ANALYZING COMPLEX SENTENCES.

ANALYZING COMPLEX SENTENCES.

 

379.These suggestions will be found helpful:—

 

(1) See that the sentence and all its parts are placed in the natural order of subject, predicate, object, and modifiers.

 

(2) First take the sentence as a whole; find the principal subject and principal predicate; then treat noun clauses as nouns, adjective clauses as adjectives modifying certain words, and adverb clauses as single modifying adverbs.

 

(3) Analyze each clause as a simple sentence. For example, in the sentence, "Cannot we conceive that Odin was a reality?" we is the principal subject; cannot conceive is the principal predicate; its object is that Odin was a reality, of which clause Odin is the subject, etc.

 

380.It is sometimes of great advantage to map out a sentence after analyzing it, so as to picture the parts and their relations. To take a sentence:—

 

"I cannot help thinking that the fault is in themselves, and that if the church and the cataract were in the habit of giving away their thoughts with that rash generosity which characterizes tourists, they might perhaps say of their visitors, 'Well, if you are those men of whom we have heard so much, we are a little disappointed, to tell the truth.'"

 

This may be represented as follows:—

 

                     I cannot help thinking

                       ____________________

                                |

         _______________________|

        |

        |        (a) THAT THE FAULT IS IN THEMSELVES, AND

        |

        |        (b) [THAT] THEY MIGHT (PERHAPS) SAY OF THEIR VISITORS

        |                        ___________________

        |                                  |

        |     _____________________________|_________________________________

        |    |                                                               |

        |    |        (a) We are (a little) disappointed                     |

        |   O|               ___________________________                     |

       O|   b|   ________________________|                                   |

       b|   j| M|                                                            |

       j|   e| o|         (b) If you are those men                           |

       e|   c| d|                              ___                           |

       c|   t| i|      _________________________|                            |

       t|    | f|    M|                                                      |

        |    | i|    o| Of whom we have heard so much.                       |

        |    | e|    d.                                                      |

        |    \ r\     \                                                      |

        |               _____________________________________________________|

        |         M|

        |         o|           (a) If the church and ... that rash generosity

        |         d|                                               __________

        |         i|                                                   |

        |         f|    _______________________________________________|

        |         i|   |

        |         e|   |        (b) Which characterizes tourists.

        |         r|   |

        \          \   \

OUTLINE

381.(1) Find the principal clause.

 

(2) Analyze it according to Sec. 364.

 

(3) Analyze the dependent clauses according to Sec. 364. This of course includes dependent clauses that depend on other dependent clauses, as seen in the "map" (Sec. 380).

 

Exercises.

(a) Analyze the following complex sentences:—

 

1. Take the place and attitude which belong to you.

 

2. That mood into which a friend brings us is his dominion over us.

 

3. True art is only possible on the condition that every talent has its apotheosis somewhere.

 

4. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration.

 

5. She is the only church that has been loyal to the heart and soul of man, that has clung to her faith in the imagination.

 

6. She has never lost sight of the truth that the product human nature is composed of the sum of flesh and spirit.

 

7. But now that she has become an establishment, she begins to perceive that she made a blunder in trusting herself to the intellect alone.

 

8. Before long his talk would wander into all the universe, where it was uncertain what game you would catch, or whether any.

 

9. The night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows in order to descry each other.

 

10. Whether she would ever awake seemed to depend upon an accident.

 

11. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travelers that were few, as for armies that were too many by half.

 

12. It was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest was obliged to read mass there once a year.

 

13. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve.

 

14. As surely as the wolf retires before cities, does the fairy sequester herself from the haunts of the licensed victualer.

 

15. M. Michelet is anxious to keep us in mind that this bishop was but an agent of the English.

 

16. Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax every miracle with unsoundness.

 

17. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was subject to an unusually unfair trial.

 

18. Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature.

 

19. And those will often pity that weakness most, who would yield to it least.

 

20. Whether she said the word is uncertain.

 

21. This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for yours.

 

22. Had they been better chemists, had we been worse, the mixed result, namely, that, dying for them, the flower should revive for us, could not have been effected.

 

23. I like that representation they have of the tree.

 

24. He was what our country people call an old one.

 

25. He thought not any evil happened to men of such magnitude as false opinion.

 

26. These things we are forced to say, if we must consider the effort of Plato to dispose of Nature,—which will not be disposed of.

 

27. He showed one who was afraid to go on foot to Olympia, that it was no more than his daily walk, if continuously extended, would easily reach.

 

28. What can we see or acquire but what we are?

 

29. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened.

 

30. There is good reason why we should prize this liberation.

 

(b) First analyze, then map out as in Sec. 380, the following complex sentences:—

 

1. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion, is to speak and write sincerely.

 

2. The writer who takes his subject from his ear, and not from his heart, should know that he has lost as much as he has gained.

 

3. "No book," said Bentley, "was ever written down by any but itself."

 

4. That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say, though we may repeat the words never so often.

 

5. We say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it.

 

6. It makes no difference how many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with each, if there be one to whom I am not equal.

 

7. In every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new-comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, and temper.