Plain English

by Marian Wharton

THE PREDICATE

The simple predicate	{	Verb—The man came.
		Verb phrase—The man has been coming daily.

A COMPLETE PREDICATE equals a verb or verb phrase and	{	Predicate Complement—The man was a hero.
		Direct Object—The man brought the book.
		The Indirect Object—The man brought me the book.
		Adverb Modifiers	{	Word—The man works rapidly.
				Phrase—The man works in the factory.
				Clause—The man works whenever he can.

SIMPLE SENTENCES CONTAIN ONLY	{	Words—The man works hard.
		Phrases—The man on your right works in the factory.

Complex sentences contain	{	Words,Phrases and Dependent clauses.	The man works steadily in the factory whenever there is work.
Compound sentences contain	two or more principal clauses, as:		The sun rises and the day dawns.

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: