KINDS OF SENTENCES
450. A simple sentence is a sentence which makes a single assertion, question or command.
The simple sentence contains only words and phrases.
451. A complex sentence is one which contains a principal statement and one or more modifying statements.
The statements made in addition to the principal statement are made in dependent clauses. The complex sentence has only one main clause and one or more dependent clauses.
452. A compound sentence is one which contains two or more independent clauses.
These compound sentences may contain any number of dependent clauses but they must always have at least two independent or principal clauses. These principal clauses are always connected by co-ordinate conjunctions, for the principal clauses in a compound sentence are always of equal rank or order.
Exercise 1
Review the lesson on co-ordinate conjunctions and notice which conjunctions are used to unite principal clauses into single sentences. Use these co-ordinate conjunctions to unite the following pairs of simple sentences into compound sentences. For example:
The sun rises and the day dawns.
The men work but the boys play.
Take the above sentences and use subordinate instead of co-ordinate conjunctions, and make complex sentences instead of compound out of each pair of simple sentences. For example:
When the sun rises, the day dawns.
The men work while the boys play.
KINDS OF COMPOUND SENTENCES
453. Compound sentences may be made up of two simple sentences.
Rewrite the following compound sentences, making of each sentence two simple sentences:
The birds are singing and spring is here.
He believes in war but his brother is against it.
We must arouse ourselves or we shall be involved.
He will not study nor will he allow any one else to study.
454. A compound sentence may be made up of a simple sentence and a complex sentence, joined by a co-ordinate conjunction. For example:
John goes to school, but Mary stays at home in order that she may help her mother.
This compound sentence is made up of the simple sentence, John goes to school, and the complex sentence, Mary stays at home in orderthat she may help her mother.
455. Both parts of the compound sentence may be complex; that is, both principal clauses in a compound sentence may contain dependent clauses. For example:
John goes to school where his brother goes, but Mary stays at home in order that she may help her mother.
This compound sentence is made up of two complex sentences. The sentence, John goes to school where his brother goes, is complex because it contains the dependent clause, where his brother goes; the sentence, Mary stays at home in order that she may help her mother, is complex because it contains the dependent clause, in order that she may help her mother.
Exercise 2
Read carefully the following sentences, determine which are simple sentences, which are complex and which are compound.
1. When the state is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.
2. To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate revolution.
3. Freedom degenerates unless it has to struggle in its own defense.
4. The destroyers have always been honored.
5. Liberty of thought is a mockery if liberty of speech is denied.
6. Where slavery is, there liberty cannot be; and where liberty is, there slavery cannot be.
7. All our greatness was born of liberty and we cannot strangle the mother without destroying her children.
8. In the twentieth century, war will be dead, but man will live.
9. The abuse of free speech dies in a day, but the denial entombs the hope of the race.
SENTENCE ANALYSIS
456. There is no more important part of the study of English than the analysis of sentences. The very best result that can come to one from the study of grammar is the logical habit of mind. The effort to analyze a difficult passage gives us a fuller appreciation of its meaning. This cultivates in us accuracy, both of thought and of expression. So, spend as much time as you can on the analysis of sentences.
The subject and the predicate are the very body of the sentence, upon which all the rest of the sentence is hung. The other parts of the sentence are but the drapery and the garments which clothe the body of the sentence. Hence, the most important thing in sentence analysis is to be able to discover the subject and predicate.
In the expression of a thought, there are always two important essentials, that about which something is said,—which constitutes the subject,—and that which is said about the subject, which constitutes the predicate.
There may be a number of modifying words, phrases or subordinate clauses, but there is always a main clause which contains a simple subject and a simple predicate. Find these first, and you can then fit the modifying words and phrases and clauses into their proper places.
457. Let us take for study and analysis the following paragraph from Jack London:
Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting has not diminished since the day of the cave-man. It has increased a thousand-fold. Wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions have been made. Why then do millions of modern men live more miserably than the cave-man lived?
