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.