied "Compound Elements," you saw that two main clauses might be
joined to make a COMPOUND sentence:
JOE

:B SCHOOL
:u
:T

HOME

As soon as you diagrammed your first dependent clause, you had diagrammed a
COMPLEX sentence Additional subordinate clauses would not make it any more
"complex."

MEAN IWHAT
\%,
___M_A_N_ _u_N_D_E_R_S_T_A_N_D_s.........__ _...~
~ :
-~: . SAY
WHO
88

Finally, putting together the requirements for compound and complex, we have
a COMPOUND-COMPLEX sentence:

:REX I GROWLED

:a
:u
:T
: FATHER! KEPTI~.

Could it be simpler or more logical?

Exercise 7-1: Diagram these and tell which category each is.

I. John is mad and I am glad and I know how to please him.

2. This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack
built.
3. The sun, shining across the bay with an unmatched splendor, scattered its rays
upon the tiny sailboats lying at anchor in the shallows.
4. l bought one; you will be sorry if you do.
5. l do what I should not do, but I do not do what I should.

There. Any surprises in the answers?

 89

CHAPTER EIGHT
MISCELLANY

This section includes all the "leftovers" that I would be uneasy about omitting.
Some items cover special cases of diagramming but others deal with usage matters
which can be made particularly clear through diagrams. Since diagramming is a
MEANS to understanding our language and using it well, this book should at least
start you in the direction of better usage.

8-A. ABOUT ADJECTIVE CLAUSES

I. Avoid the "INDEFINITE WHICH."

It rained, which made us cancel our picnic.

OK, IT I RAINED but from what do you HANG the relative pronoun?

He was really very angry, which frightened me.

Same problem. It wasn't the "he" which frightened me, nor the "was," nor the
"angry."

Both of the "which" clauses above are examples of ADJECTIVE CLAUSES

TRYING TO FIND A NOUN OR PRONOUN TO MODIFY, but ending up trying
to modify a whole sentence. The best antidote is to rewrite the sentence
completely:

We canceled our picnic because it rained.

He was so angry that we were frightened.

WHICH MUST MODIFY A SPECIFIC NOUN CONSTRUCTION, NOT A

WHOLE CLAUSE!

(When you write a sentence with "which," be sure that you have a place to
"hang" it.)
? .···.. ..... ..--~-- ~(~
·... • ~.,
.).~
~ ..., , ·
• •
.... ••• • .#

2. "WHERE" and "WHEN" can sometimes be RELATIVE PRONOUNS.

Remember your list of relative pronouns: WHO, WHOSE, WHOM, THAT,

WHICH. Well, once in a while we tell "which one" by telling "where" or "when."
90

Observe:
I know the house where he was born.
Remember the time when he sang.

(YOU) REMEMBER TIME

HE

8-8. ABOUT ADVERB CLAUSES

I. LIKE is a PREPOSITION, NOT a SUBORDINATING CONruNCTION.

There used to be an advertisement which would be diagrammed like this:

I
WINSTON TAST~S \ GOOD
··.<4....
<t
CIGAR~TTE SHOULD(TASTE) (GOOD)
"1

Apparently enough English teachers used it as a hideous example that the

company thought to capitalize on the public's general resentment of people who try
to raise the cultural level (English teachers). So they came out with another slogan
diagrammed below:

YOU DO WANT I WHAT

The basic problem is that we seem to NEED a conjunction that "feels better"
than "as" in certain comparisons. It is technically poor usage to say,
She can cook just like her mother can.
SHE CAN COOK

(JUST MODIFIES WHOLE CLAUSE)

MOTHER CAN (COOK)

~
 91

Putting the verb "can" in there makes "like" a conjunction. Yet even an English
teacher wouldn't say, "She can cook just as her mother can." Ugh! One solution is
to leave out the "can" and make "mother" the object of the preposition "like."
Changing usage may solve the problem. When enough educated people accept
"like" as a conjunction, the rest of us peasants will not be sneered at for using it in
formal situations. But despite the limpness of the warnings in our ever niore
permissive dictionaries, "LIKE" as a CONJUNCTION ain't arrived yet.

2. "SO...THAT'' acts as a SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTION.

Usually "that" clauses are adjective or noun clauses:

This is the book that was lost. (ADJ.)

The truth is that it was stolen. (NOUN)

TH~T

THIS I IS \ • BOOK

TH~T lwAs \ LOST

But look at these:

He is so thin that you cannot see him.

The bird flew so quickly that I missed it.

HE I IS THIN BIRD FLEW

·../ ~ d'o
··.:>
YOU HIM

3. The SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD is still alive, but barely.

School children used to be taught about MOOD:

INDICATIVE-makes a declarative statement

INTERROGATIVE-asks a question (I was taught that, but it's not in
my dictionary now.)
IMPERATIVE-gives a command
92

SUBJUNCTIVE-expresses a condition contrary to fact or a wish

If you want to know more about the subjunctive mood in all its elegant variety,
get a very old grammar book and look it up. It sounds so pretty! But in today's
usage one of the few places where the subjunctive is alive and well is in "if'
clauses that are CONTRARY TO FACT, especially in the FIRST PERSON
SINGULAR (I):
If I were you (but of course I' 111 NOT you)
If I were rich (alas, that's contrary to fact, too)

The other place where the subjunctive mood is different from the indicative is
in the THIRD person singular:
If he or she or it were honest (but they aren't)

One more situation for this mood: the noun clause after "I wish."

I wish that I were you.

WERE YOU

WISH

This is all the subjunctive we have space for, but be on the lookout in old-
fashioned writing for such things as "were he to go" or "if he be sent."
SUBJUNCTIVE!

8-C. ABOUT PRONOUNS

There are so many kinds of pronouns that you will need to consult another
source to track them all down. There are DEMONSTRATIVE,
INTERROGATIVE, RELATIVE (your old friends), REFLEXIVE, INTENSIVE,
INDEFINITE, PERSONAL, and more.
Remember how we sorted out WHO and WHOM? If you don't, look back to
adjective clauses and relative pronouns in Chapter 4. The basic rule was that the
CASE depended on the use of WHO or WHOM in its own clause. There is another
group of pronouns that give trouble, and the easiest way to sort them out is in a
chart:
 93

PERSONAL PRONOUNS
Singular Nominative Objective Possessive

I st Person me my,mine
2nd Person you you your, yours
3rd Person he, she, it him, her, it his, her, hers, its

Plural

I st Person WC us our, ours

2nd Person you you your, yours
3rd Person they them their, theirs

If you haven't learned this chart already, learn it now. These are terms with
which you should be familiar, especially in studying foreign languages.

Now that you know when to use the NOMINATIVE CASE (SUBJECTS and
PREDICATE NOMINATIVES, of course) and the OBJECTIVE CASE
(OBJECTS of all kinds and "SUBJECTS" of infinitives), you should have no
trouble understanding why these fonns are chosen by what contemporary grammar
books call "careful writers and speakers":
IL PN

It is \ I, he, she, we, they

Mary waited
John

her us them

he she we the ou him her us

a saw a
n ;---+--+-----'--- n
d d
I he we the him her us them
94

In speech, the fonn "It is me" has gained considerable acceptance among the
educated. Perhaps it seems somehow more "objective" about oneself. (Ha ha!) But
the other persons should stay nominative in the PREDICATE NOMINATIVE.

While we are on the subject of usage as accepted by educated speakers or

writers (what used to be called CORRECT as opposed to INCORRECT in the bad
old days), there are social classes of what I am going to call ERRORS. Picture the
different social levels of the people who make the following errors:

Me and him were fighting.

He's waiting for you and I.

Both sentences contain wrong PRONOUN CASES. I certainly hope you were
able to find them. I have tried to figure out why the NOMINATIVE case is
misused by the GENTEEL and the OBJECTIVE case by the TOUGH GUYS. I
simply don't know. But I wish I had a nickel for every time I have heard a college
graduate say:
between you and I, for she and Bob, to Mabel and I,
AND MORE BAD STUFF LIKE THAT.

Presumably, if you have worked your way this far through the book, you are
beyond using the OBJECTIVE case as SUBJECT ("Me and her went...") though
maybe you are not above using OBJECTIVE as PREDICATE NOMINATIVE (It
was them ..."). However, you may be one of those dear earnest souls who feel they
MUST put the second pronoun of a COMPOUND OBJECT into the
NOMINATIVE CASE. "It sounds so much better," you say. Well, work on it until
it doesn't sound better. Say these over and over till they feel natural:

HER HIM

THEY SAW

ME ME
YOU
)',o

us ME

Another place where diagramming will help you understand proper CASE comes
after the contraction "Let's."
"Let's" means "let us." Who is to do the letting? Understood "you."
 95

Examine this sentence:

Let's go to the store.

STORE
(YOU) LET ~~

Notice that the '"s" or "us" becomes the "SUBJECT' of the infinitive "go," and
"subjects" of infinitives are in the OBJECTIVE CASE. Sure enough, your chart
will show that "us" is indeed OBJECTIVE.
Now, suppose I want to emphasize the people included in that "us": second
person singular and first person singular.

Let's ___ and ___ go to the store.

The blanks will be APPOSITIVES (remember them?) and will SHARE THE
CONSTRUCTION of the thing with which they are in apposition. (Whew! Am I
glad I can diagram it for you!)
Because "you" and "me" are in
apposition with "us," they take
the same CASE as "us,"
OBJECTIVE.

us

(YOU) LET

After all of that, you may wish to give thanks that our dear English language
has CASE differences only for PERSONAL PRONOUNS and WHO.

8-D. ABOUT PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

I. Some PREPOSITIONS have TWO WORDS.

Examples: because of, instead of, according to, etc.
Diagram them as one word.

2. Some lists of PREPOSITIONS give some THREE-WORD ones.

Examples: in front of, in spite of, by means of
I think of these as really one and a half prepositional phrases and diagram them:
96

HE HE

9c- CHEATING
W1ND0W

~~

3. While PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES are nonnally ADJECTIVES and

ADVERBS, sometimes they do strange things. Observe:

Over the fence is out.

Ot., How about that? Notice that even the

~ FENCE PREDICATE ADJECTIVE (or NOUN?)
is an ADVERB!
'1-~
IS OUT

With the fingers is the best way to eat bacon.

~
~ FINGERS

~~ .>,
o EAT
JS WAY

In the last sentence you may feel that "way" should be the subject. But that
leaves "with the fingers" as PREDICATE NOUN, or something.

We have earlier mentioned how "to be" verbs seem to be COMPLETED rather
than MODIFIED by prepositional phrases:

She was in the barn. The appointment had been for three.

SHE

BARN
~~
 97

These "exceptions" just make you stay on your toes and appreciate the
flexibility of our language.

8-E. ABOUT NOUNS

WORDS THAT NAME THINGS-NOUNS-ARE WILLING TO WORK

ALMOST ANYWHERE.

I. Many NOUNS also work as VERBS. Of course, deciding whether the NOUN
"hammer" came before or after the VERB "to hammer" is like worrying over the
old "chicken-egg" controversy. But many words used as VERBS also name
objects. Examples:

They tabled the motion. (put it on the table to delay it)

He was floored by the suggestion. (knocked to the floor)
Were you booked for the crime? (name written in the record books)
The dog treed the possum.(chased him up a tree)

Notice the vividness and strength these verbs have because you can picture the
objects in the scene.

2. NOUNS often serve as ADJECTIVES.

Look at the hat.

Which one? The BEAVER hat.
What kind? A FELT hat.
Whose? GEORGE's hat.