Let us take the first sentence out of this paragraph and analyze it. Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting has not diminished since the day of the cave-man. What is the main word in this sentence—the word about which the entire statement is made? Clearly it is the word efficiency. Efficiency is the noun which is the subject of the sentence.
Then you might ask what sort of efficiency and whose efficiency? What sort of efficiency is explained by the adjective phrase, for food-getting and shelter-getting. Whose efficiency is explained by the possessive noun, man's. Therefore, the complete subject is, Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting.
Now we are ready to consider the predicate. What has efficiency done? It has not diminished. Has diminished is the verb phrase, which is the simple predicate of this sentence. It is modified by the adverb not, so we have Man's efficiency has not diminished. Then we might ask, when has it not diminished? And this is answered by the phrase, since the day of the cave-man. So we have our complete predicate, Has not diminished since the day of the cave-man.
In this way we can analyze or break up into its different parts, every sentence. First find the subject, then ask what that subject does, and the answer will be the predicate or verb. Do not confuse the verb with the words which state how or why the action is performed, and do not confuse the verb with the object of the action. The verb simply asserts the action. The other words will add the additional information as to how or why or when or upon whom the action was performed.
Let us finish the analysis of the sentences in the paragraph quoted from Jack London. In the second sentence, It has increased a thousand-fold, the personal pronoun it, which refers to the noun efficiency, is the subject of the sentence; and when you ask what it has done, you find that the question is answered by the verb, has increased. Therefore, has increased is the verb in the sentence. The noun, thousand-fold is used as an adverb telling how much it has increased. It is an adverb-noun, which you will find explained in Section 291.
In the next sentence, Wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions have been made, we find two nouns about which a statement is made.Artifices have been made and inventions have been made; so artifices and inventions are both the subjects of the sentence. Therefore, we have a compound subject with a single verb, have been made. Artifices is modified by the adjective wonderful, and inventions is modified by the adjective marvelous, so we have wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions, as the complete subject, and have been made, as the complete predicate.
In the last sentence, Why then do millions of modern men live more miserably than the cave-man lived?, we find a sentence which is a trifle more difficult of analysis. It is written in the interrogative form. If you find it difficult to determine the subject and the verb or verb phrase in an interrogative sentence, rewrite the sentence in the assertive form, and you will find it easier to analyze.
When we rewrite this sentence we have, Millions of modern men do live more miserably than the cave-man lived. Now it is evident that the noun millions is the subject of the sentence. We see quickly that men cannot be the subject because it is the object of the preposition of, in the phrase, of modern men. So we decide that the noun millions is the simple subject.
When we ask the question what millions do, our question is answered by the verb phrase, do live. So do live is the simple predicate, and the skeleton of our sentence, the simple subject and the simple predicate, is millions do live. The subject millions is modified by the adjective phrase of modern men.
Then we ask, how do men live? And we find our question answered by they live miserably. But we are told how miserably they live by the adverb more and the adverb clause, than the cave-man lived, both modifying the adverb miserably. So we have our complete predicate, do live more miserably than the cave-man lived.
This interrogative sentence is introduced by the interrogative adverb why.
Do not drop this subject until you are able to determine readily the subject and predicate in every sentence and properly place all modifying words. There is nothing that will so increase your power of understanding what you read, and your ability to write clearly, as this facility in analyzing sentences.
Exercise 3
The following is Elbert Hubbard's description of the child-laborers of the Southern cotton-mills. Read it carefully. Notice that the sentences are all short sentences, and the cumulative effect of these short sentences is a picture of the condition of these child-workers which one can never forget. The subjects and predicates are in italics. When you have finished your study of this question, rewrite it from memory and then compare your version with the original version.
