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KISS Grammar
Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas (1656)
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Free, from the KISS Grammar Web Site
KISSGrammar.org
© Ed Vavra
December, 2012
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Contents
Introduction—Welcome Back! .........................................................................4
A Review of Clauses...................................................................................................................... 5
KISS Level 3. 2. 1 - Ellipsis in Clauses.............................................................7
An Introduction to Ellipsis ............................................................................................................. 7
Ex. 1.a. - Ellipsed Finite Verbs in Marshall’s Stories of Robin Hood........................................ 8
Ex. 1.b. - Ellipsed Finite Verbs From My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales .................................. 9
Ellipsis in Subordinate Clauses................................................................................................... 10
Ex. 2. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett ............................................. 11
Semi-Reduced Clauses ................................................................................................................ 12
Ex. 3. - From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne .............................. 13
Ex. 4. - Semi-Reducing Clauses ............................................................................................... 15
Ex. 5. - Prepositional Phrase or Ellipsed Clause? Based on Black Beauty .............................. 16
Ex. 6. - The Opening of “Snow-White and Rose-Red”............................................................ 16
KISS Level 3. 2. 2 - “So” and “For” as Conjunctions ..................................18
“So” and “For” as Conjunctions .................................................................................................. 18
Ex. 1.a. - Famous (or Interesting) Quotations .......................................................................... 19
Ex. 1.b. - From Vredenburg’s My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales ............................................. 20
KISS Level 3.2.3 - Subordinate Clauses - Direct Object or Interjection? .21
Ex. 1 - Exploring Clauses: Main Clause or Subordinate? ........................................................ 21
Subordinate Clauses as Interjections ........................................................................................... 22
Ex. 2 - From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ........................................................ 23
Interjection? Or Direct Object?.................................................................................................... 25
Ex. 3.a - From Edric Vredenburg’s“Bluebeard” ...................................................................... 26
Ex. 3.b - From Edric Vredenburg’s My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales .................................... 27
Ex. 4.a. - (Punctuation) From “How the Camel Got His Hump,” by Rudyard Kipling ........... 27
Ex. 4.b. – (Punctuation) From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll .................................... 28
Ex. 5 - A 496-word Sentence from Pinocchio, The Tale of a Puppet ...................................... 30
Ex. 6 - Treasure Hunt (and/or Recipe Roster) .......................................................................... 31
KISS Level 3.2.4 - Advanced Questions about Clauses ...............................32
Subordinate Clauses as Tags........................................................................................................ 32
Ex. 1.a - Based on Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie........................................................... 33
Ex. 1.b - Subordinate Clauses as Tag Questions Based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri............... 34
The Witch in “Which” (and “Who”) ........................................................................................... 35
Ex. 2.a - Based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri .............................................................................. 36
Ex. 2.b. - Based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas .............................................. 37
KISS Level 5.4 Appositives .............................................................................39
Simple Appositives ...................................................................................................................... 39
Ex. 1.a. - Based on “Perseus,” by Charles Kingsley ............................................................... 40
Ex. 1.b. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett .......................................... 41
Ex. 2.a. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett ........................................... 42
Ex. 2.b. - Elaborated Appositives based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ......... 43
Ex. 3. - Writing—Elaborating Appositives with a Subordinate Clause ................................... 44
Ex. 4 - The Punctuation of Appositives —AURORA, by Guido Reni (1575-1642) ............... 45
Ex. 5 - Rewriting: Appositives & Subordinate Clauses ........................................................... 47
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Other Constructions as Appositives ............................................................................................. 49
Ex. 6.a - based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ................................................ 52
Ex. 6.b. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett .......................................... 54
Ex. 7.a. - “The Last Hour,” by Ethel Clifford .......................................................................... 56
Ex. 7.b. - From THE CHILDREN OF ODIN By Padraic Colum ........................................... 57
Ex. 8. - Just for Fun – “Andre, the Giant” ................................................................................ 58
Ex. 9 - A Treasure Hunt for Appositives ................................................................................. 58
KISS Level 5.5 Post-Positioned Adjectives....................................................59
Post-Positioned Adjectives .......................................................................................................... 59
Ex. 1.a. - from Heidi by Johanna Spyri .................................................................................... 60
Ex. 1.b. - based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas .............................................. 61
Ex. 2. - Rewrite: From MC to SC to PPA - From “The White Cat” ........................................ 63
Ex. 3. - “For flowers that bloom,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson ................................................. 64
Ex. 4 - A Treasure Hunt ........................................................................................................... 65
KISS Level 5.6 Delayed Subjects....................................................................66
Delayed Subjects and Sentences .................................................................................................. 66
Ex. 1 - Infinitives as Delayed Subjects from Heidi by Johanna Spyri ..................................... 69
Ex. 2 - Clauses as Delayed Subjects - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ................. 70
Ex. 3 - Delayed Subjects (& Sentences) - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ........... 71
Ex. 4 - From My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales, by Edric Vredenburg .................................... 72
Ex. 5 - From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (A Passage for Analysis) ...................................... 73
Ex. 6 - Treasure Hunt (and/or Recipe Roster) .......................................................................... 73
KISS Level 5.7 Passive Voice & Retained Complements ............................74
Active and Passive Voice ............................................................................................................ 74
Ex. 1.a. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett ........................................... 75
Ex. 1.b. - Based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri............................................................................. 76
Passive Voice or Predicate Adjective? ........................................................................................ 77
Ex. 2. - Passive Verb or Predicate Adjective? From “Snow-White and Rose-Red” ................ 78
Ex. 3.a. - Rewriting Passive Verbs as Active & Active as Passive ........................................ 79
Ex. 3.b. - Rewriting Passive Verbs as Active & Active as Passive ........................................ 80
Ex. 3.c. - From Stories of Robin Hood Told to the Children.................................................... 81
Ex. 3.d. - From The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte.................................................... 82
Retained Complements after Passive Voice ................................................................................ 83
Ex. 4 - An Exercise on Retained Complements ....................................................................... 84
Ex. 5 - Retained Complements (Clauses) from Heidi by Johanna Spyri ................................. 85
Ex. 6 - Infinitives as Retained Complements Based on Black Beauty .................................... 86
Ex. 7 - Retained Complements (Mixed) based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri ............................. 87
“To be to”— Ellipsed Passive plus an Infinitive?........................................................................ 89
Ex. 8. - “To be” plus an infinitive based on Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell............................ 90
Ex. 9.a. - Sheep-Shearing, From McGuffey’s Second Reader .................................................. 91
Ex. 9.b. – “7th Heaven,” by a sixth grade student.................................................................... 92
Ex. 10. - Treasure Hunt ............................................................................................................ 93
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IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn—
—W
Weellccoom
mee B
Baacckk!!
If your instructor has given you these materials, you have probably worked through KISS Levels 1,
2, and 3.1. Thus you are already able to identify many constructions in the sentences that you read and
write. In KISS Level 3.1, you learned how to identify the most common clauses—main and subordinate.
You also learned how to distinguish the most common subordinate clauses—adverbial, adjectival, and
noun (direct objects, predicate nouns, subjects, and objects of prepositional phrases). In KISS Level 2,
you learned how to identify most of the more complicated things in S/V/C patterns and in prepositional
phrases. Here in KISS Level 3.2, you will be learning how to identify most of the more complicated
aspects of clauses. You will also study four additional grammatical concepts—appositives, postpositioned adjectives, delayed subjects, and passive voice. You’ll find that you will be able to identify and
intelligently discuss the function of almost every word in any sentence that you read or write. As always
in KISS, you’ll be discovering important aspects of correctness, style, and logic.
Remember, as you work, keep the following in mind:
1. There are some things (such as simple prepositional phrases, basic S/V/C patterns, and clauses)
that you are expected to always get right.
2. But, because you will be analyzing sentences from real texts, there are other things that you will
still be expected to get wrong.
3. Always work systematically. In analyzing a sentence, find all the prepositional phrases first. Then
identify the S/V/C patterns by first finding a finite verb, then its subject, then its complement.
Do this in a sentence until you have found all the S/V/C patterns. Then identify the clauses.
Remember the sequence, and use it.
4. We humans have a tendency to worry about what we do not know or do not understand. Do not let
that frustrate you. From time to time, stop and look at how much you can already explain.
5. Bring to class sentences in your reading that you find interesting.
6. Have fun! Remember that you are learning how the human brain makes sense of the words
in sentences.
5
Claude Monet's
(1840-1926)
A
AR
Reevviieew
w ooff C
Cllaauusseess
The Stroll
Camille Monet and Her Son Jean
(Woman with a Parasol)
1875
(From KISS Level 3.1)
What Is a Clause?
A “clause” is a subject, finite verb, complement pattern and all the words
that chunk to it.
Main Clauses
Every main clause could be punctuated as a separate sentence, but just as we compound subjects,
verbs, etc., we also compound main clauses. Thus you will often find more than one main clause in a
sentence. Although short main clauses can be combined with commas (I came, I saw, I conquered.), most
main clauses are joined together with the following punctuation:
, and
He went swimming, and she went fishing.
, or
Tom went to the lake, or he went home.
, but
Sarah arrived late, but she had her homework done.
[Note that some writers omit the comma, but you probably should not do so until you are an
established writer. (Some teachers don't like the missing commas.)]
a semicolon Gary loved football; Sam preferred golf.
a colon
It was early: the clock had not even struck six a.m.
Toni loves football -- she watches the Redskins' game every Sunday.
a dash
The differences in these punctuation marks will be discussed in more detail in the sections on style
and logic. For now, all you need to remember is that when a clause begins with one of them, you are
probably dealing with compound main clauses.
Subordinate clauses are the focus of KISS Level 3.1.2, but a brief overview may help you better
understand main clauses.
Subordinate Clauses
With rare exceptions, every subordinate clause functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb within
another clause. This means that a subordinate clause is embedded in, and thus a part of, a main clause.
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The easiest way to identify clauses is to first identify the S/V/C patterns. In KISS analysis, we put a
vertical line at the end of every main clause, and brackets around subordinate clauses.
Noun Clauses: A subordinate clause can function in any way that a noun can.
Probably the most common function of noun clauses is as direct objects:
She thought [DO that would be a good idea (PN)].
|
Noun clauses can also function as indirect objects:
Bill sent [IO whoever wanted one (DO)] a copy (DO) {of his book}.
|
Noun clauses can be objects of prepositions:
They were listening {to [OP what the teacher was saying]}.
|
They can function as predicate nouns:
His idea was [PN that we should go fishing].
|
The last of the most common functions of noun clauses is a subject:
[Subj. That she was right (PA)] was difficult (PA) {for him} to accept.
|
Adjectival Clauses: A subordinate clause can function as an adjective. Normally, adjectival clauses
modify the word that immediately precedes them.
The man [Adj. who robbed the bank (DO)] is now {in jail}.
|
Those are the flowers (PN) [Adj. that Tom gave his wife (IO)].
|
Adverbial Clauses: A subordinate clause can function as an adverb.
He cried [Adv. to "cried" because his team lost].
|
[Adv. to "had" After they won the game (DO),] they had a big party (DO).
|
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K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 33.. 22.. 11 -- E
Elllliippssiiss iinn C
Cllaauusseess
A
Ann IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn ttoo E
Elllliippssiiss
Ellipsis simply means the omission (leaving out) of understood words.
You may have already studied one type of ellipsis — the leaving out of
“you” in sentences such as “Clean your room.” There are, however, other
ways of looking at ellipsis.