Possession usually requires the "apostrophe-s" fonn. But we sometimes say "an
Edison invention," "a Renoir painting," etc., showing "whose" as well as "what
kind."

3. The ADVERBIAL NOUN has its own section in Chapter 6. But you remember
it, don't you?

He waited three hours. HE

98

WELL! I have not covered every situation you will find. For instance, the
subtitle of REX BARKS is:

DJAGRAMM ING

_ ___.l_..__~ADE\ EASY

What in the world is "easy" after that passive participle, "made"? Probably
some kind of retained objective complement??

If you have been able to understand and master this book, you are now ready to
FIGURE OUT FOR YOURSELF an explanation for whatever you run into.

Find a good dictionary (and don't ask me what that is) and the oldest grammar
book that you can get. Then dare the world to find a sentence that can stop you!

P.S. WAS it "made easy"? I tried.

When CHALLENGE!
in the
course
of human
events it
L__J
·~
becomes ne-
cessary for
one people to
dissolve the
political bands
which have con-
nected them with
another and to
assume among the
powers of the earth
the separate and equal
station to which the
laws of nature and of
nature's God entitle them,
a decent respect for the
opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the
causes which impel them to
+-
\········\ \ \---~
I
the separation.

("The's" are omitted in

frame provided.)
(!)
(!)
 101

APPENDIX

These pages contain an EXTREMELY CONDENSED summary of the

traditional approach to sentence analysis and diagramming. It may be helpful as:

I) a quick review of"grammar" as a whole

2) an overview of an area to be studied

3) a handy source of answers to specific questions

4) a place to see where newly-learned material fits into the total picture.
102

MRS. D'S E-Z GUIDE TO GRAMMAR

I.PARTS OF SPEECH

The part of speech of a word depends on its use in the sentence.

NOUN-names a person, place, thing, idea.

Mary sings. I went to Texas. See the box. He showed indifference.

PRONOUN-takes place of a noun.

He sings. Everyone was tired. Give them time.
I know whom YQ!!. mean.
VERB-a word of action or being.
Bill ran fast. He was happy. The rug faded. He wanted money.
Paula has been singing. She might have seen me. I could try it.
(Helping verbs: may can must might shall will should
would could have do be.)

ADJECTIVE- modifies noun or pronoun.

The mg_tree, Mother's ring, a kind person, sixteen blackbirds.
ANSWERS the QUESTIONS: WIDCH ONE? WHAT KIND?
WHOSE? HOW MANY?

ADVERB- modifies verb, adjective, or other adverb.

Ran swiftly, too fat, ~ simply done, stated clearly.
ANSWERS the QUESTIONS: WHERE? WHEN? WHY?
HOW?

CONJUNCTION-joins two words, phrases, or clauses.

Bob and I; down the street and around the comer; While it
snowed, the cat slept.

PREPOSITION---connects a noun or pronoun with rest of sentence and gives

some relationship, such as space ill! the box), time (after
school), direction (toward the house), cause (fur his country.)

INTERJECTION-exclamation.
Oh! Look at that! Wow! He did it!
Alas! We shall not meet again.
 103

II. PHRASES

A phrase is a group of related words, without a subject and a verb, used as a

single part of speech.

A. VERB PHRASE (NOT verbal phrase}-a verb and its helpers: he might be
sleeping; she should have been knitting; they did seem angry.

B. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE-preposition plus object (noun or pronoun) and

any modifiers of the object.
I. Adjective-The book on the desk is mine.
(Tells which one.)
2. Adverb-He put the pen in his pocket.
(Tells where.)
C. VERBAL PHRASE-A verbal is a verb form used as another part of speech.
There are three kinds of verbals.
I. Participle (Adjective}-The £!Y!!!g child; (tells what kind). The book sent
to him by Mary; (tells which one.)
2. Gerund (Noun}-ALWAYS ends in -ing. I like fishing. He won by !n:'.i!!g
hard.
3. Infinitive (Noun}-To swim is fun.
(Adjective}-He is the one to see.
(Adverb}-He came to see me.

Verbal phrases may have completers, modifiers, and sometimes "subjects."

104

III. CLAUSES

A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb.

CLAUSES
Main or
Independent Subordinate or Dependent
Noun Adjective Adverb
C Used as: Modifies: Modifies:
A
N Subj. Noun or Pronoun Verb, Adj., or
P.N. Introduced by Adv.
s D.O. Rel. Pro. Introduced by
T Obj. Prep. ( who, whose, Subordinating
A 1.0. whom, that, Conjunction
N Appos. which)
D (I believe
(I know (The cat because I see.)
A that I see.) that I see
L is fat.)
0
N
E

(I see.)

IV. KINDS OF VERBS

TRANSITIVE ACTIVE-ALWAYS carries action from Subject (Doer) to Direct

Object (Receiver).

Bill I TA
kicked I
DO
cat

TRANSITIVE PASSIVE-Carries action to Subject (Receiver).

(always has helping

Cat I TP
was kicked verb and past participle.)
 105

INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE-Subject is doer of action; no completer necessary.

Birds I IC
sing

INTRANSITIVE LINKING-"State of being" verbs; act as "equals mark"; need

predicate noun or predicate adjective to complete them.

I
IL PA IL PN

he is \ happy he became\ king

Linking Verbs: Parts of "to be":

be sound am were
become taste are being
seem smell is been
appear remain was
look grow
feel stay

V. SENTENCES BY STRUCTURE

SIMPLE SENTENCE-I main clause.