I thought that I would lift one of the little toilers. I wanted to ascertain his weight. Straightway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bone there ran a tremor of fear. He struggled forward to tie a broken thread. I attracted his attention by a touch. I offered him a silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have belonged to a man of sixty. It was so furrowed, tightly drawn and full of pain. He did not reach for the money. He did not know what it was. There were dozens of such children in this particular mill. A physician who was with me said that they would probably all be dead in two years. Their places would be easily filled, however, for there were plenty more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems are ripe for disease and when it comes there is no rebound. Medicine simply does not act. Nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged. The child sinks into a stupor and dies.
Exercise 4
In the following sentences, mark the simple sentences, the complex sentences and the compound sentences, and analyze these sentences according to the rules given for analyzing simple sentences, complex sentences and compound sentences:
1. Force is no remedy.
2. Law grinds the poor, and the rich men rule the law.
3. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
4. Freedom is a new religion, a religion of our time.
5. Desire nothing for yourself which you do not desire for others.
6. An ambassador is a man who goes abroad to lie for the good of his country.
7. A journalist is a man who stays at home to pursue the same vocation.
8. Without free speech no search for truth is possible.
9. Liberty for the few is not liberty.
10. Liberty for me and slavery for you mean slavery for both.
11. No revolution ever rises above the intellectual level of those who make it.
12. Men submit everywhere to oppression when they have only to lift their heads to throw off the yoke.
13. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of saying that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery they may indeed wait forever.
SUMMARY
458. The following is a summary of that which we have learned in sentence building:
459.
ESSENTIALS OF A SIMPLE SENTENCE
460.
THE SUBJECT
Modifiers of the Subject
461.
THE PREDICATE
462. Take the simple subjects and simple predicates in Exercise 5, and build up sentences; first, by adding a word, then a phrase and then a clause to modify the subject; then add a word and a phrase and a clause to modify the predicate.
So long as you have only words and phrases you have simple sentences. When you add a dependent clause you have a complex sentence. When you unite two independent clauses in one sentence, then you have a compound sentence, and the connecting word will always be a co-ordinate conjunction. These will be readily distinguished for there are only a few co-ordinate conjunctions.
Go back to the lesson on co-ordinate conjunctions and find out what these are, and whenever you find two clauses connected by these co-ordinate conjunctions you know that you have a compound sentence. Remember that each clause must contain a subject and predicate of its own. When you have two words connected by these co-ordinate conjunctions you do not have a clause. Each clause must contain a subject and a predicate of its own.
463. Here is an example of a sentence built up from a simple subject and a simple predicate:
SIMPLE SUBJECT ENLARGED
Simple Subject and Predicate—Soldiers obey.
Adjectives added—The enlisted soldiers obey.
Phrase added—The enlisted soldiers in the trenches obey.
Clause added—The enlisted soldiers in the trenches, who are doomed to die, obey.
SIMPLE PREDICATE ENLARGED
Simple Subject and Predicate—Soldiers obey.
Object added—Soldiers obey orders.
Adverb added—Soldiers obey orders quickly.
Phrase added—Soldiers obey orders quickly and without question.
Clause added—Soldiers obey orders quickly and without question because they are taught to do so.
Combining our enlarged subject and predicate we have the sentence:
The enlisted soldiers in the trenches, who are doomed to die, obey orders quickly and without question because they are taught to do so.
This is a complex sentence because it contains dependent clauses. We might add another independent clause and make of this a compound sentence. For example:
The enlisted soldiers in the trenches, who are doomed to die, obey orders quickly and without question because they are taught to do so, and this is patriotism.
Exercise 5
Enlarge the following simple subjects and simple predicates:
Men write.
Boys play.
People study.
The law rules.
Exercise 6
In the following poem underscore all of the dependent clauses. Determine whether they are noun, adjective or adverb clauses. Do you find any simple or compound sentences in this poem?
MEN! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are you truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Women! who shall one day bear
Sons to breathe New England air,
If ye hear without a blush,
Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains,—
Answer! are you fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free?
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
—Lowell.
