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Chapter 3 Introduction to phrases and clauses
• In the following sentences, find examples of multiple embedding and mark them off by bracketing.
Note: Be careful—not all examples with a sequence of noun + preposition + noun phrase are examples of multiple embedding.
1 I've met a bunch of people, (conv)
2 My eyes were often full of tears, (net)
3 He was a poet, a teacher of philosophy, and a man with a terrible recent history, (news)
4 David Garrow, a scholar who won a Pulitzer for his biography of King, was skeptical about the whole notion of an autobiography, (news)
^^Grammar Bite B ____________
Clause elements and clause patterns
Exercise 3: Labelling clause elements
In the following examples, brackets show phrase boundaries, and some of the phrases are marked as clause elements S (subject), DO (direct object), A (adverbial), etc.
• nil in the gaps by labelling the other clause elements. (See p. 6 for a list of abbreviations.)
1 [My dislike of the manf [returnedf. (ficn
2 [Taco][is]|really][a smart dogf. (conv)
3 [Some guy] [died] [at twentyf [of a heart attack], (conv)
4 [Just] [give] [them]10 [hot chocolate], (conv)
5 [The gallery] [became] [a reality] [in Junef. (news)
6 [Hef [considered] [it] [a dumb question]0'*, (news)
7 [During her short life], [her two sisters] [boughtf [her] [a small teddy bear], (news)
8 [The Portuguese] [named] [the place]00 [Bom Bahia] [for its harbour], (fict)
9 [She] [wentf [crazy] [out in LA.f [for a few months] [back in 1987]. (conv)
Exercise 4: Identifying clause patterns_
The clauses below have the following clause patterns:
(a) S + V + SP (e) S + V + 10 + DO
(b) S + V + DO (f) S + V + DO + OP
(c) S + V + A (g) S + V + DO + A
(d) S+V
• Identify the clause elements by marking them off with brackets and labelling them (S, V, etc.). Note: Some of the clauses also contain optional adverbials; label these adverbials (A).
• Identify the clause pattern of each clause (a-g above), and label the clause type: intransitive, monotransitive, copular, ditransitive, complex transitive.
Sentences for additional practice and diagramming
1 [Youf [stillf [haven't answeredf [my dog question]00, (conv) S t V t DO, fwofto-fraKS/'+ive.
2 The cheetah is the fastest animal in the world. (conv)
3 I haven't gotten Chris his gift yet. (conv)
4 We were in a meeting all morning with Barbara, (conv)
5 The boy lives in Washington now. (conv)
6 He really told his father the truth, (conv)
7 I'd have called him a liar for sure, (news)
8 Here I find you in some dark plot against me. (fict)
9 They made her this incredible offer, (conv) 10 So that made her popular, (conv)
C
Synthesis exercises
Exercise 5: Sentences for additional practice and diagramming
• Analyze the structure of the following sentences using tree diagrams (or bracketing).
• Include labels for the word classes (noun, verb, preposition, etc.), phrase structures (noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc.), clause elements (subject, direct object, etc.), and valency of the main verb (intransitive, monotransitive, copular, ditransitive, complex transitive).
Note: Remember that a phrase can consist of just one word, and that a phrase can also be embedded as part of another phrase. Also remember that the same verb can occur with different clause patterns.
1 He even sent them a tape of the show, (news) sentence
noun phrase (subject)
-1
long
verb
phrase
adverb phrase
pronoun adverb
verb phrase
lexical verb: ditransitive
noun phrase (indirect object)
noun phrase (direct object)
1
pronoun     det      noun     prep phrase
prep
-1
noun
phrase
1
He
even
sent
them
tape
of
det
the
noun
show