COMPOUND SENTENCE-2 or more main clauses

COMPLEX SENTENCE-I main, I or more dependent clauses

COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCE-2 or more main, I or more dependent

clauses.
 .....
DIAGRAMMIN G FORMS 0
0)

TA DIRECT
OBJECT

1.0.
"-INDIRECT
,"1<) OBJECT
<r

TP TA DO
IC
rope
dog has been barkin Bill
1.0.
~$ -~-~ Henry Jim
"-INDIRECT
OBJECT
PN or PA
COMPOUNDS
SUBJECT I IL
LINKING VERB
\ PREDICATE
NOUN OR ADJ Bill COMPOUND
VERB
PA NI ) I san \..
he weary she ate
Ha

We
 DIAGRAMMIN G FORMS
DEPENDENT CLAUSES: I
ADVERB CLAUSE I NOUN CLAUSE
ADJECTIVE CLAUSE I I cried I
I he I thinks I what
red •• ~<')
·-~
. ·Y'f~ I
I

I I I know
~ which
I
I was \.haeet
I
I
I

Rel. Pn. Nero I fiddled I

I you I say I what
see I book ·-.~~~ I

he wrote : '~
,\<' Rome I bu~ned I
I

4 which I
I
lou I see I what you 1 f t I what
This
I is \. house Rel. Pn. ,. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ J I
I
L I is \.

:~~ ;; I
Jack I built I that ;
./ VERBALS: I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

R. Pn. ;

----------- ----~
INFINITIVE - "TO" plus verb used
Verb forms used as other parts of speech.
GERUND - ends in -ing; used
as Noun, Adj. or Adv. PARTICIPLE - used as ADJ., ends in -ing. -d, -1, or -n. as NOUN.

r.r
~

,0 s~im

like
1,s \
He I came "< 0 see I me
'\ l
~

0
-.J
 ~

0
CD

MYSTERY
CHALLENGE
\___
Here is another
famous historical
quotation. Figure
out what it is if you
don't know it by heart
(looking it up will be
good for you) and diagram
it into this frame. Again,
no "the's" are diagrammed.

CLUES: First word-"We"

Last word-"America"
ANSWERS
110

ANSWERS

CHAPTER ONE

1-1 NOUNS
I. cat, fence, Siamese, window
2. Rex, slipper, father, tongue
3. birthday, Tuesday, peace, quiet, friends, vacation
4. Medicine Hat, Nebraska, Boston, culture, home, Harry

1-2 PRONOUNS
I. He, me, who, my, it, it
2. Somebody, something, one, it
3. Who, this, us
4. Those, you, what, these
5. Whose, I, I, him, everything, I, him

1-3 VERBS
I. competed, was interested
2. has been coming, has increased
3. might have been, upset, had left
4. has been snowing (really is an adverb), went

1-4 ADJECTIVES
I. Three, fat, red, their (possessive pronouns are also adjectives when they
answer "whose"), our, telephone
2. The, only, (to make is an infinitive used as an adjective), a, good, chocolate,
vanilla, strawberry, maple, chopped, marshmallow
3. an, enormous, Sunday, the, old, the, vine-covered, the, creaking, his, regular,
Sunday
(Did you notice that some of these ADJECTIVES can also be NOUNS in other
sentences?)

1-SADVERBS
1. Suddenly, very, wildly, hurriedly
2. (When is a conjunction introducing an adverb clause), thoroughly, very,
carefully, well
3. gloomily, fully, soon, enough
4. never, again, so, very, eagerly
 111

1-6 PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

Prepositions Adjectives Objects (Nouns)

I. in spring
for signs
of new life
m our yard

2. after school
to the store
for a way
(to spend is an INFINITIVE, not a preposition)
for his birthday

3. during this wave

terrible
suffocating
heat
out of his house
( out of is considered one preposition)

4. to his credit
about the robbery

5. in the dark
of the night
to children
under my bed

CHAPTER TWO

2-1

I.
--'-'R""'ex"-+-1----'-'w;a.;h""in""e.::.d_ _ _ 2 · Rex I was panting

3· Rex I might have been scratching

4. --'-'R""ex"-+-1---d;:a.;i.=.d..;::b.::.a:..:.;rk'----5. Rex I should have howled

112

6. Rex I could have been growling

7. Rex I must have run 8. Rex I had slept

9. Rex I may be eating

10.
Rex I
will have been digging

2-2 Subject verb

I. Joe has been here.
2. You would have done that.
3. He did leave why.
4. You have been where all day.
5. He can mean what by that statement.
6. Who came to the door? (No change necessary.)
7. Mary could be the one we want.
8. Alex must always be driving his car.
9. He did pick which one.
I0. A poor girl can trust whom.

2-3
BIRDS SING

WHIG~; \ _ HOW
ONE MANY
 113

2-4
I. 2.
REX WHINED REX WAS PANTING

~
WHAT
HOW KIND
WHAT KIND HOW

3.
REX MIGHT HAVE BEEN SCRATCHING
).,
~~
~
~;. WHEN

4.
REX

5.

From here on answers will be abbreviated. I hope you will not have trouble
figuring out that "h b list"= "has been listening."

2-5 HAR H B LIST

I.

3. 4.

5. 6.
114

CHI MBCR THEY MHB LAU

7. 8.

9.

13.

FIREW WEX
15.
i\ 16.

17. 18.
HE I TAL

~~
19. DAWN
I WBR 20.

~~
2-6
BASK APP
I. 2.
WHICH FOOD
ONE
'-WHAT
~ KIND

CAT SCR WAS OWED

3. 4.
L'S ...____
WHOSE DOL
HOW
MANY

\~ ~
(M~H}
 115

SANG
2-7

WHICH/
ONE
. ,. TREE
~

2-8
l.

s ( NOTE "in ...• could

7. modify "girl," too.)
116

H
9.

10. I WALK 11.

SHE

~~D
~

13.
HE I CB SL

~~
12.
NOJSE

14. 15. NOB H BL

'~>~u'
\~ \

16. WHAT CBK

"'······· 0-<' OUT

OR

~
18. _ _ _ _ _...;LA;;;;...;.;;U;...__
SH_E
17.
1'~
ST INC

19. HE 20
 117

!. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
2-9
HE

3. WE

4. WAS WRITTEN

TAP

s. YOU SHB :o 9i. TAB

:R
SING
1- \ 'Z.