Any compound construction can be understood as involving ellipsis.
Bill and Sarah went to the store.
means “Bill went to the store,” and “Sarah went to the store.” The repeated
words are simply ellipsed, and the two sentences are combined into one. Note that, in this case,
the combining suggests that they went to the store together.
Consider a different type of example:
Back he came with a fine big stick in his hand and a smile on his face.
This means that he came back with a fine big stick in his hand, and he came back with a smile on
this face. The primary difference in this example is that it suggests how you can use ellipsis to
help you keep track of the function of the words in some sentences. “Stick” and “smile” are both
objects of the preposition “with,” but because they are separated by the phrase “in his hand,”
some students find it easier to analyze this sentence by assuming that “with” has been ellipsed
and putting it back in:
Back he came {with a fine big stick} {in his hand} and {*with* a smile} {on his
face}.
Writers sometimes ellipse finite verbs in compound constructions:
The pain had gone from her heart and the weariness from her feet.
The pain had gone {from her heart} and the weariness *had gone* {from her feet}.
Sometimes, ellipsis involves information that appeared in a previous sentence:
Jim was seven feet high and very straight and strong. John was scarcely five and
very broad and dumpy.
Jim was seven feet high and very straight and strong. John was scarcely five *feet
high* and very broad and dumpy.
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Ex. 1.a. - Ellipsed Finite Verbs in Marshall’s
Stories of Robin Hood
From Stories of Robin Hood Told to the Children
by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
Directions:
First, write in (above the line) any ellipsed words. Then,
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the
clause modifies.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
1. At dinner the Sheriff sat at one end of the table and the old butcher at the other.
2. Closer and closer grew the trees; narrower and narrower the pathways.
3. The snow lay thick on the ground, the roads were almost impassable and the
cold terrible.
4. Many brave deeds were done, many terrible battles fought, but still the heathen
kept possession.
Writing Exercise
Using these sentences as models, write a sentence with an ellipsed finite verb.
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Ex. 1.b. - Ellipsed Finite Verbs
From My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
by Edric Vredenburg; Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. As you work, write in any ellipsed finite verbs.
1. The fairies gave all their best gifts to the little princess; one gave her virtue,
another beauty, another riches.
2. The horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in the court, the pigeons on the
house-top, and the flies on the walls.
3. Presently the king and queen also awoke, and all the court, and they gazed on
each other with great wonder.
4. Her figure was majestic, her manners charming, her whole appearance beautiful
beyond words.
5. On breaking the nut he found a cherry stone, the stone was broken and there was
the kernel, in the kernel was a grain of corn, in the grain of corn a millet seed,
and within that a piece of linen.
10
Chasm of the Colorado
1874
Thomas Moran
(1837-1926)
National Museum of American Art,
Washington DC
E
Elllliippssiiss iinn
SSuubboorrddiinnaattee C
Cllaauusseess
After some words, especially “than” and “as,” words are ellipsed in subordinate
clauses:
He looked gloomier than ever.
means
He looked gloomier [than *he had* ever *looked before*].”
He classified shirts and suits as expertly as birds and mammals.
means
He classified shirts and suits as expertly [as *he classified* birds and mammals].
They worked as hard as possible.
means
They worked as hard [as it is possible to work].
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Ellipsis in Subordinate Clauses
Ex. 2. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Illustrator: M. B. Kork, N.Y.: The Phillips Publishing Co., 1911
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. (Write in any ellipsed
words.)
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.
2. Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away.
3. One place she went to oftener than to any other.
4. She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the back of
her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite positively.
5. There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he looked nicer than ever.
6. She said nothing while her dress was changed, and her hair brushed.
7. You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you’re too
curious.
8. Ben very seldom talked much and sometimes did not even answer Mary’s
questions except by a grunt, but this morning he said more than usual.
9. By the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as
ever lived.
10. They dug and pulled and laughed low with rapture until Mistress Mary’s hair
was as tumbled as Dickon’s and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his.
12
SSeem
mii--R
Reedduucceedd C
Cllaauusseess
Consider the difference between the following two sentences:
When they were going home, they saw a beautiful new car.
When going home, they saw a beautiful new car.
Although they both mean the same thing, the second version is shorter. The
writer reduced its length by deleting two unnecessary words -- the “they”
and the “were” that are the subject and part of the finite verb phrase in the subordinate clause.
These words are understood because the subordinate clause chunks to the main clause, and
readers will thus know that the subject of the subordinate clause is the same as that of the main
clause.
These clauses are called “semi-reduced” because they can usually be further reduced by
deleting the subordinate conjunction:
When going home, they saw a beautiful new car.
Going home, they saw a beautiful new car.
When the subordinate clause is reduced in this way, the construction is called a “gerundive.”
You will learn more about gerundives in KISS Level Four.
In some cases, the entire subject and verb can be deleted, as in the following sentence from
Sherwood Anderson’s “The Egg”:
Grotesques are born out of eggs as out of people.
If we analyze this sentence, we can see the ellipsed subject and verb:
Grotesques are born {out of eggs} [as *they are* {out of people}.] |
The chunking of a semi-reduced clause:
When in doubt, tell the truth.
Image courtesy of Shelagh Manton (in Australia)
13
A Study of Semi-Reduced Clauses
Illustrated by
W. J. Aylward
Ex. 3. - From
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. (Write in any ellipsed
subjects and/or verbs.)
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man (more than six feet
high), strongly built, grave and taciturn, occasionally violent, and very very
passionate when contradicted.
2. Among the dishes which were brought to us, I recognized several fish delicately
dressed; but of some, although excellent, I could give no opinion, neither could
I tell to what kingdom they belonged, whether animal or vegetable.
3. One saw, while crossing, that the sea displays the most wonderful sights.
4. I did not answer, and while watching the suspected waves, began with the help
of the sailors to put on my heavy sea-dress.
5. The harpoon, although thrown with great force, had apparently only struck the
water.
(Continued on next page)
14
6. But while coming to this decision, on the 22d of October, 1702, the English
vessels arrived in Vigo Bay, when Admiral Château-Renaud, in spite of
inferior forces, fought bravely.
7. While I was trying to fix in my mind every detail of this grand landscape
Captain Nemo remained motionless, as if petrified in mute ecstasy, leaning on
a mossy stone.
8. “Picture to yourselves,” said I, “what this crater must have been when filled with
boiling lava, and when the level of the incandescent liquid rose to the orifice of
the mountain, as though melted on the top of a hot plate.”
9. While crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three kinds peculiar to
the southern seas: the whale, or the English “right whale,” which has no dorsal
fin; the “humpback,” or balænopteron, with reeved chest, and large whitish
fins, which, in spite of its name, do not form wings; and the fin-back, of a
yellowish-brown, the liveliest of all the cetacea.
15
Detail of
Ex. 4. - Semi-Reducing Clauses
The opening of the
Fifth Seal of the
Apocalypse
c. 1608-14
by El Greco
Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York
Directions: Rewrite the following sentences, semi-reducing the subordinate clauses.
1. When he was searching for Eudora along the creek, Miles found an old coat and
her boots.
2. The submarine was scary when it was submerging under the ocean.
3. The soldiers, once they were defeated, lost every hope of ever going home.
4. Whether she was working at home or in her office, Candice hated to be
disturbed.
5. Ricardo always sent interesting postcards to his friends when he traveled in
Europe.
6. If it is found, it will be the biggest discovery of the century.
7. Whenever Anna was practicing her violin, she remembered how her mother
loved to listen to her.
8. The trophy, though it is difficult to win, was what every student wanted.
9. The bears ate the honey as if they were starved.
10. While Anthony was working at the restaurant, he learned a lot about people.
16
Ex. 5. - Prepositional Phrase or Ellipsed Clause?
Based on Black Beauty
by Anna Sewell
Directions
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every finite verb twice, their subject(s) once, and label complements.
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause and indicate its function.
4. In each sentence, at least one prepositional phrase can be alternatively explained as a subordinate
clause. After each sentence, write the subordinate clause.
1. He spoke as kindly to us as he did to his little children.
2. I never knew a better man than my new master.
3. That is more than a horse can understand.
4. Nelly is as happy as a bird.
5. I believe so long as we felt our rider firm in the saddle, and his hand steady on
the bridle, not one of us gave way to fear.
6. Sometimes they stayed out as late as one or two o'clock in the morning.
Ex. 6. - The Opening of “Snow-White and Rose-Red”
from My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
by Edric Vredenburg; Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions: Note: As you work, write in any ellipsed words.
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
17
A poor widow once lived in a little cottage. In front of the cottage was a
garden, in which were growing two rose trees; one of these bore white roses, and
the other red.
She had two children, who resembled the rose trees. One was called SnowWhite, and the other Rose-Red; and they were as religious and loving, busy and
untiring, as any two children ever were.
18
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 33.. 22.. 22 -- ““SSoo”” aanndd ““FFoorr”” aass C
Coonnjjuunnccttiioonnss
““SSoo”” aanndd ““FFoorr”” aass C
Coonnjjuunnccttiioonnss
In KISS grammar, “so” and “for” may be explained as either coordinating or
subordinating conjunctions. Consider, for example, the following sentence from
“Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp”:
Beneath this stone lies a treasure which is to be yours, | and no one else may touch it,
[so you must do exactly as I tell you]. |
Most grammarians would probably consider the “so” to be a subordinating
conjunction that marks an adverbial clause of result. This is no problem. The problem
is that you will find texts in which the preceding would be written as:
Beneath this stone lies a treasure which is to be yours, | and no one else may touch it. | So you
must do exactly as I tell you. |
The KISS psycholinguistic model suggests that everything is chunked to a main-clause S/V/C
pattern, and then dumped to long-term memory at the end of a main clause. Thus, in this version, the
sentence ends (is dumped) at the period after the “it.” One way to look at this, is to consider the “So” as a
coordinating conjunction if it begins a new sentence – in the same way that “And,” “Or,” and “But” can
begin sentences. The traditional explanation (an alternative within KISS) is to consider this initial “So” as
a conjunctive adverb, comparable to “Therefore,” but this alternative does not work for “For.”
The following sentence is from Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit:
Peter was most dreadfully frightened; | he rushed all over the garden, [for he had forgotten the
way back to the gate]. |
Note that “for” means “because” here, and thus we can easily consider the “for” clause as subordinate.
But here again some writers would split the sentence into two:
Peter was most dreadfully frightened; | he rushed all over the garden. | For he had forgotten the
way back to the gate. |
Thus, within the KISS Approach, we would consider this “For” as a coordinating conjunction,
comparable to “And,” “Or,” “But,” and “So.”
This also applies to any “so” or “for” that appears after a punctuation mark that signals the end of a
main clause—a semicolon, colon, or dash:
In that time, however, the pirates had well-nigh gone crazy for joy; | for when they came to
examine their purchase they discovered her cargo to consist of plate to the prodigious sum of
180,000 pound in value.| [from With the Buccaneers, by Howard Pyle]
He said he dearly loved a bit of cheese, but it was beyond his means; | so he determined to get rid
of them. | [from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome]
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KISS Grammar
Leonardo
da Vinci's
Ex. 1.a. - Famous (or Interesting) Quotations
Mona Lisa
“So” and “for” as Conjunctions – Ex # 1
c. 1502
Louvre, Paris
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the
clause modifies.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
1. Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.
– Horace
2. Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made
of.
– Benjamin Franklin
3. I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French
Toast during the Renaissance.
