Download Rhetorical Grammar

Rhetorical Grammar for
Expository Reading and Writing
In Response to Semester 2
Grammar Assessment
Identifying Verbs, Subjects, and
Prepositional Phrases
Every sentence in English must have at least
one verb and one subject. When you identify
the verb first, it is much easier to find the
subject of the sentence. The verb in a
sentence is always related to the subject. The
subject usually appears in front of a verb.
Since the verb expresses what the subject
does or is, verbs either express:
Action (eat, stop, help, buy, make, do, gain)
State of being (am/is/are/were, become,
seem, look, appear, taste, sound, remain)
Mental states (know, think, feel, remember,
believe)
Identifying Verbs, Subjects, and
Prepositional Phrases
It is easier to recognize the subject(s) of
sentences when you find the verb first. The
subject of the sentence usually
 Occurs before the verb
 Tells who or what does the action or
express the state of being or state of mind
Tip: subjects are either nouns or pronouns.
Many nouns have a determiner such as a,
an, or the. Other determiners are
possessive nouns or pronouns and numbers
(student’s, her, those, seventeen).
Identifying Verbs, Subjects, and
Prepositional Phrases
Eliminating Nouns That Are Not Subjects
 In some sentences, nouns in
prepositional phrases can be confused
with subjects. For this reason, it is
easier to identify nouns that are
subjects if you first identify the
prepositional phrase that may contain
one or more nouns or pronouns.
Identifying Verbs, Subjects, and
Prepositional Phrases
An error in high school should not define
the rest of your life.
In and of are prepositions. The nouns
that follow them cannot be subjects
of the sentence. Once these
possibilities have been eliminated, it
is easy to see that error is the
subject of the sentence.
Identifying Verbs, Subjects, and
Prepositional Phrases
Note: if “to” comes before a
verb, it is an infinitive. Do
not confuse this with a
preposition, which would
come before a noun.
What Makes a Sentence Complete?
The following sentences are incomplete
because they are missing an essential
element, either the subject or the verb.
Therefore, the sentences do not express
complete ideas. What is wrong with
each one? Mark the box if the sentence
is missing a subject, a verb, or both.
Incomplete Sentences
No Subject
No Verb
What Makes a Sentence Complete?
In your chart: Sentence/No Subject/No Verb
1. Putting high school behind them.
2. Experts who have researched the
success of college graduates.
3. On a major area of study.
4. Attending college immediately after
high school.
5. To pursue your own interests and
discover a career.
Recognizing and Forming Complete
Sentences
Complete Sentence
Incomplete Sentence
Can stand alone
Is a fragment; needs a subject
or a verb or both
Expresses a complete thought
Does not express a complete
thought (needs to be completed)
Contains a complete verb
May contain part of a verb, but is
incomplete (-ed, -ing, to + verb)
Contains a subject
Does not have a noun or
pronoun that answers the
questions who or what about the
verb
Identifying Complete and
Incomplete Sentences
Write “C” for complete and “I” for incomplete for
each sentence below.
1. A young person who is intelligent but does not
apply that intelligence to academic work.
2. We associate street smarts with antiintellectual concerns.
3. Real intellectuals can raise thoughtful
questions about lightweight topics.
4. Draining interest out of the richest subjects.
5. Until I entered college, I hated books.
6. I also loved sports novels and autobiographies
about sports stars.
Identifying Complete and
Incomplete Sentences
7. Believing for a long time that I was your
typical teenage anti-intellectual.
8. In the Chicago neighborhood where I grew
up.
9. Negotiating class boundaries was a tricky
matter.
10.Torn between the need to prove I was smart
and the fear of a beating.
11.Street smarts also satisfy the thirst for
community.
12.And in distancing themselves from anything
as enjoyable as sports.
Run-on Sentences
 A sentence must have a main clause
with a subject and a verb. It may
have more than one main clause (a
compound sentence) or a main clause
and one or more subordinate clauses
(a complex sentence).
 A run-on sentence occurs when two
main clauses are punctuated as
though they form a single sentence.
Run-on Sentences
 There are two types of run-on
sentences:
 Two sentences that are joined with no
punctuation
 Two sentences that are joined with only
a comma
 Both of these sentences produce an
error: a “run-on sentence.”
Run-on Sentences
 The following sentences are examples
of run-on sentences.
 In our society celebrities are often seen as
authorities this is an example of the power
of image.
(two sentences are joined together without any
punctuation between them.)
 We value logic and rationality, arguments
based on logos are often persuasive.
(two sentences are joined together with only a
comma between them.)
Correcting Run-on Sentences
1. Make a separate sentence out of
each main clause:
 We value logic and rationality.
Arguments based on logos are often
persuasive.
Correcting Run-on Sentences
2. Combine the clauses with a comma
and a coordinating conjunction.
This method is useful when you have two ideas
of equal importance, and you want to show
a relationship between them.
 We value logic and rationality, so arguments
based on logos are often persuasive.
Coordinating conjunctions are and, for, yet,
but, so, or, and nor.
Correcting Run-on Sentences
3. Make one clause a subordinate
clause. This is an effective way to solve
the problem if one of the clauses is less
important than the other.