6. M

A H BST
7. KIT
N
0 ~
...
-:i;. ~ ~
D
H ~ ~

8. YOU I MBRID

9. V·ic\~ MOT

q_ IT ~~
1-

NELLIE ALAS
10. 11.
(YOU) LOOK

~ BED

.J..
118

WON
12. NEL
A
YOU HDUS 13. N
D

RM
LONG

\.L
HAH
14.
YOU WBELIM

15.
AM AMAZED

B
i 1,_
u
T

WISH
t~

CHAPTER THREE

3-1
TA DO TA
1. N (PUT) D 2. YOU HS

'i, SINK 1-
....-5,
DO
4. (STORIES)

TA DO
OTTO (THREW) FOOD
5. ....
0 SO
....
-5,
 119

3-2 IC TA DO
I. BIRDS SING BIRDS I s. SONGS

IC TA DO
2. BILL WFI ALI WFI JCE
o(\
TITLE
-"1-

IC TA DO

,~
YOU CUP
3. D
I BR
I DBR

\<t. MT
~
TA DO
SH SW POR
4.
a
,,.
\~
3-3 IC TA DO
I. R BIT R BIT MM

CAT
~

~
IC
3. 4.
R I CJ HE

~ FEN

\~ 'I,

DO
5. R I TA
DBUR BO 6. R

\\ ~ BA

~
120

TA DO TA DO
7.
R I ~BRA CA
8. SHTI R

V\~ \~ ....
0 FEN
1
TA 00 IC
ESC
9. YOU CST I WH

\~ 10. HE
TA
t
00
FOL ANN
~
0 SCH
3-4
1. The ball was lost by Harry.
2. The antique safe was broken by the force of the blow.
3. The tinkle of breaking glass was heard by everyone in the room.
4. A good time was had by all the people.
5. With the arrival of Harry, the rehearsal was begun by us.

3-5
I . The shutter hit Dorothy on the head.
2. (We) have often seen Melinda at the opera.
3. In some countries chaperones guard girls.
4. A spider might have bitten George.
5. Mother, (I) smashed your favorite lamp.

3-6
~DO ~TP
I LET
I
\-:} I
I. H LET 2. WWR
WWR

yo suz \11 \~ THU

3. ~DO 4. ~TP
WHO I ST I PIG PIG WST

~
-:}
 121

~TP
5. 6. wov
N
I
Y. .__ D_1s_

~ ~DO
7. CR M HBC 8. M SHBE CAN
~
TOWN

.------;;, ~DO
9......._B_A_T_-f-__,_,_w_w_o_N_ _ 10. G I BR I REC

TRO
Vh
NOTICE
From this point on, ANSWERS will OMIT
"THE's."

~ ~
3-7
DO DO
I. DOG I BIT I MAN 2. MAN I BIT I DOG

3. ~ TP 4. ~TP
D
I
WB H I ws

~ MAN ~ OPERA

5. IC
6. CAME
N ~:;.\
C :A
---~:N
:D IC
~ HOUSE

JUM
~ CAR
122

~DO IC
7. R HBO I
SHR I 8. J I COMES

\c:o \\\\\<t SAT

9.
~DO
NOTH I CK
I J IO.vou
~DO
HBV I
AH
I
~ ~

IC
~ DO
I
TA
11. HBG 12. I HS I HIM

\i~
IC
~~
TA DO
13. CL I CAME 14. YOU DT SEC

'7~ \1l K i.
:,_
..-\
0
N

~TP
15. 16· PA H BTI
~ POR

IC
17. BR I WLIS
18.

~\\ D

19.

M
r (Perhaps "in ... "
modifies
whole phrase)
 123

3-8
TA DO TA DO
I.
H I MHF BUT
2.
HE CH

~ w
~ \-i~I ~
TA DO ~TP
3. cs 4.
YOU FL TUX
I WTHR
~ \~ \i;o
TA DO
5. DU I WE GR

\~ RO
'
3-9 IC
I. 2.
SH

~
HER
I HBS

~~ 'i_;
WAT

TP TP
3. WAW 4.

v I
ST
PR
I MHBEX

'z~ R
\\
5. JC
6.
IC
MHF
I
I
v
BUN FOR WGL

\~ TR
~~ M
JC IC
7. CAME 8.

~'
MM J CHBP

RESV- Tl
'
TP IC
9. ST WBR 10. HE I HF

~ \~ \l>' IT
124

3-10
TA DO TA DO
I.
I THR I BALL
2. HE DIDWR L

'9, 10
v YOU

3. By November I had mailed Vernon a present.

TA DO
I HM I PR

4. He had saved Ann a seat in the front row.

HE
9, 10
v ANN

5. Lottie gives Mervin a pain. 6. Throw me a rope!

7. Have you baked the class a cake? 8. Zelda did knit him a sweater.

TA DO
YOU z I DK I SW

3-11 IL
IS, WAS, HAS BEEN, ETC.
BECAME

JANE I REMAINED \
STAYED -
PN
CHEERLEADER
 125

3-12

IL PA IL PA
1. SH i HBL~ SICK 2. I AMBE~ ANGR

~ \~ MIN

N
IL PA
3. 4.
TR
I DL ~ BLUE

\t BRM
H

IL PA IL PA
5. C I MHB~ FR 6. L I CHA~ BL

\~ ~ ~ \~
PN
7. PR H

PA
y PA
IO. H WIN
9. AC FIR
~ R
PA
OL ~

PL
3-13
IC IC
BEG LO HE APP
1.
I 2.
~ w ,~~ DOR

TA DO TA DO
R SM STR Fl sou AL
3.
I 4.
I
126

PUD I HBT
TP
H
IC
GREW
~
5.
~
6
COOK .

