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.