– Steven Wright
4. No opera plot can be sensible, for in sensible situations people do not sing.
– W H Auden
5. Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if
you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt
you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great
wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
– Leonardo da Vinci
20
“So” and “For” as Conjunctions
Ex. 1.b. - From Vredenburg’s My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
by Edric Vredenburg; Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. The king could not cease looking on her for joy, and determined to hold a great
feast. So he invited not only his relations, friends, and neighbours, but also all
the fairies.
["Sleeping Beauty"]
2. This they could never do; for the thorns and bushes laid hold of them as it were
with hands, and there they stuck fast and died miserably.
["Sleeping Beauty"]
3. “You know he would be unhappy, for it is only goodness which brings content.”
[Prince Chéri"]
4. But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled upon
him. For the spell was broken.
["Sleeping Beauty"]
5. When he was quite a baby, he had a funny little tuft of hair on his head, so he
was called Tufty Riquet.
["Tufty Riquet"]
6. She ran along the passages and stairs, nearly falling down them, so great was her
haste, until she came to that door at the end of the corridor.
["Bluebeard"]
21
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 33..22..33 -- SSuubboorrddiinnaattee C
Cllaauusseess
-- D
Diirreecctt O
Obbjjeecctt oorr IInntteerrjjeeccttiioonn??
Ex. 1 - Exploring Clauses: Main Clause or Subordinate?
Based on “The Snow Queen,” by Hans ChristianAndersen
Illustrations by Edmund Dulac
Some clauses can be considered either main or subordinate. Keep this in mind as you do this
exercise.
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause and indicate their functions.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
5. Label each interjection (“Inj”), each noun used as an adverb (“NuA”), and each example of direct
address (“DirA”).
1. You see that all our men folks are away, but mother is still here, and she will stay.
2. Don't you see how both man and beast have to serve her? How she has got on as well
as she has on her bare feet?
3. He knew her, and shouted with joy, “Gerda, dear little Gerda! where have you been for
such a long time? And where have I been?”
4. I daresay what you tell me is very pretty, but you speak so sadly and you never
mention little Kay.
5. The little robber girl looked quite solemn, but she nodded her head and said, “No
matter, no matter! Do you know where Lapland is?” she asked the reindeer.
6. Kay and Gerda were looking at a picture book of birds and animals one day – it had
just struck five by the church clock – when Kay said, “Oh, something struck my
heart, and I have got something in my eye!”
22
SSuubboorrddiinnaattee C
Cllaauusseess aass IInntteerrjjeeccttiioonnss
Theoretically, almost any construction might function as
an interjection, or, in other words, be "thrown into" another
sentence. Beyond the simple interjections, however, the
construction that most often functions as an interjection is the
clause.
When clauses are used as interjections, they are often set off either by dashes
or parentheses:
That island -- wherever it is -- is a tropical paradise.
He had worked too hard (No one knew how hard.) to win the game.
KISS Grammar treats these inserted clauses as subordinate clauses that function as
interjections:
That island [-- wherever it is --] is a tropical paradise.
He had worked too hard [(No one knew how hard.)] to win the game.
The only construction that probably should not be used as an interjection is the
gerundive, since in a sentence such as
Telling the truth, the fish was only six inches long,
“telling” may be interpreted as modifying “fish.” “To tell the truth” would be an
interjection.
23
A Study of Subordinate Clauses as Interjections
Ex. 2 - From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. If it functions as an
interjection, label it “Inj.”
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. A hundred and twenty minutes (I counted them) still separated me from the
moment in which I was to join Ned Land.
2. And the sea is precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these
giants (against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are
as nothing) can be produced or developed.
3. One magnificent evening, the 25th of June – that is to say, three weeks after our
departure – the frigate was abreast of Cape Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the
coast of Patagonia.
4. Both eyes and glasses, a little dazzled, it is true, by the prospect of two thousand
dollars, had not an instant’s repose.
5. Large quantities of bacon were trailed in the wake of the ship, to the great
satisfaction (I must say) of the sharks.
(Continued on the next page)
24
6. An old gunner with a gray beard – that I can see now – with steady eye and
grave face, went up to the gun and took a long aim.
7. Indeed, I declare (though it may seem improbable) if I sought to destroy all
hope, if I wished to despair, I could not.
8. Then, I know not why, the thought of the monster came into my head for the
first time!
9. This faculty – I verified it later – gave him a range of vision far superior to Ned
Land’s.
10. Madrepores (which must not be mistaken for corals) have a tissue lined
with a calcerous crust, and the modifications of its structure have induced M.
Milne-Edwards, my worthy master, to class them into five sections.
25
IInntteerrjjeeccttiioonn?? O
Orr D
Diirreecctt O
Obbjjeecctt??
Consider the clauses in the following sentences:
It was, I think, a big mistake.
Mr. McGregor was going, he said, to kill a rabbit.
“Well,” she said, “we shall see.”
“The thing is this,” said Merrylegs.
There are two ways in which we can analyze such sentences. In one sense, the
“contained” clause can be seen as the core of the main S/V/C pattern:
I think [DO it was a big mistake]. |
He said [DO Mr. McGregor was going to kill a rabbit]. |
She said [DO “Well, we shall see.”] |
Merrylegs said [DO “The thing is this.”] |
But if we look at the way our brains process language, our psycholinguistic model suggests
that our brains will interpret the initial subjects and verbs as those of the main clause. In
order to make our analysis reflect this, we can consider the “contained” clauses as clauses
that function as interjections:
It was, [Inj I think,] a big mistake. |
Mr. McGregor was going, [Inj he said,] to kill a rabbit. |
“Well,” [Inj she said,] “we shall see.” |
“The thing is this,” [Inj said Merrylegs.] |
Although both explanations are acceptable, it is easier, in analyzing sentences, to consider
such clauses as interjections, simply because you do not have to rewrite them.
26
Subordinate Clauses: Direct Object or Interjection?
Ex. 3.a - From Edric Vredenburg’s“Bluebeard”
in My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. If it functions as an
interjection, write “Inj” over the opening bracket.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. Her brothers, she knew, were to visit her that day.
2. “This small key,” he added, pointing to quite a little one, “is the key of the door
at the end of the lower landing.”
3. “Ha! what is this?” he cried, “what is this stain that I see!”
4. “While I am absent, my dear,” said he, “invite your relations and friends and
enjoy yourself just as you please in entertaining them.”
5. “Wretched woman!” shouted Bluebeard, “you have used this key, you have
unlocked the door of that room at the end of the passage. You shall die!!!”
27
Interjection? Or Direct Object?
Ex. 3.b - From Edric Vredenburg’s
My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. If it functions as an
interjection, write “Inj” over the opening bracket.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. “Alas!” cried Suliman, bursting into tears, “his flatterers have ruined him. I know
that at heart he is good.”
2. No one, I can assure you, ever ventured on to his estate.
3. “Here you see me, madam,” said he, “keeping my word.”
4. “I’m going to kill you,” roared the Beast still more loudly. “It’s taken years to
cultivate this sort of rose, and—and I’m going to kill you.Unless,” he added after
a pause, “you send me one of your daughters here instead.”
5. “I am not mocking you,” he heard in reply to his thoughts; “you have been bad
tempered, and you have behaved unkindly to a poor animal who did not deserve
such treatment. I know you are higher than a dog, but the advantage of being ruler
of a great empire is not in doing all the harm one wishes, but in doing all the good
one can.”
Ex. 4.a. - (Punctuation)
From “How the Camel Got His Hump,”
by Rudyard Kipling
Directions: The editor lost the punctuation and capitalization in the following text. Please fix it.
28
presently there came along the djinn in charge of all deserts rolling in a
cloud of dust djinns always travel that way because it is magic and he stopped to
palaver and pow-pow with the three
Ex. 4.b. – (Punctuation)
From Alice in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll
Illustration
by
Gordon
Robinson
Directions: The editor lost the punctuation and capitalization in the following text. Please fix it.
(Remember that the sentences include subordinate clauses that can be explained as interjections.
Note that these are not easy. Pay attention to the meaning and do your best. In some cases,
you’ll be surprised when your teacher shows you how Lewis Carroll punctuated these sentences.
(It may be helpful to read the sentences aloud.)
1. this time she found a little bottle on it which certainly was not here before said
alice and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper label with the words
drink me beautifully printed on it in large letters
(continues on the next page)
29
2. two began in a low voice why the fact is you see miss this here ought to have
been a red rose tree, and we put a white one in by mistake and if the queen was
to find it out we should all have our heads cut off you know so you see miss we
re doing our best afore she comes to
3. she generally gave herself very good advice though she very seldom followed it
and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes
4. alice had no idea what to do and in despair she put her hand into her pocket and
pulled out a box of comfits luckily the salt water had not got into it and handed
them round as prizes
5. so she was considering in her own mind as well as she could for the day made
her feel very sleepy and stupid whether the pleasure of making a daisy chain
would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies when suddenly
a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her
6. suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood judging by his face
only she would have called him a fish and rapped loudly at the door with his
knuckles
7. however this bottle was not marked poison so alice ventured to taste it and
finding it very nice it had a sort of mixed flavor of cherry tart custard pineapple
roast turkey toffy and hot buttered toast she very soon finished it off
8. just then alice ran across the duchess who was now out of prison
30
A Passage for Analysis
Ex. 5 - A 496-word Sentence
from Pinocchio, The Tale of a Puppet
By C. Collodi
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“Subj,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or
adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. If it functions
as an interjection, write “Inj” over the opening bracket.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
As you analyze this sentence, note that it is in quotation marks because it gives the words of
Pinocchio. Within it, when Pinocchio quotes the words of someone else, they are given in single quotes
‘ ’.
“Only imagine, the day that you, poor, dear papa, sold your coat to buy me a
spelling-book, that I might go to school, I escaped to see the puppet show, and the
showman wanted to put me on the fire, that I might roast his mutton, and he was
the same that afterwards gave me five gold pieces to take them to you, but I met
the Fox and the Cat, who took me to the inn of The Red Craw-Fish, where they ate
like wolves, and I left by myself in the middle of the night, and I encountered
assassins who ran after me, and I ran away, and they followed, and I ran, and they
always followed me, and I ran, until they hung me to a branch of a Big Oak, and
the beautiful Child with blue hair sent a little carriage to fetch me, and the doctors
when they saw me said immediately, ‘If he is not dead, it is a proof that he is still
alive’—and then by chance I told a lie, and my nose began to grow until I could no
longer get through the door of the room, for which reason I went with the Fox and
the Cat to bury the four gold pieces, for one I had spent at the inn, and the Parrot
began to laugh, and instead of two thousand gold pieces I found none left, for
which reason the judge when he heard that I had been robbed had me immediately
31
put in prison to content the robbers, and then when I was coming away I saw a
beautiful bunch of grapes in a field, and I was caught in a trap, and the peasant,
who was quite right, put a dog-collar round my neck that I might guard the poultryyard, and acknowledging my innocence let me go, and the Serpent with the
smoking tail began to laugh and broke a blood-vessel in his chest, and so I returned
to the house of the beautiful Child, who was dead, and the Pigeon, seeing that I
was crying, said to me, ‘I have seen your father who was building a little boat to go
in search of you,’ and I said to him, ‘Oh! if I also had wings,’ and he said to me,
‘Do you want to go to your father?’ and I said, ‘Without doubt! but who will take
me to him?’ and he said to me, ‘I will take you,’ and I said to him, ‘How?’ and he
said to me, ‘Get on my back,’ and so we flew all night, and then in the morning all
the fishermen who were looking out to sea said to me, ‘There is a poor man in a
boat who is on the point of being drowned,’ and I recognized you at once, even at
that distance, for my heart told me, and I made signs to you to return to land.”