 Because we value logic and rationality,
arguments based on logos are often
persuasive.
Common subordinating words are because, since,
when, whenever, even though, although, though, if,
unless, while, before, where, who, which, that,
whose, whom.
Correcting Run-on Sentences
4. Combine the clauses with a semicolon (;).
This method is effective when the two
clauses are closely related and you don’t
want to break them up with another word.
Be careful to use semicolons only when the
ideas are closely related; don’t use them
simply as an alternative to periods.
 We value logic and rationality; arguments based
on logos are often persuasive
 Pizza is really delicious; I want to eat it right
now.
Correcting Run-on Sentences
5. Combine the clauses with a semicolon
and a transition word followed by a
comma. This method is also useful
when you have two equally important
ideas, and you want to show their
logical relationship.
 We value logic and rationality;
consequently, arguments based on logos
are often persuasive.
Common transition words are therefore, thus,
however, nevertheless, furthermore,
consequently, and then.
Correcting Run-on Sentences with
Pronoun Subjects
Sometimes run-on sentences occur
because the writer does not recognize
that pronouns, especially the pronoun
it, and demonstrative pronouns (such
as that, these, and those) can be the
subjects of sentences. These errors
can also be corrected using the five
methods listed above.
Correcting Run-on Sentences with
Pronoun Subjects
Incorrect: Killing cats to stop the bubonic plague was a
logical solution, it was based on a faulty assumption.
(This sentence is a run-on because the second clause is
also a main clause. Its subject is the pronoun it,
which refers to solution in the first clause.)
Correct:
 Killing cats to stop the bubonic plague was a logical
solution, but it was based on a faulty assumption
 Although killing cats to stop the bubonic plague was a
logical solution, it was based on a faulty assumption.
 Killing cats to stop the bubonic plague was a logical
solution; however, it was based on a faulty
assumption.
Correcting Run-on Sentences
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Researchers are finding that many of our fellow creatures
are more like us than we ever imagined, these findings
are changing how we view animals.
Fast food companies are being pressured by animal-rights
activists, they are financing research into animal
emotions and behavior.
Pigs crave affection and are easily depressed the lack of
mental or physical stimuli can result in deterioration of
health.
In Germany farmers give pigs human contact each day,
they also provide them with toys to prevent them from
fighting.
New Caledonian crows make hooks from wire to snag
food Koko, a gorilla in Northern Califonia, understands
several thousand English words.
Correcting Run-on Sentences
6. We thought tool-making and sophisticated
language skills are exclusively human
attributes, self-awareness is another.
7. Animal behaviorists argued that animals
were not capable of self-awareness they
lack a sense of individualism.
8. It is commonly believed other animals
have no sense of their mortality they are
unable to comprehend the concept of their
own death.
Participial Modifiers
Participial modifiers, with their potential for adding details and
information, are a powerful tool for writers. They also
enable writers to combine sentences, resulting in more
varied and concise sentences with less repetition.
Examples of participial modifiers
 Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort
to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass
doors of Victory Mansions. . .
 As he watched the eyeless face with his jaw moving
rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that
this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy.
Participles such as nuzzled and moving are forms of verbs
that cannot be used alone as the main verbs of the
sentence, but they can be added to provide additional
information.
Misplaced Modifiers
As useful as participial modifiers are,
they nevertheless present some
hazards to writers. If they modify the
wrong noun or pronoun in a sentence,
they can confuse and sometimes
amuse readers, but they fail to fulfill
the writer’s purpose in using them. A
participial modifier at the beginning of
a sentence modifies the subject.
Example of Misplaced Modifiers
Winston almost failed to recognize her,
turning round.
By placing the modifier at the end of the
sentence, the writer says that it is
“her” who is turning round, not
Winston.
Example of Misplaced Modifiers
Armed with jointed truncheons, even the
streets leading up to its outer barriers were
roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black
uniforms.
Because the modifier comes at the beginning
of the sentence, it sounds like the streets
were armed with truncheons, not the
gorilla-faced guards.
Combining Sentences Using
Participial Modifiers
Combine each pair of sentences into a
single sentence using participial
modifiers. Punctuate the participial
phrases with commas if needed.
Notice that some pairs of sentences
can be combined in two different
ways while others can be combined
logically only in one way.
Combining Sentences Using
Participial Modifiers
1.
The people in the room were watching the Hate on the
telescreen.
They were bursting with exclamations of uncontrollable
rage.
2. The thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger
automatically.
Goldstein was hated more than either Eurasia or
Eastasia.
3. Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody.
The influence of Goldstein never grew any less.
4. People were leaping up and down.
People were shouting at the tops of their voices.
Combining Sentences Using
Participial Modifiers
5.
6.
7.
8.
The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying
out “Swine! Swine! Swine!”
She suddenly picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary
and flung it at the screen.
Winston was shouting with the others.
He was kicking his heels violently against the rungs of
his chair.
A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness seemed to
flow through the whole group of people.
It was turning one into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.
But in the same moment, the hostile figure melted into
the face of Big Brother.
Big Brother was black-haired, black mustachio’d, full of
power and mysterious calm.