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Exercise
1
The
basic sentence is rendered in bold in each of the following sentences and
the verbial (verb, copula or copular verb) in italics. Identify
each as a verb, copula or copular-verb basic sentence. (Identification is
sufficient for the purpose of this exercise. But it is a good idea to
study the analyses in `Exercise 1 Answers'.)
1.
The
altar
boys were a tough corps
to join
at the age of seven.
2. Soon after I began serving, while I was still trustful, a
gang was
formed
among the boys
to protest against the punishments.
Exercise 1 Answers
1.
The
altar
boys were a tough
corps to join at the age of seven.
Copula
basic sentence:
The
copula were assigns a definition, by means of the noun-phrase complement a
corps, to the subject The boys.
The noun-phrase complement a corps
is described by the adjective phrase to
join at the age of seven and by the adjective tough.
The subject can be said to be
described by altar, a noun-form acting as an adjective. Or it can
be said that altar is part of the compound-noun subject The
altar boys.
2.
Soon after I began serving, while I was still trustful, a gang was formed among the
boys to protest against the punishments.
Copula
basic sentence:
The
predicate-adjective phrase formed
among the boys to protest against the punishments is assigned by the
copula was as a description of
the subject a gang. (The
`gang’ was a `formed-amongst-the-boys-to protest-against-the
punishments’ sort of gang.)
Two adverb phrases: Soon
after I began serving and while I
was still trustful, locate the time when a gang came into
being. There is no activity in this sentence that is either a subject's or
an object's. So this cannot be a verb or a copular-verb sentence:
The
author of this sentence does not claim that `the boys formed a gang’.
Rather, he claims that a gang came into being. This subtly of meaning is destroyed by an analysis that tags `was formed’
as a verb
in this sentence.
Exercise
7
(i)
The following
sentences all fail tests for validity in the complex sentence. Guess the
writer's intention in each sentence then re-write it and underline the
basic sentence in your revised sentence.
(ii) Reflect on why each sentence needed to be re-written.
(iii)
Study the reasons (in Answers) for re-writing.
1. Viewers have besieged the ABC switchboard since he went off the air
last month, taking leave to care for a sick family member.
Were
viewers besieging or taking leave?
2.
The threatened strike could have stopped the ice-skating show that was
headed off by a High Court order.
Did
the High Court head off the ice-skating show?
Exercise
7 Answers
defective
sentence
1.Viewers have besieged the ABC
switchboard since he went off air last May, taking leave to care for a
sick family member.
In
this sentence the present-participle phrase taking
leave to care for a sick family member did what present-participle
phrases do: it attached to the verb have
besieged of the basic sentence as the simultaneous act of the subject Viewers.
In so doing it made the unintended meaning that viewers were both `besieging' and `taking leave'. Unaware of the
characteristic habit of present-participle phrases, the writer of the
original sentence hoped it might attach to `went off' in the adverb phrase
since he went off the air last month.
But present-participle phrases do not attach to adverb phrases.
His
indecision about which of three possibilities is the verbial functor in
his complex sentence had the inevitable result: a miscarriage of meaning.
The revised sentence resolves the problem by constraining the rogue
verbial functors into an adverb phrase that describes the time of the act have
besieged of the subject Viewers:
verb
basic sentence
Viewers have besieged
the ABC switchboard since he went off air last May to
take leave to care for a sick family member.
defective
sentence
2. The threatened
strike could have stopped the ice-skating show that was headed off by a
High Court order.
This
sentence places the sequence that was headed off by a High Court order after the noun phrase ice-skating
show. There it cannot but function as an adjective phrase that describes
that noun phrase. The description results in the unintended meaning that
the ice-skating show was headed off by a High Court order. The header that
should have been part of the adjective phrase that describes strike.
verb
basic sentence
The threatened strike that could have stopped the ice-skating show was
headed off by a High Court
order.
Exercise 17
Underline the basic sentence in the following
sentences. Strike out all commas that should not be in them. Justify each
strike-out in terms of (a) to (e):
(a) disrupts a basic
sentence ;
(b) disrupts a foreshortened sentence;
(c) disrupts an attributing
sentence;
(d) disrupts a phrase (noun, adjective, predicate adjective, adverb,
relative);
(e) intercedes a noun and the adjective that describes
it.
1. The words of this Slovak poet, Ondra Lysohorsky, are as poignant
today as they were, when first written more than fifty years ago.
2. She is absolutely right to think that anyone who dates him, plays
into the hands of our enemy.
Exercise
17 Answers
1. The words of the Slovak poet,
Ondra Lysohorsky, are as poignant today as they were when first written more than
fifty years ago.
The
comma after were in the original
sentence disrupted the predicate-adjective phrase (underlined) of the
copula basic sentence of this complex sentence. In so doing it disrupted a
basic sentence.
2. She is absolutely right to think that
anyone who dates him plays into the hands
of our enemy.
The
comma after him in the original
sentence disrupted the noun phrase (underlined) that anyone who dates him plays into the hands of our enemy that
specifies the content of the copular verb is
absolutely right to think of this complex sentence. It thereby
disrupted a basic sentence.
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