Ex. 6 - Treasure Hunt (and/or Recipe Roster)
Treasure Hunt (and/or Recipe Roster): Find and bring to class (and/or write) a sentence
that can be described as having a subordinate clause that functions as an interjection.
Creating an Exercise: In a story or book that you like, find three sentences that can be
described as having subordinate clause that function as interjections. For your classmates, make
an exercise with them; for your teacher, make an analysis key. (Remember that your teacher may
use your exercise in future years.)
32
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 33..22..44 -- A
Addvvaanncceedd Q
Quueessttiioonnss aabboouutt C
Cllaauusseess
Rhetoricians
at a Window
SSuubboorrddiinnaattee C
Cllaauusseess
1662-66
Philadelphia
Museum of Art
by
aass T
Taaggss
Jan Steen
(1626-79, Dutch)
Tags involve primarily spoken questions such as “Dad did order a pizza, didn’t he?”
Linguists call the final part “tag questions,” but within KISS we can simply consider them to be
interjections. They appear mainly in dialogue in plays and stories. As you’ll see, some of the
sentences in these exercises do not end in questions. Heidi, for example, includes the sentence:
I want the goats to give me splendid milk, remember.
This sentence resembles those in Level 3.2.3 -- “Interjection? Or Direct Object?” But is it
functionally that different from:
I want the goats to give me splendid milk, remember?
Level 3.2.3 suggests that “remember,” in the first example can be considered a subordinate
clause that functions as an interjection. And in this section, KISS suggests that “remember?” in
the second example can also be considered as a subordinate clause that functions as an
interjection.
Note: In some cases, what may look like a tag may be viewed as part of the main clause in a
varied pattern:
An interesting person, she is.
We can explain this sentence in two ways. As a varied pattern, it would be:
An interesting person (PN), she is. |
To consider “she is” a tag, we assume ellipsis:
*She is* An interesting person (PN), [Inj. she is]. |
33
Subordinate Clauses as Tags
Ex. 1.a - Based on Postern of Fate
by Agatha Christie
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the
clause modifies. If the clause functions as a tag, label it “tag” or “Inj.”
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
1. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
2. “He knew some of the stories about it, you know.”
3. “And they said she was a spy, wasn’t she?”
4. “Well, I think things got told him, you know.”
5. “So that’s a Mrs. Bodlicott, is it?”
6. “You don’t think you ought to go to the hospital, do you?”
7. “He used to talk sometimes, he did.”
8. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Juliet said that, didn’t she?”
9. “He goes to London, does he not, most days.”
10. “Excuse me, won’t you.”
34
Ex. 1.b - Subordinate Clauses as Tag Questions
Based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the
clause modifies. If the clause functions as a tag, label it “tag” or “Inj.”
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
1. “Don’t let her get cold, do you hear?”
2. “She must come to school next winter; remember that.”
3. You can hear the fir-trees roar here, can’t you?
4. You tried very hard to conceal it, did you not?
5. “You would like to know, wouldn’t you, Heidi?”
6. I want the goats to give me splendid milk, remember.
7. “You can find a way for her to stay, grandfather, can’t you?”
8. “You are not afraid, I hope?” said the doctor, getting up.
9. “No. Please send them to Clara; she will like them, I am sure.”
10. “If we hope for an improvement in her condition, we must be extremely
cautious and careful, remember that!”
35
T
Thhee W
Wiittcchh iinn ““W
Whhiicchh”” ((aanndd ““W
Whhoo””))
There is a witch in “which”—the word has some magical powers. Most pronouns
refer to nouns or pronouns that are called their “antecedents.” (“Antecedent” means
something that came before them.) “Which,” however, has the magical power of
referring to an entire clause, verb, or other construction. In the following sentence, for
example, the antecedent of “which” is the entire clause, “George’s health was
improving.”
George’s health was improving, which made his wife happy.
We can see this by restating the idea without the “which”: “That George’s health was
improving made his wife happy.”
Another special power of “which” is that it can function as a subordinating
conjunction without being the first word in its subordinate clause:
He loved beefsteak and fried potatoes, [the latter {of which} was
his absolute favorite food (PN)].
“Which,” shares this special power with “whom”:
At the party, they met several people, [one {of whom} was an artist (PN)].
36
The Witch in “Which”
Ex. 2.a - Based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the
clause modifies. If the clause functions as a tag, label it “Tag” or “Inj.”
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
1. There a few cottages lay scattered about, from the furthest of which a voice
called out to her through an open door.
2. When the clock from the old church tower struck one, Sebastian awoke and
roused his comrade, which was no easy matter.
3. He generally invited Peter to stay to supper afterwards, which liberally rewarded
the boy for all his great exertions.
4. “That certainly is not too much,” the old lady said with a smile, taking out of her
pocket a big, round thaler, on top of which she laid twenty pennies.
5. A small, white goat, called Snowhopper, kept up bleating in the most piteous
way, which induced Heidi to console it several times.
6. “You have enough now,” he declared. “If you pick them all to-day, there won’t
be any left to-morrow.” Heidi admitted that, besides which she had her apron
already full.
37
The Witch in “Which”
Ex. 2.b. - Based on
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. I should have missed this extraordinary, supernatural, and incredible expedition, the
recital of which may well meet with some skepticism.
2. But Conseil had one fault—he was ceremonious to a degree, and would never speak
to me but in the third person, which was sometimes provoking.
3. In reality the column of water would be shorter, as we are speaking of sea-water,
the density of which is greater than that of fresh water.
4. Instead of digging round the Nautilus, which would have involved greater
difficulty, Captain Nemo had an immense trench made at eight yards from the
port quarter.
5. They embarked in the corvettes the Boussole and the Astrolabe, neither of which
were again heard of.
6. Enormous trees, the trunks of which attained a height of 200 feet, were tied to each
other by garlands of bindweed, real natural hammocks, which a light breeze
rocked.
(Continued on next page)
38
7. But this return to the upper strata was not so sudden as to cause relief from the
pressure too rapidly, which might have produced serious disorder in our
organization, and brought on internal lesions, so fatal to divers.
8. In the distance lay the Nautilus like a cetacean asleep on the water. Behind us, to
the south and east, an immense country, and a chaotic heap of rocks and ice, the
limits of which were not visible.
9. The first thing I noticed was a range of mountains about two thousand feet high, the
shapes of which were most capricious.
10.
“Ned Land,” asked the commander, “you have often heard the roaring of
whales?”
“Often, sir; but never such whales the sight of which brought me in two
thousand dollars.”
39
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 55..44 A
Appppoossiittiivveess
Before the
Rehearsal
1880
by
SSiim
mppllee A
Appppoossiittiivveess
Edgar Degas
(1834-1917)
Most definitions of “appositive” limit the concept to nouns, i.e., two nouns joined by their referring
to the same thing with no preposition or conjunction joining them:
They are in Winchester, a city in Virginia.
Mary, a biologist, studies plants.
Whole/Part Appositives
Many textbooks also point out that the relationship between an appositive and the word to which it is
in apposition does not have to be one of strict equality. Often the appositives refer to parts:
The car has several new features – an electric motor, side airbags, and an alloyaluminum frame.
As the following sentence from Theodore Dreiser’s “The Lost Phoebe” illustrates, the “equality” aspect
of an appositive can be stretched:
Beyond these and the changes of weather – the snows, the rains, and the fair days –
there are no immediate, significant things.
“Snows,” “rains,” and “fair days” are not “changes”; they are what the weather changes to and from.
Some linguists may have a technical name for this type of appositive, but I doubt that the general public
needs such a specialized name.
The “part/whole” relationship of appositives suggests another way of looking at the fairly frequent
use of “all” after a noun. In this case, the “all” emphasizes the “whole”:
They all went to the movies.
Although we could consider “all” here to be an adjective that appears after the noun it modifies, some
people may prefer to see it as a pronoun that functions as an appositive to the preceding pronouns or
nouns.
Reflexive Pronouns as Appositives
Reflexive pronouns (“myself,” “yourself,” etc.) function as appositives -He himself would never have done that.
Repetitive Appositives
As sentences become longer and more complex, a word is sometimes repeated and functions as an
appositive:
The cat had eyes that glowed in the dark light of the quarter-moon night, eyes that held
him entranced until he heard a scream in the distance.
40
A Study of Appositives
Ex. 1.a. - Based on
“Perseus,” by Charles Kingsley
in The Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales For My Children
Illustrations by Howard Davie
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
1. Halcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter of the beach and of the wind.
2. “For I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the
monsters, the enemies of Gods and men.”
3. There was no living thing around them, not a fly, not a moss upon the rocks.
4. But Polydectes the wicked knew him, and hardened his heart still more.
5. And now he must devour me, guiltless though I am - me who never harmed a living
thing, nor saw a fish upon the shore but I gave it life, and threw it back into the sea.
6. By nightfall the Gorgons were far behind, two black specks in the southern sky, till the
sun sank and he saw them no more.
7. We know not the way to the Gorgon; but we will ask the giant Atlas, above upon the
mountain peak, the brother of our father, the silver Evening Star.
8. I am Perseus, the grandson of this dead man, the far-famed slayer of the Gorgon.
9. Then he passed the Thracian mountains, and many a barbarous tribe, Paeons and
Dardans and Triballi, till he came to the Ister stream, and the dreary Scythian plains.
10. The sandals themselves will guide you on the road, for they are divine and cannot
stray; and this sword itself, the Argus-slayer, will kill the Gorgon, for it is divine, and
needs no second stroke.
41
Appositives
Ex. 1.b. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Illustrator: M. B. Kork, N.Y.: The Phillips Publishing Co., 1911
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
1. Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and pointed
also.
2. Mr. Roach, the head gardener, was not without curiosity.
3. Do you want anything—dolls—toys—books?
4. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary—she actually looked almost pretty for a
moment.
5. She herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage, lulled by the
splashing of the rain against the windows.
6. Mr. Craven, he won’t be troubled about anythin’ when he’s here.
7. Everybody in the house is asleep—everybody but us.
8. She thought she saw something sticking out of the black earth—some sharp little
pale green points.
9. “You could not do any harm, a child like you!”
10. “Did you hear a caw?” Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the
world to hear inside a house, a hoarse “caw-caw.”
42
Elaborated Appositives
Ex. 2.a. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Illustrator: M. B. Kork, N.Y.: The Phillips Publishing Co., 1911
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
1. Mary and Dickon brought Colin things to look at—buds which were opening,
buds which were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing
green, the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty
shell of some bird early hatched.
2. She had seen something under the ivy trail—a round knob which had been
covered by the leaves hanging over it.
3. Before she was ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at
Misselthwaite Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new
to her—things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking up
things she let fall.
4. Some were pictures of children—little girls in thick satin frocks which reached
to their feet and stood out about them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace
collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks.
5. His eyes seemed to be taking in everything—the gray trees with the gray
creepers climbing over them and hanging from their branches, the tangle on the
walls and among the grass, the evergreen alcoves with the stone seats and tall
flower urns standing in them.
43
Ex. 2.b. - Elaborated Appositives
based on
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Label every appositive (“App”) and draw an arrow from it to the word for which it is an appositive.
1. Was it the voice of another unfortunate creature, abandoned in the middle of the ocean,
some other victim of the shock sustained by the vessel?