H I TA
GREW I CAR
DO

7. (YOU) 8. DRE I TA
BEC
DO
! YOU
~~
DO IC
EL 10. _DOC
_ _...__IS
_ __
9.
OFC

3-14 PA
IL

I.
R
I G \ NER
2.
C I HBG
TP

CR "{

IC
3. HBG 4. MUR

TA DO
SM SP
6. ___E_D__.,........R-~-M~--1.--~0-N___
5.
POP
PA
\i_M
<
HO ,s..

IL PA
TP
B ANG 8. HBF

7. K ~I
TA DO
ST HAND
 127

IL PA IL
9. SHE MBB SLIM HB
-y
10.
HE
DI
IL
-5- BEC
-y

3-15
1.

3.
-~
v~ ~~
HBJ

IC
DB
IC
2.

4.
PAR

HE
I
~
CBG
IC
FL

IC
:;4 W

B H

r
OR...)l
~
.....
1-

5.
C I SHBW
IC

~~ BR

3-16
TA DO TA DO

~
l. w 2. HTHR DI

i;'0~ BAS
DIST

y~

DO TA DO
I
y I~\S_
3. s MONEY 4. SHE SM AR

LET

HE
5.
WIN
128

3-17
TP TP
I.
WDR
2. OUT I C BAL

3.

II'