SPELLING
LESSON 27
We have studied concerning the formation of derivatives by the addition of suffixes. Derivatives are also formed by the addition of prefixes. You remember that a prefix is a syllable which is placed before a simple word to form the derivative. Among the most common of these prefixes are in, un and mis. The prefix in used with an adjective or adverb means not; for example, insane means not sane; incorrect means not correct, etc.
The prefix in used with a noun means lack of; for example, inexperience means lack of experience; inability means lack of ability, etc.
In words beginning with m or p, in, meaning not or lack of, is changed to im. This is done for the sake of euphony. The n does not unite readily with the sound of m or p. So we do not say inmodest and inpartial, but immodest and impartial.
The prefix un, used with participles, means not; for example, unprepared means not prepared; unguarded means not guarded, etc.
The prefix un used with verbs, means to take off or to reverse; for example, uncover means to take off the cover; untwist means to reverse the process of the twisting.
The prefix un used with adjectives means not; for example, uncertain means not certain; uncommon means not common.
The prefix mis used with nouns or verbs, means wrong. For example, mistreatment means wrong treatment; to misspell means to spell wrong.
Add the prefix in to the nouns given in Monday's list; add the prefix in to the adjectives given in Tuesday's list; add the prefix im to the adjectives and nouns in Wednesday's lesson; add the prefix un to the participles and adjectives in Thursday's lesson; add the prefix un to the verbs in Friday's lesson, and add the prefix mis to the nouns and verbs in Saturday's lesson.
Monday
Tolerance
Frequency
Competence
Efficiency
Coherence
Tuesday
Convenient
Expedient
Famous
Adequate
Solvent
Wednesday
Pertinent
Morality
Patience
Moderate
Pious
Thursday
Balanced
Biased
Gracious
Stable
Solicited
Friday
Burden
Veil
Fasten
Screw
Furl
Saturday
Construe
Apprehension
Inform
Guide
Judge
PLAIN ENGLISH
LESSON 28
Dear Comrade:
We are beginning with this lesson the study of the use of capitals and of punctuation. The use of capitals as well as punctuation has nothing to do with our spoken words, but both are very important in our written language.
There is nothing that will mark us as uneducated more quickly than bad spelling, faulty punctuation and the incorrect use of capitals.
The rules for the use of capitals may seem somewhat arbitrary. After an understanding of them, however, you will discover that they are not arbitrary, but are based upon a single principle. The word which is of the most importance, or which should receive the most emphasis is the word which is capitalized, as for example, the principal words in a title, the first words in a sentence, proper names, etc.
Study these rules carefully, note the use of the capitals in your reading and watch your written language carefully for a time. Soon the proper use of capitals will seem easy and most natural. In the meantime do not fail to keep up your study of words. Add at least one word to your vocabulary every day.
Did you ever consider how we think in pictures? Nearly every word that we use calls up a certain image or picture in our minds. The content of words has grown and developed as our ability to think has developed.
Take, for example, words like head or hand. Head originally referred to a portion of the body of a living thing; then it was used to refer to some part of an inanimate object which might resemble or call up a picture of an animal's head, for example, the head of a pin. Again, it was used to refer to some part of an inanimate thing which was associated with the head of a human being, as the head of the bed. Then, by the power of association, since the head was considered the most conspicuous and important part of the body, that which was most conspicuous and important was called the head, as the head of the army, the head of the nation.
Then, since the head was the seat of the brain and of the mental faculties, the head was often used instead of the brain or mental faculties. We speak of a clear head or a cool head. Thus we have a number of idiomatic expressions. We may speak of the head of the river; or the subject matter was divided under four heads; or again, the matter came to a head; he is head and ears in debt; we cannot make head against the opposition, etc.
This transfer of our ideas from the physical to the mental and spiritual marks vividly the growth of the language and the development of thought. Trace the words like hands, arm, foot, eye, tongue, in their use, first as physical then as mental or spiritual.
This will be the most interesting pastime and will enlarge the content of the words which you use.
Yours for Education,THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.