2. There remained then only two possible solutions of the question, which created two
distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal strength; on the
other, those who were for a submarine vessel of enormous motive power.
3. As he was taking observations with the sextant, one of the sailors of the Nautilus (the
strong man who had accompanied us on our first submarine excursion to the island of
Crespo) came to clean the glasses of the lantern.
4. I made out his prevailing qualities directly: self-confidence—because his head was
well set on his shoulders, and his black eyes looked around with cold assurance;
calmness—for his skin, rather pale, showed his cooolness of blood; energy—evinced
by the rapid contraction of his lofty brows; and courage—because his deep breathing
denoted great power of lungs.
5. Millions of luminous spots shone brightly in the midst of the darkness. They were the
eyes of the giant crustacea crouched in their holes; giant lobsters setting themselves
up like halberdiers, and moving their claws with the clicking sound of pinchers;
titanic crabs, pointed like a gun on its carriage; and frightful-looking poulps,
interweaving their tentacles like a living nest of serpents.
44
Ex. 3. - Writing—Elaborating Appositives with a Subordinate Clause
John W. Waterhouse's
(1849-1917)
Mary, the baker, . . . .
Diogenes
1882
Art Gallery of New South
Wales, Sidney, Australia
Rewrite each of the following sentences by adding an adjectival clause that
modifies the appositive or something in the appositive phrase.
For example:
Mary, the baker, loves to make muffins.
Mary, the baker who has a shop on Main Street, loves to make muffins.
1. Charlie, an athlete, enjoys playing all kinds of sports.
2. Scuba Steve, a scuba diver, likes to go swimming.
3. George, an amateur astronomer, found a new star.
4. Chris Edsell, the all-star basketball player, broke his ankle this year.
5. William, a student, deserves a C in this class.
6. We lost Mysha, our pet cat.
7. AC/DC, a rock band, released a new album.
8. Mr. Stevens, the history teacher, taught us about the Civil War.
9. Mary, the lead singer of the band, spent all afternoon signing autographs.
10. They live with the Thompsons, the family across the street.
45
Ex. 4 - The Punctuation of Appositives
—AURORA, by Guido Reni (1575-1642)
From The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures,
by Lorinda Munson Bryant. New York: The Century Co. 1922.
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
Note the different ways in which the appositives are punctuated.
Hyperion had three wonderful children, Apollo, the god of the sun, Selene, the
goddess of the moon, and Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. When Aurora appears her
sister, Selene (the moon), fades and night rolls back like a curtain. Now let us look at
this masterpiece by Guido Reni carefully that we may know how wonderful is the
coming of day.
Aurora, in a filmy white robe, is dropping flowers in the path of Apollo (the sun)
as he drives his dun-colored horses above the sleeping Earth. The Horæ (the hours), a
gliding, dancing group of lovely beings, accompany the brilliant god. Each hour is
clothed in garments of a special tint of the great light of day, red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, purple, and violet. The golden-hued Apollo sits supreme in his chariot of
the sun.
The fresco—fresco means painted on fresh plaster—is on the ceiling of the
Rospigliosi Palace, Rome. The painting is as brilliant in color to-day as it was when
painted three hundred and fifty years ago.
(Continued on next page.)
46
Aurora, like most of the gods and goddesses, fell in love with a mortal. She asked
Zeus to make her husband immortal but she forgot to ask that he should never grow
old. And, fickle woman that she was! when he became gray and infirm, she deserted
him and, to put a stop to his groans, she turned him into a grasshopper.
Her son, Memnon, was made king of the Ethiopians, and in the war of Troy he
was overcome by Achilles. When Aurora, who was watching him from the sky, saw
him fall she sent his brothers, the Winds, to take his body to the banks of a river in
Asia Minor. In the evening the mother and the Hours and the Pleiades came to weep
over her dead son. Poor Aurora! even to-day her tears are seen in the dewdrops on the
grass at early dawn.
The Aurora. Guido Reni. Rospigliosi Palace, Rome, Courtesy of Pratt Institute
47
Ex. 5 - Rewriting: Appositives & Subordinate Clauses
Based on The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
Illustrated by Kate Greenaway
A. Directions: Rewrite each of the following sentences twice, first by making the appositive into a
subordinate clause, and second by making it a finite verb in a main clause. Then consider the stylistic
differences in the three versions, especially the question of focus—which ideas are presented as most
important?
1. App: Now, one of them, the girl, had actually rolled out of the slide and was hanging over the
chasm.
SC:
MC:
2. App: Here, too, the prevailing colours of the mountains, red and white and green, most
showed themselves.
SC:
MC:
3. App: An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and Wan Lee, a
Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese junk.
SC:
MC:
(Continued on the next page)
48
B. Directions: Rewrite each of the following sentences twice, first by making an S/V/PN pattern into a
subordinate clause, and second by reducing that clause to an appositive. Then consider the stylistic
differences in the three versions, especially the question of focus—which ideas are presented as most
important?
1. MC: She would have taken Bridget into her confidence. Bridget was her nurse.
SC:
App:
2. MC: On the ridge they met one “Patsey.” He was the son of a neighbour.
SC:
App:
3. MC: Your Majesty’s own dolly is Lady Mary, and she broke the spell!
SC:
App:
C. Directions: Write a sentence that includes an appositive. Then rewrite it in two ways. First, change the
appositive into a subordinate clause that has an S/V/PN pattern. Then change the subordinate clause
into a finite verb in the main clause.
49
Other Constructions
as Appositives
Désiré Dihau
Reading a
Newspaper
in the Garden
1890
by
ToulouseLautrec
In analyzing texts (instead of studying the grammar textbooks), you may agree that other parts of
speech and various constructions can also function as appositives. Consider the following and decide if
they make sense to you.
Finite Verbs as Appositives
In the following sentence from the first paragraph of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, the second
“lived” is clearly an appositive to the first:
She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter
into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on — lived to have six children
more — to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself.
But verbs that function as appositives do note have to be limited only to those that repeat the exact words.
Consider the following sentence:
She struggled, kicked and bit, until her attacker let her go.
The three finite verbs do not denote three distinct acts: “struggled” denotes a general concept which is
made more specific in “kicked” and “bit.” Can we not then say that the last two finite verbs function in
apposition?
Gerunds as Appositives
As you probably know by the time you look at this, gerunds are verbs that function as nouns. They
usually function as subjects (Swimming is good exercise.) as direct objects (Tom likes swimming.) or as
objects of prepositions (They were talking about swimming.) Occasionally you may find them
functioning as predicate nouns (The best exercise is swimming.) They can, however, function in any way
that a noun can, and thus, sooner or later, you will find a few that function as appositives. Consider the
following two sentences:
1). I brought off a new trick, jumping off Herakles with a standing back-somersault, and
landing on my feet. [from The King Must Die, by Mary Renault. N.Y.: Pantheon, 1958, p.
254.]
50
2.) Hepzibah was good at most things she did, making pastry and telling stories and keeping
poultry. [from Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden 1973 Victor Gollancz London pages 124 125.]
The trick is “jumping” and “landing.” This these two words are not modifiers — they are appositives to
“trick.” Likewise, in the second sentence, the “things” are “making … telling…and keeping.” Thus these
are three gerunds that function as appositives to “things.”
Prepositional Phrases as Appositives
A sentence from an essay by George Orwell illustrates how constructions, in this case, prepositional
phrases, can also function appositionally:
In Gandhi’s case the questions one feels inclined to ask are: to what extent was Gandhi
moved by vanity—by the consciousness of himself as a humble, naked old man, sitting
on a praying mat and shaking empires by sheer spiritual power—and to what extent did
he compromise his own principles by entering politics, which of their nature are
inseparable from coercion and fraud?
Is there a better, simpler way of explaining “by the consciousness” and the phrases dependent on it than to
say that the phrase is an appositive to “by vanity”?
Subordinate Clauses as Appositives
Consider the following sentence from “Jack and His Golden Box,” (Child-Story Readers: Wonder
Stories 3, by Frank N. Freeman, Grace E, Storm, Eleanor M. Johnson, & W. C. French. New York: Lyons
and Carnahan, 1927-29-36. pp. 43-64.)
Jack told the King his story, [how he had lost the great castle], and [how he had twelve
months and a day to find it].
The two subordinate clauses function as appositives to “story.” This is somewhat unusual, and I doubt
that you will find it explained in most grammar textbooks. Note, however, that it is true. The two clauses
do not describe the story; they are the story. Delete “his story” from the sentence, and the two clauses
become the direct objects of “told.”
Mixed Construction Appositives
The concept of the appositive grows still more once we realize that not all appositives have to be
composed of identical parts of speech, i.e., noun and noun, verb and verb. etc. The following sentence
was written by a mother who had returned to college:
Heavy feet followed me on up the attic stairs — treasure-filled attic, hiding place for
Mother’s Day cards, carefully printed on pasty colored paper, yellowed packets of letters,
saved since World War II.
51
The identity here is not of meaning, but of the word itself: the adjective “attic” turns into the noun. But is
there an easier way of explaining this than as an appositive? In the following sentence, also written by a
student, the apposition is between an infinitive phrase and a noun:
Left alone, and needled by that nagging sense of guilt, she busies herself cleaning house
and lets the “coffee pot boil over,” an effective image to describe her anger, which is
short lived, as night softens her memory of the harsh morning light and she falls prey to
her lust again.
Appositive, or Subject?
The following sentence is from Mr. Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner:
A socket of molten stone rent and deserted by its ancient fires and garlanded round with a
vegetation as wild as fire and more inexhaustible, the whole island breathes the peculiar
romance of a being with a stormy past.
The psycholinguistic model suggests that most readers will process “socket” as a subject and look for its
verb. But they will not find one. They may be tempted to read “rent” as a finite verb, but the following
“and” joins it to “deserted,” thereby indicating that these are two gerundives that modify “socket” but do
not function as its finite verb. “Garlanded,” the next “verb,” is likewise a gerundive. Thus the reader
continues to process the words in the sentence, but instead of finding a verb for “socket,” they run into
“the whole island.” Although this is not an easy construction to decipher, it becomes apparent that the
“socket” is the “island.” Thus we have an appositive that precedes the noun to which it is in apposition.
One could, of course, argue that “island” is the appositive to “socket,” but this would simply be an
argument about terminology. Appositives that precede the noun to which they are in apposition are
relatively rare, but they do exist.
For an example of a noun absolute that functions in this way, consider the following sentence from
Nina Bawden’s Carrie’s War:
So many thoughts twisting round, it made her quite giddy.
“Thoughts twisting” is a noun absolute. It functions as an appositive to “it.” Note that the sentence means
“So many thoughts twisting round made her quite giddy.” If it had been written that way, we would
probably consider “thoughts” as the subject, “made” as the verb, and “twisting” as a gerundive modifying
“thoughts.” As it is, the comma after “round,” closes the “thoughts twisting” phrase, and the “it” then
functions as the subject of “made.”
52
Other Constructions as Appositives
Ex. 6.a - based on
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Illustration by
W. J. Aylward
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
1. For my own part, too many thoughts crowded my brain, too many insoluble
questions pressed upon me, too many fancies kept my eyes half open.
2. The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments before answering, struck
his broad forehead with his hand (a habit of his), as if to collect himself, and
said at last, “Perhaps I have, Mr. Aronnax.”
3. During low water the natives roamed about near the Nautilus, but were not
troublesome; I heard them frequently repeat the word “Assai,” and by their
gestures I understood that they invited me to go on land, an invitation that I
declined.
