Download Grammar for Better Writing Simple Modifiers

Diagram the following sentences subjects and verbs. Disregard
other words.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Hector has been exercising.
Hurry!
Did you forget?
Dr. Lee has been calling.
Ms. Alice Cummins interrupted.
Have guests been invited?
Grammar for Better Writing
2
Lesson 2: Simple Modifiers:
Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositional
Phrases
ADJECTIVES
Notice the following: the empty chair, the
clear water, the handsome boy. In these
sentences the words empty, clear, and
handsome are adjectives that modify chair,
water, and boy., in that they DESCRIBE, or
IDENTIFY, or LIMIT, or in some way
CHARACTERIZE the nouns.
Most of the purely descriptive adjectives
stand with the nouns they modify and, as
you will learn when you study complements,
may stand on the side of the verb (The
handsome boy; The boy is handsome).
When an adjective attaches itself directly to
a noun (when it is not a compliment) it is
represented as follows:
There are other types of words that attach
themselves to nouns to limit or describe
them and are called “adjectives” by
function. These include:
a) The articles the, a, and an.
b) Possessive nouns and pronouns: my
purse, that affair, these people, her
career, its usefulness, John’s car, father’s
position.
c) Demonstratives and indefinites:
this book
that affair
these people
those remarks
each member
some likelihood
every person
d) Nouns used to describe, identify, or qualify other
nouns: chemistry teacher, soccer team, Paris flight.
These are not true adjectives in that they can not
be compared (we can say clearer water but not
chemistrier teacher. Most of them do not lend
themselves to use in the predicate (verb) position
(the chair is clear but not the teacher is chemistry).
Although these words in their FORM are nouns, they FUNCTION as
adjectives and they attach to nouns as modifiers like this:
Diagram the following sentences subjects,
verbs, and adjectives. Disregard other words.
1. The professional hockey players grinned
happily.
2. The angry Wildcat wrestlers sneered
menacingly.
3. A young Italian man lives here.
4. The pretty red balloon floated up.
5. Her overly ambitious plans were quickly
rejected.
ADVERBS
A word that is clearly a modifier but does not modify
a noun or a pronoun may be called an adverb. Most
of the adverbs you will use will modify verbs,
adjectives, or other adverbs.
When they modify verbs, adverbs usually tell
when/where/how/to what extent about the action
of the verb.
Sometimes he talks rapidly.
Earlier he had studied abroad.
Adverbs also modify adjectives and other
adverbs, a relationship which can be represented
as follows:
The extremely uneasy boy talked rather quickly.
Just as nouns may be used as adjectives (“ a
college requirement”), they may also be used
adverbs : “I walked home” and “Last month I
worked nights.”These are referred to as adverbial
nouns.
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
A preposition is a word that connects a noun (or
another word or word group serving as a noun),
called its object, to some other part of the sentence.
The most common prepositions are:
Prepositional phrases may be diagrammed by
placing the preposition on a slanting line and
placing the object on a connected horizontal line:
In spite of the heat, two of us walked to the end of
the road.