TP TP
4. LET H BOP 5. AD
I SH B PUB

~~ ~
3-18
IL PA IL PN
I. 2.
R F \ C N HR
~ FR

\\ ~
p;
TROU
t-i IL PA
\
[I
I
B SM \ FR
PA
'{"
SUR

3.
:A
!N
PA
:D
ARR

IL PN
4. SH MHB Q

COUNTRY
1- 1,

5.
IL PA
L N
IL PA
;ti;
B \.. p
(YOU) IL PA
Q
A
\ C
IL PA
s H
 129

3-19
TA DO
I. CE I A

~ L

PA TA DO
2. YOU SIL 3. HE DS WH
I
~
-(\

i 9P MIN
CIR

~
TP IC

4. HE I WUSH
5. H I HBTH

~ -y 1l
~~~
IC
CAT PERCHED
6.
~ END
TP
SW WL

~ ~
7.
B TR
ST
u
T TA DO ~
ONE TUR I IT

~ ~ 8.

TA DO
LOS Tl
IL PA
9. 10. FEEL BAD
(YOU)
130

From here on, verbs and complements will not be labeled. You will be expected
to know that:

---+-----'-- means TA and DO

and ---+----\;1......__ means IL and PA or PN.

The only other tricky thing is whether an uncomplemented verb is IC or TP.
But most of the time it is not necessary to show that difference, just so you
understand it.
BUT PLEASE DON'T FORGET THESE DISTINCTIONS!

CHAPTER FOUR
4-1

1. ROME
I ·.
BURNED
~
2. SH LA

··.l .... ~
·.~
NERO FIDDLED HE
I TUR BA

3. SPR CB 4. REX HI
\~
~ \&_
·. '*' ·. ~

~
·--~ CL
co
WIN IT
I THUN

5. LIS 6. GR
I \o ws... 1P
···..\
·.
MON TAL YOU
I STA
\~
7. 8.
DANCED WILL GO
.... ~ ·. ~
.... ~
MUS
I w \ Tl THOU
I GOEST

9. MB KIND CAME
-..~ •• Cl

I DO LI YOU CAL

Y~ HIM
 131

4-2
CPL Pl
2.

M \u,
JOE I (CAN°PLAY) (Pl)

3. WE 4. HE CAME

.~
(WE) (STA) ··.U>
~
1J- HE COULD (COME)

5. MOT

'ttvou
INDIRECT __.,.
OBJECTS (MOT) (MON)

~
4-3
JUM
I. WE HID
o ··.z
~
·"5,
• ,SI
·-.~ WE :A ·..~
2. :N
B AR :D HEI CAM

SUR H

3. 4.
WE
I
CL H WE ov
•• ,SI
·-.~ ··.. ~ ·-.~
PI wAs\ ·o Tl HCH
IT!" W \ M I
\7
~
132

5. ~1____,j,___o_o__.~~T_H_IN_G~ 6. HE WENT

~~ ··.. \

HD\ (Tl<)

(IL-PA OR TP)
7. TR IS INCL 8. HE

TWIG I 'JS BENT

TP
HUN

I I
9.~~---~----o......-~
WIL.L TR H
1o. _(v_o_u__>-+I__
sA_v___......__H_1_
.·..
t-..i •• 0
~

HE SLA M
y s IM
4-4
I. D TA 2. PED SH TH STO

THAT I FOL I ME WHO

3. H IS \ L 4. I M L

WHO I HES wl C Iu
5. SH
I CAL

~.
THAT I HBS
 133

4-5
I. HL FR
In its own clause,
''whom" serves as
I TR object of preposition
I
VWHbM I
"in."

4-6
I. LA LO\ RA 2. y OS PK
..
.I
. ~
HI HM TH I TH
I
AR

3. REC ANS 4. H
I 1s\ ONE

~
I HW
I TH WV

~ I
WH

K I WF 6.
L SCR
5.
.
: I
~: ~
T
WHI W\L
w I HBS ~

G p LOST IT
'7.
G
8. .1
SH

WHO IHBW
,~~
134

9.
H K V

WH I SH I B

H
I
IO. TH I JS \ CAT
:
1H
I K I R

TH I A I M

TH LAY

VHOUSE
<
J I B I T

4-7

I. 2.
Bl
.I
JS \ Bl H

~
s I(TH) YI D I(TH)
I YI s I (TH)

SONGS
4. H HBT
Is I(tH)
3.
R
H

WORDS
\o
H I SP I(TH)
PR
v I WB
H I I M (TH)
 135

L MB\ OWN
5.

~
y
I
s Irr~i
4-8
I. ONE BEL 2. y DK A

I I L (WH) I ~
I
HI H (TH)

3. w
1'8= ~
R
G 4. w G

~
. PR

wl HS I TH TH IHBP
5. 6.
CAB WAPP MJ I ASKED

~
-Y...,.
~
't,.
<fl $5000

CH
WH WH
Iw\
$500
~
MES . I AR J CA
7.

I WH
y~ 8.
. I
Y1
YI EX TH I AWi WH

9. 10.
TH
I EL SIS TH
I CH PER
\-y
:\~
NAME: HB WHO HH OFF
't- ~
~L..
~NOM
136

4-9

i\&J LAY H p
I. 2. I MET

~
•• 'Z
: WAX FL
.
... -5-

TH I HR H IT~V HI KI WI-I

~~
3. w DGO
4. HELP WAR
...·.~
.
()
\~ ·. .f
·.~
... ~
w (.
I AD
T HBP
HE ICOMES

HI H s! (TH) -1\
0
~ WHICH
•

5. SAL IS BIGGER 6.r F I • TOOK TO

i ·.i
... ~
O~EI (IS)\(BIG)
o~'< •• 'Z
·.~
... ~
v I w\ 0
A

I
I BR I (T~AT) y L I
(TH)

ONE I cu I p w CP REC
7.
1 \~
8. I
.·. --
I

'(\

L
WHI HB\. s YI
\~ I. I
H
I F (TH) y
I BR (TH)

BA
.1 HBF D w \ UG
9. 10.
. ..
.. \~ ~ I

...."f
s
w~1 w ·..
TR
IT I w\ •,EX
 137

4-10 s I WH THAT
- -
I. H
V :

I y = I HC

s
V :
D

I
I WH
2. N
I DR 1I
w w
v : I I
I
I
HC

I
: He
3. 4.
T SE K

5. M CBW
C
1\~ HC

6. H s
I

:I
L I s

I L I s I L I s

7. H s I : 8. H REP : I
I CG I H

,I~~
H AMTAL
~
9. (Y) I T 10. v DU
WH

""
4-11
H~ L I WH H L WH (SUBJECT)

I
I. (PN) 2.
C IS \ IS\ CAN

CARE YOU CON

3. 4.
(OBJ. L WH ~
OF PREP.) (10)
138

4-12
YOU s WH YOU G WH THAT

I.
{SUB)
IS\
{PN)
2. TRU IS
I~ "' \
!
{PN)
3. T ISG
4. w T
D WH '1-

\
(OB. PREP.)
(OB. PREP.)

5. w TH THAT
6.
'1- (SUBJECT)
:1 WOR
~ YOU
\
IS

R :j WC
wH I w\ B
7. J I s I !\~
(DO)
8.
s I D I A
~ (DO)
THAT (SUB)

NEL:
(OP) H OR WH
S K WH
WE L WH
(PN)

9. BOX MHB
I 0. -.....----1---....................-
1. (P.N)
 139

4-13
I. TH WST I BOX

we ~
•. 'Z
•• -5-
R
I

2. THING WAS TR

i:
\L. :
: w HCO (THAT)

THAT WAS
~ BOX

B
I \<~ WF

3. 'LL K 4. TH HBS
I
~
WHO T B R
6.

5.
G
-y.
<JI
HI
s us

rr1w~r 8. (YOU)
I.··..\
DO

•.. "fs>

7.
THAT SAID
(YOU)
R
I D

9. RET LET

~
wl R I(THAT)

WH~ HS TH
140

WH 11.

NON-C
to.
-y

I I WAS\ ILL

THAT THAT
--- ---
:•FEEL" IS V SB COM

di..<. "BAO"
p
12.

WHICH I IS~ ADJ

WHO SAY \7\1i
(WHEW!!)
FEEL DEF
13.
di
~
('..<.
MEANS

THAT

: YOU s AL IS.

14.
L

AM
16.

(YOU)

·... ~
'HE I CALLS
 141

17.
THAT

N : THEY WG
,z. ·. ......
A HD . "' -(\ 0 p
N

E
D
IT I RAINS

HE JESTS H L
18.
~ SC
19.
\~
WHO I F w
I
\,z.. \,, WHO L

\~
20. HE
I MISSED
.....<fu(\
AD

~
WH

•..<fu-<' H
-y
CIR
......
0
TOWN

CHAPTER FIVE