(Continued on the next page)
53
4. I reckoned then we should have eight hours to swim before sunrise—an
operation quite practical if we relieved each other.
5. To quit the Nautilus under such conditions would be as bad as jumping from a
train going at full speed—an imprudent thing, to say the least of it.
6. What was the good of digging if I must be suffocated, crushed by the water that
was turning into stone—a punishment that the ferocity of the savages even
would not have invented!
7. I returned to my room, clothed myself warmly—sea boots, an otterskin cap, a
great-coat of byssus, lined with sealskin; I was ready, I was waiting.
8. Our prison was suddenly lighted—that is to say, it became filled with a
luminous matter, so strong that I could not bear it at first.
54
Other Constructions as Appositives
Ex. 6.b. - From The Secret Garden,
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Illustrator: M. B. Kork, N.Y.: The Phillips Publishing Co., 1911
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
1. He’s not going to trouble himself about you, that’s sure and certain.
2. Once or twice a year I’d go an’ work at the roses a bit—prune ‘em an’ dig about
th’ roots.
3. Ben stood still as if he were afraid to breathe—as if he would not have stirred
for the world, lest his robin should start away.
4. And he stood without stirring—almost without drawing his breath—until the
robin gave another flirt to his wings and flew away.
5. He managed to make himself look taller than he had ever looked before—inches
taller.
6. “They was afraid his back was weak an’ they’ve always been takin’ care of it—
keepin’ him lyin’ down and not lettin’ him walk.”
(Continued on next page.)
55
7. Colin’s face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen, and he was gasping and
choking; but savage little Mary did not care an atom.
8. That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his eyes in
the morning he lay still and smiled without knowing it—smiled because he felt
so curiously comfortable.
9. He wondered if Susan Sowerby had taken courage and written to him only
because the motherly creature had realized that the boy was much worse—was
fatally ill.
10. “They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the earth
now—pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming.”
56
Ex. 7.a. - “The Last Hour,” by Ethel Clifford
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
O joys of love and joys of fame,
It is not you I shall regret;
I sadden lest I should forget
The beauty woven in earth's name:
The shout and battle of the gale,
The stillness of the sun-rising,
The sound of some deep hidden spring,
The glad sob of the filling sail,
The first green ripple of the wheat,
The rain-song of the lifted leaves,
The waking birds beneath the eaves,
The voices of the summer heat.
57
A Study in Appositives
Ex. 7.b. - From
THE CHILDREN OF ODIN
By Padraic Colum
Illustrations adapted from Willy Pogany
Directions:
1. Place parentheses around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every verb twice, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Put brackets [ ] around every subordinate clause and use arrows or labels to indicate their function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “App” over every appositive and draw an arrow from it to the word to which it stands in
apposition.
In those times the Gods lived, Odin and Thor, Hödur and Baldur, Tyr and
Heimdall, Vidar and Vali, as well as Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil.
And the beautiful goddesses were living then, Frigga, Freya, Nanna, Iduna, and
Sif. But in the days when the Sun and Moon were destroyed the Gods were
destroyed too—all the Gods except Baldur who had died before that time, Vidar
and Vali, the sons of Odin, and Modi and Magni, the sons of Thor.
58
Ex. 8. - Just for Fun – “Andre, the Giant”
Directions:
Same as above.
Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the
east wall: “Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.”
Ex. 9 - A Treasure Hunt for Appositives
In a book that you are reading, find five sentences that include an appositive and make an
exercise (with an analysis key).
59
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 55..55 PPoosstt--PPoossiittiioonneedd A
Addjjeeccttiivveess
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's
(1841-1919)
PPoosstt--PPoossiittiioonneedd A
Addjjeeccttiivveess
Irene Cahen d'Anvers
1879, E.G. Buhrle Collection at
Zurich
Most adjectives appear before the nouns that they modify, but some appear after
them. (The Latin term for this is “Post.”) In the following sentence, for example, “happy”
and “hopeful” are adjectives that describe “Marilyn.”
Marilyn arrived early, happy with her success and hopeful for the future.
Frequently these adjective appear quite close to the noun or pronoun that they modify,
but they can be separated from them by other constructions, as in the following sentence
from Ouida’s The Dog of Flanders:
There was only Patrasche out in the cruel
cold – old and famished and full of pain.
Note that most post-positioned adjectives can be viewed as reductions of adjectival
clauses that had a S/V/PA pattern:
Marilyn, [who was happy with her success and hopeful for the future], arrived early.
Out in the cruel cold, there was only Patrasche,
[who was old and famished and full of pain].
60
A Focus on Post-Positioned Adjectives
Ex. 1.a. - from Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Label each post-positioned adjective “PPA.”
1. She has not the slightest desire to do something useful.
2. Heidi came running to Peter, with her apron full of flowers.
3. Something strange and weird was happening in the house.
4. “Yes, of course. You can have several if you have room for them,” the old man
said, glad to find a good home for the kittens.
5. Nothing remarkable happened for a few days.
6. “This is a chair for me. I am sure of it because it is so high. How quickly it was
made!” said the child, full of admiration and wonder.
7. When the wind would howl through the fir-trees on those stormy days, Heidi
would run out to the grove, thrilled and happy by the wondrous roaring in the
branches.
8. Soon Peter arrived, white with fear, for he thought his doom had come.
9. When they had all come down with terrified looks, they were most surprised to
see Mr. Sesemann fresh and cheerful, giving orders.
10. Heidi had suddenly learned to read with the utmost correctness, most rare with
beginners.
61
A Study of Post-Positioned Adjectives
Ex. 1.b. - based on
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Illustration by
W. J. Aylward
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Label each post-positioned adjective “PPA.”
1. Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded.
2. The sea, very calm, was in our favor.
3. He was tall, had a large forehead, straight nose, clearly cut mouth, beautiful
teeth, with fine tapered hands, indicative of a highly nervous temperament.
4. The horizon, free from fog, made observation easy.
5. I wondered if Captain Nemo, foolishly imprudent, would steer his vessel into
that pass where Dumont d’Urville’s two corvettes touched; when, swerving
again, and cutting straight through to the west, he steered for the island of
Bilboa.
6. The earth seemed covered with verdure from the shore to the summits in the
interior, that were crowned by Mount Kapogo, 476 feet high.
(Continued on the next page)
7. A large gallery, black and deep, opened before us.
62
8. I had wished to visit the reef, 360 leagues long, against which the sea, always
rough, broke with great violence, with a noise like thunder.
9. Under this the Abraham Lincoln attained the mean speed of nearly eighteen
knots and a third an hour—a considerable speed, but, nevertheless, insufficient
to grapple with this gigantic cetacean.
10. Should I find down there a whole colony of exiles, who, weary of the miseries
of this earth, had sought and found independence in the deep ocean?
63
From Main Clause to Post-Positioned Adjective: An Exercise in Style
Ex. 2. - Rewrite: From MC to SC to PPA
- From “The White Cat”
in My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
by Edric Vredenburg; Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions: Rewrite each of the following pairs of sentences twice. First, make one of the sentences a
subordinate clause in the other. Then reduce the subordinate clause to a post-positioned adjective.
1. There was once a King who had three sons. They were all handsome and brave.
SC:
PPA:
2. The two elder sons had brought little dogs. The dogs were so delicate and small that one
hardly dared to touch them.
SC:
PPA:
3. Then entered a little figure. It was not two feet high.
SC:
PPA:
4. Where shall I find the dog, and a horse? They must be swift enough for such a journey.
SC:
PPA:
5. Now he should like them to search, by land and sea, for a piece of linen. It must be so fine that
it would pass through the eye of a very small needle.
SC:
PPA:
64
Ex. 3. - “For flowers that bloom,”
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
From The Pathway to Reading: Fourth Reader,
by Bessie Blackstone Coleman, Willis L. Uhl, and James
Fleming Hosic. N.Y.: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1926, p. 81.
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If it
functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause
modifies.
5. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
6. Label each post-positioned adjective “PPA.”
For flowers that bloom about our feet,
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet,
For song of bird and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see,
For blue of stream and blue of sky,
For pleasant shade of branches high,
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees,
For mother-love and father-care,
For brothers strong and sisters fair,
For love at home and here each day,
For guidance lest we go astray,
For this new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For ev'rything His goodness sends,
Father in heaven, we thank thee.
(See the next page.)
65
STUDY AND ENJOYMENT
1. Note one by one the things the poet is thankful for. Which one of these are you most thankful
for?
2. Can you add anything else to the poet’s list of the things we should be thankful for? 3. How do
you think these lines should be spoken? Be ready to read it aloud or to recite it from
memory, as the teacher may direct.
Ex. 4 - A Treasure Hunt
In a book that you are reading, find five sentences that include a post-positioned adjective
and make an exercise (with an analysis key).
66
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 55..66 D
Deellaayyeedd SSuubbjjeeccttss
The Starry Night
1889
D
Deellaayyeedd SSuubbjjeeccttss aanndd SSeenntteenncceess
Vincent van Gogh
(1853-1890)
Delayed Subjects
The delayed or postponed subject is a modification of the basic sentence pattern in which the subject
position is filled by an anticipatory “it” and the meaningful subject is delayed until later in the sentence.
Perhaps the most common constructions found in delayed subjects are the infinitive or subordinate clause:
Infinitives as Delayed Subjects:
Image courtesy of Shelagh Manton (in Australia).
Clearly this sentence means “To live and to learn is good.”
When an infinitive with a specified subject functions as a delayed subject, it is introduced by “for” and
can thus be considered a prepositional phrase—“It seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the
common way.” (from Alice in Wonderland)
A Subordinate Clause as a Delayed Subject:
Image courtesy of Shelagh Manton (in Australia).
67
Here again the delayed subject can simply replace the placebo “it”—“That it appears inevitable in
retrospect is the mark of a good action.”
Although the construction usually appears with a noun clause or infinitive, other constructions or
even nouns themselves may act as delayed subjects:
Gerund:
It is difficult, waiting for your wife to have a baby.
It was a pleasure working with you.
Noun Absolute:
It was foolish, people of their age trying to climb a mountain.
Noun:
It was fortunate, the trip he took.
Prepositional Phrase: An interesting variation of the delayed subject appears with the preposition “for”:
If it were not for their help, he would not have won.
In sentences such as this, the verb “to be” means “exist” -- if their help did not exist, he would not have
won. Thus the meaningful subject is delayed and placed in a prepositional phrase with “for,” and a
placebo “it” takes its place at the beginning of the sentence.
As with all the constructions, delayed subjects can be embedded in other subordinate constructions.
The following sentence was written by a seventh grade student:
The old man thought it funny that the trees, now strong and stable as he once was, still
grew and became mightier, while he grew weaker and less surfeited, swaying in the wind.
The sentence is remarkable for the level of its embeddings, and especially for the reduction of “which
were now strong and stable” to the simpler “now strong and stable.” Everything after the “that” is easily
analyzed in terms of clauses and the single gerundive “swaying,” but what is the function of the “that”
clause? It is a delayed subject to “it” in the infinitive construction “it to be funny,” “funny” thus
functioning as a predicate adjective after the ellipsed infinitive, and the infinitive, with, of course,
everything that “goes to” it, functioning as the direct object of “thought.” (I explain the ellipsed word as
the infinitive “to be” by analogy with the “They made him captain” construction. You could justifiably
say that the ellipsed word is “was.”)
Although “it” is the pronoun most commonly found in the delayed subject construction, the
following passage, written by a seventh grader, indicates that “that” is also possible:
There wasn’t any woods to go in when I got hot, no places to go sleigh riding, and that is
boring not to be able to do any of these things.
68
Delayed Sentences
Delayed Sentences are closely related to delayed subjects. Consider:
Bob was playing baseball in his back yard.
It was Bob [who was playing baseball in his back yard.]
It is playing baseball [that Bob is doing in his back yard.]
It was baseball [that Bob was playing in his back yard.]
It is in his back yard [that Bob is playing baseball.]
As these examples suggest, in a delayed sentence construction, one part of a sentence is, in essence,
pulled out and moved to the front, where it is preceded by “It” plus a form of the verb “to be.” The rest of
the sentence is thus “delayed” and becomes a subordinate clause that chunks to the “It” in the same way
that delayed subjects do.
69
Ex. 1 - Infinitives as Delayed Subjects
from Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Label each delayed subject “DS.”
1. It won’t take long to learn.
2. It is difficult to understand him.
3. It is impossible to instill any knowledge into this being.
4. It would take several hours to have her carried up from Ragatz.
5. It was awfully hard for Heidi to stop crying when she had once begun.
6. She told him that it had not been her intention to leave Heidi with him long.
7. The boy thought it was a more useful occupation to look for hazel-rods than to learn
to read, for he always needed the rods.
8. I cannot say how hard it is for me to refuse Clara this trip.
9. But grandfather, sometimes I felt as if I could not bear it any longer to be away
from you!
10. Tinette had not even told the child, for she thought it beneath her dignity to speak
to the vulgar Heidi.
70
Ex. 2 - Clauses as Delayed Subjects Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Illustration by
W. J. Aylward
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO””.
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. If it functions as a delayed
subject, write “DS” over the opening bracket.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. And, in these disastrous times, when the ingenuity of man has multiplied the
power of weapons of war, it was possible that, without the knowledge of
others, a state might try to work such a formidable engine.
2. “Well, Ned,” said I, “is it possible that you are not convinced of the existence of
this cetacean that we are following?”
3. It is certain that I soon came to, thanks to the vigorous rubbings that I received.
4. It is my opinion that we shall never again see the like.
5. It was plain to see that this Mediterranean, inclosed in the midst of those
countries which he wished to avoid, was distasteful to Captain Nemo.
71
Ex. 3 - Delayed Subjects (& Sentences) Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
by Jules Verne
Illustration by
W. J. Aylward
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. If it functions as a delayed
subject, write “DS” over the opening bracket.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
1. It is possible that certain events, unforeseen, may oblige me to consign you to
your cabins for some hours or some days, as the case may be.
2. These polypi are found particularly in the rough beds of the sea, near the
surface; and consequently it is from the upper part that they begin their
operations in which they bury themselves by degrees in the débris of the
secretions that support them.
3. However, it was only two months before that we had become, according to
Captain Nemo, “passengers on board the Nautilus,” but, in reality, prisoners of
its commander.
4. It is upon these banks, and on these waters, says Michelet, that man is renewed
in one of the most powerful climates of the globe.
5. It was no common misanthropy which had shut Captain Nemo and his
companions within the Nautilus, but a hatred, either monstrous or sublime,
which time could never weaken.
72
Delayed Subjects
Ex. 4 - From My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales,
by Edric Vredenburg
Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause and identify its function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “DS” over Delayed Subjects.
1. “Don’t you know it’s a sin to steal?” roared the Beast.
[“Beauty and the Beast”]
2. It was Suliman who had helped Zélie to escape.
[“Prince Chéri”]
3. What good would it do to him to be handsome, rich, or powerful if he were wicked?
[“Prince Chéri”]
4. It seems to me that a clever, faithful dog would be very good company.
[“The White Cat”]
5. Dear me, it was shocking, the way those two sisters grumbled.
[“Beauty and the Beast”]
73
Ex. 5 - From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
(A Passage for Analysis)
Act 2, Scene 2, 32-37
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause and identify its function.
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Write “DS” over Delayed Subjects.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Ex. 6 - Treasure Hunt (and/or Recipe Roster)
Treasure Hunt (and/or Recipe Roster): Find and bring to class (and/or write) a sentence that has a
delayed subject or sentence.
Creating an Exercise: In a story or book that you like, find five sentences that have delayed
subjects or sentences. For your classmates, make an exercise (infinitives, subordinate clauses, or mixed).
For your teacher, make an analysis key. (Remember that your teacher may use your exercise in future
years.)
74
K
KIISSSS L
Leevveell 55..77 PPaassssiivvee V
Vooiiccee &
&R
Reettaaiinneedd C
Coom
mpplleem
meennttss
A
Accttiivvee aanndd P
Paassssiivvee V
Vooiiccee
The Persian Sibyl
by Michelangelo
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
1508-12
Let’s start with two sentences that illustrate the difference between active and passive voice:
1.) The Huns destroyed the town. (Active Voice)
2.) The town was destroyed. (Passive Voice)
One way of looking at the difference between the two sentences is to consider what they mean. In the
active voice (#1), the subject of the verb performs the action designated by the verb, i.e., the subject is
“active.” The Huns acted to destroy the town. In passive voice, the subject of the verb is acted upon, i.e.,
is “passive,” and thus “receives” the action of the verb. The town did not do anything. Somebody else
destroyed it.
Another way of looking at the difference is to consider the form of the verb. Passive voice is formed
by using what grammarians call “helping verbs” plus the “past participle.” Consider the following
examples:
Active: The police suspect him of being an accomplice.
Passive: He is suspected of being an accomplice.
Active: No one invited them.
Passive: They weren’t invited.
Active: Someone will ask you to dance.
Passive: You will be asked to dance.
Active: Has he repaired the starboard pump?
Passive: Has the starboard pump been repaired?
Note that the “helping verb” is often some form of the verb “to be”—“is,” “are,” “was,” “were,”
“will be,” “has been,” “have been,” etc. Most past participles are regular in form, ending in “-ed.” Many,
however, end in “-en”—“Seen,” “driven,” “frozen,” “written,” “eaten.” And then there are those that are
irregular—“told,” “cut,” “put.” In determining what is and what is not in passive voice, you should look
at both the meaning and the form.
As you learn the distinction between active and passive voice, consider the appropriateness of each.
Active voice always shows who or what is responsible for the action expressed in the verb. Passive voice
hides this information, but in some cases, such as the description of a procedure, who does it is not
important. Sentences in passive voice can indicate the performer of the action in a prepositional phrase
with “by”—Sasha was run over by an elephant.
75
A Study of the Passive Voice
Ex. 1.a. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Illustrator: M. B. Kork, N.Y.: The Phillips Publishing Co., 1911
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. (Write in any ellipsed
subjects and/or verbs.)
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Put a “P” above each passive verb.
1. The mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary.
2. She was not disturbed by the wails and the sound of things being carried in and
out of the bungalow.
3. As Mary knew very little of her mother she could scarcely have been expected
to love her or to miss her very much when she was gone.
4. “You are going to be sent home,” Basil said to her.
5. But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by Mary and her thoughts.
6. The walls were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it.
7. She was displeased with his garden.
8. Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon.
9. Now she was followed by nobody.
10. She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these
portraits.
76
Identifying Passive Verbs
Ex. 1.b. - Based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. (Write in any ellipsed
subjects and/or verbs.)
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Put a “P” above each passive verb.
1. Across the room a large kettle was suspended over the hearth, and opposite to it a large
door was sunk into the wall.
2. Climbing up the ladder, she arrived at a hayloft, which was filled with fresh and
fragrant hay.
3. Here a neat little bed was already prepared.
4. The old goat was sold to somebody in Mayenfeld two days ago.
5. This poor little girl was confined to her rolling-chair and needed a companion at her
lessons.
6. The uncle’s heart is filled with gratitude too deep for any words when the doctor tells
him that he will make ample provision for the child.
7. Clara was highly entertained by these events, and said: “Heidi has not done it on
purpose and must not be punished.”
8. Only when she shrieked for Sebastian could her voice be heard.
9. Mr. Sesemann had hardly left, when the grandmother’s visit was announced for the
following day.
10. In the last week of Mrs. Sesemann’s stay, Heidi was called again to the old lady’s
room.
77
PPaassssiivvee V
Vooiiccee oorr PPrreeddiiccaattee A
Addjjeeccttiivvee??
The Delphic Sibyl
by Michelangelo
Cappella Sistina,
Vatican
1508-12
Having studied the passive voice, you may have wondered if some of the
sentences can be considered simply as S/V/PA patterns. Sometimes, they can be.
Consider:
1. He was worried about the game.
2. The Eagles were defeated by the Patriots.
In (1), “worried” describes the emotional state of “He” more than it denotes any
particular action. But in (2), “were defeated” denotes a specific action performed
by the Patriots. Thus some grammarians would consider “worried” a predicate
adjective, whereas “were defeated” should be considered as passive voice. In
effect, the two constructions, S/V/PA and passive voice, slide into each other, and
thus how you should explain it may depend on how you interpret the sentence.
78
Ex. 2. - Passive Verb or Predicate Adjective?
From “Snow-White and Rose-Red”
from My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales
by Edric Vredenburg; Illustrated by Jennie Harbour
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (“PN,” “PA,” “IO,” “DO”).
3. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
(“PN,” “IO,” “DO,” “OP”) above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw
an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause modifies. (Write in any ellipsed
subjects and/or verbs.)
4. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
5. Put a “P” above each passive verb.
6. In each sentence, be prepared to explain why you have marked verbs as passive or as having a
predicate adjective.
1. The maidens by this time were quite used to his ungrateful, ungracious ways.
2. Their mother was satisfied as to their safety, and felt no fear about them.
3. The way to the town ran over a common on which in every direction large
masses of rocks were scattered about.
4. When the earth is frozen hard, the bad dwarfs must remain underground.
5. It was sometimes hidden in the grasses.
79
The Lady
of Shalott
Ex. 3.a. - Rewriting Passive Verbs
1888
by
John W.
Waterhouse
as Active
& Active as Passive
(1849-1917)
A. Directions: The following sentences are in passive voice. Rewrite them in
active.
Example:
Passive: The boy was hit by a truck.
Active: A truck hit the boy.
1. Trees will be planted in the open spaces.
2. That toy was given to me by my best friend.
3. The picture of the missing child is being posted everywhere.
4. That movie will be seen by millions of people.
5. Definitions can now be found in on-line dictionaries.
B. Directions: The following sentences are in active voice. Rewrite them in
passive.
1. My grandfather told that story.
2. Not everyone likes apples.
3. Something or someone hurt Sammy on Saturday.
4. A neighbor found our dog a mile from here.
5. They scheduled the school picnic for Sunday, May 23rd.
80
The Poet (Half Past
Three)
Ex. 3.b. - Rewriting Passive Verbs
1911
by
as Active
Marc Chagall
(1887-1985)
& Active as Passive
A. Directions: The following sentences are in passive voice. Rewrite them in
active.
Example:
Passive: The boy was hit by a truck.
Active: A truck hit the boy.
1. The class play was attended by almost every parent.
2. The mice in the attic were caught by the cat.
3. The homework was finished early by Rita.
4. Toothpaste was smeared all over the bathroom mirror by my brother.
5. Marines were parachuted onto the island.
B. Directions: The following sentences are in active voice. Rewrite them in
passive.