5-1 SWIM SWIM

~
MING

I.
(PN)
2. I LIKE
(DO)

3. AM

~
(10)
142

5-2 CANNI PARTY

NG TOM

I. M ENJ. H RES

SKI

3. POP

HIK

~~ \ (POP)

THAT
THIN
KING

4. WAS DIREC
TING

5.
SEE

I
ING

IS
\
I
BELIE
VING

6.

("IN FENDER" COULD

ALSO MODIFY "DENlj
 143

REACH
ING TOP
8. 9.
EASIER HE A
...... N

VSTAY
11ING
•
\"%
~ D

~AI (IS)\ (E)

Y~r I
COOK
ING
10. H IMP READ
ING REC
·.~
HE
•• 'to
BEG
1

5-3

G M CIR
I. 2.
-t,

3. B M HE SAT

~..... '%,
~RMINED CQURAGED

5. G
-y ~
PLANTS
'Z....
(. TING

5-4
REX H F TR CH
I. 2.
144

3. SUR 4.

OAK

5. s RO PASS

5-X
TOM FOUND DOLLAR

THAT

SOMEONE H WAL

"Because" clause could also modify "raking" or the whole prepositional phrase,
"with, etc." (A well-written sentence would not have these ambiguities, but wasn't
it fun to do?)
 145

5-5 J 0 ATE EGG

I. -"
7 'rlNG BR 0
~
SHE
2.
~
\.,_''ILTED

3. JIM SUR

IP
\..._l"AR ~. F

4. HIM 5. ANN HEL HER

~(:
CHA
,s.
BR

~
CON

5-6

I.

FAR BEG
~
oua

SAi
2.
B
u
SH L tl TR
0..(.
'NG

T SH w 5.
FAL

4.
I CH
146

5-7 ......
H 0 ME JUMP
-0
~
jl'

ASK YOU DO WAN

1. 2.

......
0 PAR
3. HE Wl us
-1'
~

TH OR

p
S. THIS IS

S-E

7. w H
8. w
OR
~
HIM '2> STOP

IS
10. HE

5-8

2.
 147

i GO

4.

-""' SP
0
5.

BEG

",y I"-~
CREA KING

7. T
H
EV
I
~~
8.

9.

WSUR
10. ~
- ~"'"'t"""~~BA~B~Y!.._~-f~~~~~~~--:;TE
BITE

~
148

CHAPTER SIX

6-1 N (GIRL) REX CN)

I. 3.

2.

4. YOU (VOT) WH

5. W(CON) 8 R INFL

"2> ENG (LAND) 1)

~ "Y\JI
6-2
TA DO oc
I.
TH CAL H
\ F S

TA DO oc
2. y
M CON \ FR

TA DO oc
\~
3.
TH SHE HER
\ DIR

\"Y\~ COM

TA DO oc
4.
DR
I \~ PRO HIM
\ ABLE

~
TRA

X
 149

5. TA DO oc
CAP H CH BILL \ MATE

\\ \~
RAN
6-3 ~ Ml
c;>

HE WL HE ATE SAND
1. 2.
TODAY \'
0
R WENT
TUES ~ HOME

-"
0
LAST
~ HOURS
CON
3.

<

N HE SPENT YEARS
4. A 5. ,.;>
N
B D FISH

CHAPTER SEVEN
7-1
J IS \ MAD
A
1.
~I AM \ GL
-" HIM
A 0
N

fl 0
_1____
K_N_.....___._.....___

~(COMPOUND)
150

TH I IS \ CAT
.
™IKIR

TH I A I M
(COMPLEX)
TH I L
2. ~• HOU

J I BU I TH

SUN SCAT RAYS

?.
~ ~ Ill
1 NING SAIL

~ SP LEN
3. c:.. ;,:
l\f MA '1-

(SIMPLE!)

4. B I ONE

(COMPOUND-
COMPLEX)
WB } SORRY
. . . . '*
YOU 1 ·i:>0 (8) I (ONE)
5.

D
B S(D WH
u
T
DO DO

(COMPOUND-COMPLEX)
 Htl

INDEX

A with appositives, 81
Active voice. See verb with non-restrictive clauses, 59
Adjective, 9, 14-17 Complement, 40
clause, 53-60, 89 objective complement, 81-82
predicate, 27, 40-41 Compound
questions, 9, 14, 17 -complex sentence, 87-88
Adverb, 9-10, 14-17 elements, 22-23
clause, 47-53, 90-92 sentences, 23, 87
conjunctive, I 0 Conjunction, 10
noun used as, 82-85, 97 coordinating, I 0, 22, 50
questions, 9, 14, 17 subordinating, 10, 49-50, 90-91
Answers, 110-151
Antecedent, 59 D
Appositive, 80-81 Determiner, 8
Articles, 9, I 5 Diagramming forms summarized, 106-107
Direct address, 24
B
Be, parts of, 13, 44 G
followed by prepositional phrase, 96 Gerund, 67-70

C I
Case Infinitive, 31, 76-78
nominative, 93-94 without "to," 78
objective, 93-95, 77 Interjection, 11, 24
personal pronoun, 92-95 Intransitive. See verb.
possessive, 69 Introductory word, 25
subject of gerund, 69
subject of infinitive, 77 L
who, whom, 55, 56 Like and as, 90-91
Clause, 18, 46, I 04 Linking verbs, list of, 27
adjective, 53-60, 89
adverb,90-92,48-53
dependent or subordinate, 46-48, 53, 60
M
elliptical, 50-52 Modifiers, 14-16
main or independent, 46-48 Mood, 91-92
noun,60-64
restrictive and non-restrictive, 59 N
Commas Nominative. See case.
after introductory participial phrase, 72 Nominative absolute, 74
152

Non-restrictive clauses, 59 T
Noun., 7-8, 97 Than and as, 50-52
abstract, 7 Transitive. See verb.
adverbial, 82-85, 97
as adjective, 97
clause, 60-64 u
common,.7 Understood "you," 23-24
concrete, 7
jobs, 60, 80 V
predicate, 27, 40-41 Verb, 8-9, 27, 28-41, 104-105
proper, 7 active voice, 27, 29, 35
chart, 27
0 helping, 8, 13, 74
Object intransitive complete, 27, 28-29
direct, 27, 30, 60-61 intransitive linking, 27, 39-42
indirect, 37-38, 64 passive voice, 27, 32-33, 35
of preposition, 18, 64 transitive and intransitive, 27, 28, 30-31
retained, 38 Verbals, 67-78, 103
gerund, 67-70
p infinitives, 76-78
participles, 70-75
Participle, 70-75 phrase, 46, 69-70
dangling, 72-73
Parts of speech, 7, I 02,
Passive voice. See verb. w
Phrase, 18, 46, I 03 "Where" and "when" as relative pronouns,
Predicate, 12 89-90
adjective; noun, 27, 40-41 "Which"
nominative, 62-63 as relative pronoun, 53
Prepositions and prepositional phrases, 6, indefinite, 89
11, 18-21, 46, 47, 64, 95-96, 103 Who, whom, whose, 53, 55-57
Pronoun, 8, 92-95
in noun clauses, 61
missing relative, 58
personal, 93-95
relative, 53-58

Q
Questions, how to analyze, 13-14

s
Sentence, 4, 15, 46
classified by structure, 87-88, 105
definition, 4
simple, 87
Subject, 12
noun clause as, 63
of gerund, 69-70
of infinitive, 77
Subordinating conjunction, 10, 49-50, 90-91