1. My parents sold their old car for $4,000.
2. Someone stole cookies from the cookie jar.
3. Sarah kept her pet mice in a big shoe box.
4. Al found the needle in a hay stack.
5. Because of the rain, Tom's bicycle left tracks all over his parents’ front lawn.
81
Rewriting Passive Verbs as Active & Active as Passive
Ex. 3.c. - From Stories of Robin Hood Told to the Children
by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
A. Directions: The following sentences are in passive voice. Rewrite them in active.
1. Other poor men had been driven out of their homes by the Normans.
2. The river was swollen by the winter rains.
3. Robin was closely followed by the Bishop’s men.
4. He was more and more delighted with his new companion.
5. The venison was excellently cooked.
B. Directions: The following sentences are in active voice. Rewrite them in passive.
1. If it pierced and sorely wounded my heart, it was only the bright glance from her eyes.
2. Soon the noise of neighing and trampling horses filled the woody paths.
3. After a few minutes someone again bound up the wound to stop the blood flowing.
4. The Sheriff caught one of Robin’s men and locked him up in prison.
5. In those days people used very seldom to write letters.
82
Rewriting Passive Verbs as Active & Active as Passive
Ex. 3.d. - From The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
Illustrated by Kate Greenaway
A. Directions: The following sentences are in passive voice. Rewrite them in active.
1. The dark passage was illuminated by candles.
2. At the mouth of the other tunnels they were greeted by men as if they were carrying tidings of
great joy.
3. Part of her existence had been passed as a Beggar Child.
4. Patsey was at once enrolled and the banana eaten.
5. It could only be discovered by a person who could not possibly know that he or she had
discovered it, who never could or would be able to enjoy it, who could never see it, never
feel it, never, in fact know anything at all about it!
B. Directions: The following sentences are in active voice. Rewrite them in passive.
1. The entire band of Red Rovers accompanied them.
2. Patsey’s father worked this “diggings.”
3. The faces of the men below paled in terror.
4. The others repeated his extraordinary bow with more or less exaggeration to the point of one
humourist losing his balance!
5. Then they saw the extended figure detach what looked like a small black rope from its
shoulders and throw it to the girl.
83
R
Reettaaiinneedd C
Coom
mpplleem
meennttss aafftteerr PPaassssiivvee V
Vooiiccee
The Libian Sibyl
by Michelangelo
Cappella Sistina,
Vatican
1508-12
Retained complements are simply predicate nouns, predicate adjectives, or direct or indirect
objects that appear after passive verbs. In
Bill was given a dollar.
“was given” is passive, so the complement, “dollar” is a retained direct object.
Similarly, you will find retained predicate adjectives and retained predicate nouns:
Murray was considered foolish.
Terri was made a queen for a day.
If we ask, “Murray was considered what?”, the answer is “foolish.” Since “was considered” is
passive, and since “foolish” is an adjective that describes Murray, “foolish” is a retained
predicate adjective. Similarly, if we ask, “Terri was made what?”, the basic answer is “queen.”
Since “was made” is passive, and since the sentence means that Terri equaled a queen for a day,
“queen” is a retained predicate noun.
Theoretically, any construction might function as a retained complement, but infinitives are
relatively common:
Herman was asked to help.
The active voice version of this would be “They asked Herman to help.” Thus in the passive
version, the infinitive functions as a retained direct object after the passive verb.
Subordinate clauses are also fairly frequent, especially if the indirect object of the active
voice version becomes the subject of the passive:
Active: They told Terri that Tom likes her.
Passive: Terri was told that Tom likes her.
If the subject of the passive verb is “it,” some cases can be explained either as a retained
complement or as a delayed sentence:
It was already said that Tom likes Terri.
Because “was said” is passive, we can explain this as a retained complement—“Someone already
said that Tom likes Terri.” But we can also consider it a delayed sentence—“That Tom likes
Terri was already said.”
84
Ex. 4 - An Exercise on Retained Complements
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline finite verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Write “P” over every passive verb phrase. Put an “R” before the labels for retained
complements—“RPA,” “RPN,” “RIO,” “RDO.”
4. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause
modifies.
5. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
1. Candice was given a hug by her grandmother.
2. Ann was made president of the Black Beauty Book Club.
3. The class was sung a song about Thanksgiving.
4. After a long conference among the refs, the game was considered a tie.
5. Dwayne had been chosen the leader of the club.
6. The rabbit will be made comfortable in a soft, cozy nest.
7. The suspect was found innocent after a long trial.
8. The door had been held open by a small rock from the path.
9. Wanda was tickled pink by the new toy.
10. The children had been told a story about a Velveteen Rabbit.
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Ex. 5 - Retained Complements (Clauses)
from Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline finite verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (PA, PN, IO, or DO).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause
modifies.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
5. Draw an oval around each passive verb phrase. Label retained complements as RPA, RPN, RIO, or
RDO.
1. Grandmama was told how the miracle had happened.
2. Soon it was resolved that everybody should visit the grandmother.
3. When they were told that Clara might stay for a month or so, their faces beamed
more than ever.
4. The butler was told that he should get ready for travelling with the child.
5. She was informed that it was not safe for anybody, and that only goats could
climb such dreadful heights.
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Ex. 6 - Infinitives as Retained Complements
Based on Black Beauty
by Anna Sewell
Directions
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline finite verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (“PA,” “PN,” “IO,” or “DO”).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause
modifies.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
5. Draw an oval around each passive verb phrase.
6. Label each retained complement.
1. I was forced to gallop at my utmost speed.
2. She was brought to be with me.
3. I often noticed the great speed at which butchers' horses were made to go.
4. The drayman was proved to be very drunk, and was fined.
5. They were obliged to put strong straps under our bodies, and then we were lifted
off our legs in spite of our struggles, and were swung through the air over the
water, to the deck of the great vessel.
6. Horses are used to bear their pain in silence.
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Ex. 7 - Retained Complements (Mixed)
based on Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Directions:
A. Analysis:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline finite verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (PA, PN, IO, or DO).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause
modifies.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
5. Draw an oval around each passive verb phrase. Label retained complements as RPA, RPN, RIO,
or RDO.
B. Rewrite each sentence changing the passive voice into active.
1. When he was made master, he came home to the village and married my sister
Adelheid.
2. She is convinced that an old Sesemann is wandering about, expiating some
dreadful deed.
3. Tinette was told to prepare Heidi for her departure.
4. The happy grandmama was told that Heidi had suddenly learned to read with the
utmost correctness, most rare with beginners.
(Continues on the next page.)
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5. The butler, hardly able to keep his countenance, was told to place the dish on the
table and leave the room.
6. Here she was also given her lessons.
7. After that the child was told how to accost the servants and the governess.
8. He was named “Alm-Uncle” when he moved up to the Alm.
9. Heidi was puzzled what to do next, but having discovered a bell, she pulled it
with all her might.
10. Often she could hardly repress her sobs and was obliged to make the strangest
faces to keep herself from crying out.
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““T
Too bbee ttoo””—
—
E
Elllliippsseedd PPaassssiivvee pplluuss aann IInnffiinniittiivvee??
The CumaeanSibyl
by Michelangelo
Cappella Sistina,
Vatican
1508-12
Something is missing (ellipsed) in the following sentence from Heidi by
Johanna Spyri:
The telegram was to be mailed that night.
It could mean two slightly different things:
Active Voice:
The telegram was *going* to be mailed that night.
Passive Voice:
The telegram was *supposed* (P) to be mailed (RDO) that night.
Out of context, either explanation makes sense. But there is a difference. Consider
an example from Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell:
James was to drive them.
Active Voice: James was *going* to drive them.
Passive Voice: James was *expected* (P) to drive (RDO) them.
The active voice version states a simple fact and almost suggests that James wants
to drive them. The passive version, on the other hand, suggests that some else
expects James to drive them.
To determine which alternative is better, consider the context of the sentence.
In the example from Heidi, the passive explanation is better because the context
indicates that the Grandfather told Peter to mail the telegram that night.
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Ex. 8. - “To be” plus an infinitive
based on Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
Directions:
1. Place parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Underline finite verbs twice, their subjects once, and label complements (PA, PN, IO, or DO).
3. Place brackets [ ] around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function. If
it functions as an adverb, draw an arrow from the opening bracket to the word that the clause
modifies.
4. Place a vertical line after each main clause.
5. Draw an oval around each passive verb phrase. Label retained complements as RPA, RPN, RIO,
or RDO.
1. I was to give him a rest here.
2. He was to ride steadily.
3. I understood that I was to go on, which of course I did, glad that the stone was
gone, but still in a good deal of pain.
4. In this place I was to get my experience of all the different kinds of bad and
ignorant driving to which we horses are subjected.
5. James was to drive them.
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Ex. 9.a. - Sheep-Shearing,
From McGuffey’s Second Reader
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Write a “P” over every passive verb.
3. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (Put an “R” before the label of
retained complements.)
4. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening
bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
5. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
6. Try rewriting this passage by changing the passive verbs into active voice.
Sheep are washed and sheared some time in the month of June. This should be
done quite early in the month, before the hot days begin.
It is fine sport for those who look on, but not much fun for the sheep.
It is best for the sheep to have the wool taken off; otherwise they would suffer
in the summer time.
When the time comes for washing the sheep, they are driven to a pond or a
little river.
Then they are thrown into the water, one at a time. The men who are in the
water catch them, and squeeze the wet wool with their hands to get the dirt all out
of it.
When the wool is thoroughly dried, the sheep are taken to the shearer; and he
cuts off the wool with a large pair of shears.
It is then dyed, spun, and woven into cloth.
In a short time, before the cold winter comes, new wool grows out on the
sheep. By the coming of spring there is so much, that it must be cut off again.
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Ex. 9.b. – “7th Heaven,” by a sixth grade student
Directions:
1. Put parentheses ( ) around each prepositional phrase.
2. Write a “P” over every passive verb.
3. Underline subjects once, finite verbs twice, and label complements (Put an “R” before the label of
retained complements.)
4. Place brackets around each subordinate clause. If the clause functions as a noun, label its function
above the opening bracket. If it functions as an adjective or adverb, draw an arrow from the opening
bracket to the word that the clause modifies.
5. Put a vertical line at the end of every main clause.
6. Try rewriting this passage by changing the passive verbs into active voice.
7th Heaven is being taken off the air. Many viewers are disappointed in the
failing show. People throughout the world watch this show.
There are several points to be made about this show’s good qualities. For
example, the fact this show has been in the 95% of most popular shows for four
years has been overlooked. It has stayed popular because people want to see family
based shows, which 7th Heaven is. Throughout the world disappointed viewers
have been hoping for just one more season of their favorite weeknight show.
(Continued on next page)
93
When talking with producers of 7th Heaven, they mentioned the show would be
shut down because of the cost. One idea lit a spark in my head. A FUNDRAISER!
This would not only raise enough money for the show, but it would prove the
show’s popularity. On August 29, 2000, 2,000,000 letters went out in seven
different languages requesting a small fee if able to. Within the first week, we had
raised 1,200, 396 dollars. The fund raiser worked well, but the producers just
wouldn’t crack. That day it was rainy and cold. A letter was received by a family
in New York City. It stated that when their family had any problems with growing
up, they would watch 7th Heaven. The show was an excellent way to open up space
for discussion and family time.
The letter was given to the producers and cast. It was decided with help from
us. 7th Heaven will survive one more season.
Ex. 10. - Treasure Hunt
In a newspaper, story, or book, find a passage in which the author uses passive voice more than once.
Bring it to class so that you can discuss it with your classmates. For each passive verb, see if you and your
classmates can explain why the author used passive instead of active.