Modifiers, Compound Subject, Compound Predicate, etc.

 

Modifiers.

 

I. Modifiers of Subject, Object, or Complement.

    351.Since the subject and object are either nouns or some equivalent of a noun, the words modifying them must be adjectives or some equivalent of an adjective; and whenever the complement is a noun, or the equivalent of the noun, it is modified by the same words and word groups that modify the subject and the object.

 

These modifiers are as follows:—

 

(1) A possessive: "My memory assures me of this;" "She asked her father's permission."

 

(2) A word in apposition: "Theodore Wieland, the prisoner at the bar, was now called upon for his defense;" "Him, this young idolater, I have seasoned for thee."

 

(3) An adjective: "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies;" "Her father was a prince in Lebanon,—proud, unforgiving, austere."

 

(4) Prepositional phrase: "Are the opinions of a man on right and wrong on fate and causation, at the mercy of a broken sleep or an indigestion?" "The poet needs a ground in popular tradition to work on."

 

(5) Infinitive phrase: "The way to know him is to compare him, not with nature, but with other men;" "She has a new and unattempted problem to solve;" "The simplest utterances are worthiest to be written."

 

(6) Participial phrase: "Another reading, given at the request of a Dutch lady, was the scene from King John;" "This was the hour already appointed for the baptism of the new Christian daughter."

 

Exercise.—In each sentence in Sec. 351, tell whether the subject, object, or complement is modified.

 

II. Modifiers of the Predicate.

352.Since the predicate is always a verb, the word modifying it must be an adverb or its equivalent:—

 

(1) Adverb: "Slowly and sadly we laid him down."

 

(2) Prepositional phrase: "The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour;" "In the twinkling of an eye, our horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous isle."

 

In such a sentence as, "He died like a God," the word group like a God is often taken as a phrase; but it is really a contracted clause, the verb being omitted.

 

Tells how.

 

(3) Participial phrase: "She comes down from heaven to his help, interpreting for him the most difficult truths, and leading him from star to star."

 

(4) Infinitive phrase: "No imprudent, no sociable angel, ever dropped an early syllable to answer his longing."

 

(For participial and infinitive phrases, see further Secs. 357-363.)

 

(5) Indirect object: "I gave every man a trumpet;" "Give them not only noble teachings, but noble teachers."

 

These are equivalent to the phrases to every man and to them, and modify the predicate in the same way.

 

Retained with passive; or

When the verb is changed from active to passive, the indirect object is retained, as in these sentences: "It is left you to find out the reason why;" "All such knowledge should be given her."

 

subject of passive verb and direct object retained.

 

Or sometimes the indirect object of the active voice becomes the subject of the passive, and the direct object is retained: for example, "She is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy;" "I was shown an immense sarcophagus."

 

(6) Adverbial objective. These answer the question when, or how long, how far, etc., and are consequently equivalent to adverbs in modifying a predicate: "We were now running thirteen miles an hour;" "One way lies hope;" "Four hours before midnight we approached a mighty minster."

 

Exercises.

 

(a) Pick out subject, predicate, and (direct) object:—

 

1. This, and other measures of precaution, I took.

 

2. The pursuing the inquiry under the light of an end or final cause, gives wonderful animation, a sort of personality to the whole writing.

 

3. Why does the horizon hold me fast, with my joy and grief, in this center?

 

4. His books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the dead prosaic level.

 

5. On the voyage to Egypt, he liked, after dinner, to fix on three or four persons to support a proposition, and as many to oppose it.

 

6. Fashion does not often caress the great, but the children of the great.

 

7. No rent roll can dignify skulking and dissimulation.

 

8. They do not wish to be lovely, but to be loved.

 

(b) Pick out the subject, predicate, and complement:

 

1. Evil, according to old philosophers, is good in the making.

 

2. But anger drives a man to say anything.

 

3. The teachings of the High Spirit are abstemious, and, in regard to particulars, negative.

 

4. Spanish diet and youth leave the digestion undisordered and the slumbers light.

 

5. Yet they made themselves sycophantic servants of the King of Spain.

 

6. A merciless oppressor hast thou been.

 

7. To the men of this world, to the animal strength and spirits, the man of ideas appears out of his reason.

 

8. I felt myself, for the first time, burthened with the anxieties of a man, and a member of the world.

 

(c) Pick out the direct and the indirect object in each:—

 

1. Not the less I owe thee justice.

 

2. Unhorse me, then, this imperial rider.

 

3. She told the first lieutenant part of the truth.

 

4. I promised her protection against all ghosts.

 

5. I gave him an address to my friend, the attorney.

 

6. Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve.

 

(d) Pick out the words and phrases in apposition:—

 

1. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in life.

 

2. A river formed the boundary,—the river Meuse.

 

3. In one feature, Lamb resembles Sir Walter Scott; viz., in the dramatic character of his mind and taste.

 

4. This view was luminously expounded by Archbishop Whately, the present Archbishop of Dublin.

 

5. Yes, at length the warrior lady, the blooming cornet, this nun so martial, this dragoon so lovely, must visit again the home of her childhood.

 

(e) Pick out the modifiers of the predicate:—

 

1. It moves from one flower to another like a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, to the right and to the left.

 

2.

 

And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore,

The cry of battle rises along their changing line.

3. Their intention was to have a gay, happy dinner, after their long confinement to a ship, at the chief hotel.

 

4. That night, in little peaceful Easedale, six children sat by a peat fire, expecting the return of their parents.

 

Compound Subject, Compound Predicate, etc.

 

Not compound sentences.

 

353.Frequently in a simple sentence the writer uses two or more predicates to the same subject, two or more subjects of the same predicate, several modifiers, complements, etc.; but it is to be noticed that, in all such sentences as we quote below, the writers of them purposely combined them in single statements, and they are not to be expanded into compound sentences. In a compound sentence the object is to make two or more full statements.

 

Examples of compound subjects are, "By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided;" "The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice,—all awakened a train of recollections in his mind."

 

Sentences with compound predicates are, "The company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election;" "He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward."

 

Sentences with compound objects of the same verb are, "He caught his daughter and her child in his arms;" "Voyages and travels I would also have."

 

And so with complements, modifiers, etc.

 

Logical Subject and Logical Predicate.

354.The logical subject is the simple or grammatical subject, together with all its modifiers.

 

The logical predicate is the simple or grammatical predicate (that is, the verb), together with its modifiers, and its object or complement.

 

Larger view of a sentence.

It is often a help to the student to find the logical subject and predicate first, then the grammatical subject and predicate. For example, in the sentence, "The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature," the logical subject is the situation here contemplated, and the rest is the logical predicate. Of this, the simple subject is situation; the predicate, exposes; the object, ulcer, etc.

 

Independent Elements of the Sentence.

355.The following words and expressions are grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence; that is, they are not a necessary part, do not enter into its structure:—

 

(1) Person or thing addressed: "But you know them, Bishop;" "Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again."

 

(2) Exclamatory expressions: "But the lady—! Oh, heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams?"

 

Caution.

The exclamatory expression, however, may be the person or thing addressed, same as (1), above: thus, "Ah, young sir! what are you about?" Or it may be an imperative, forming a sentence: "Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man!"

 

(3) Infinitive phrase thrown in loosely: "To make a long story short, the company broke up;" "Truth to say, he was a conscientious man."

 

(4) Prepositional phrase not modifying: "Within the railing sat, to the best of my remembrance, six quill-driving gentlemen;" "At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared."

 

(5) Participial phrase: "But, generally speaking, he closed his literary toils at dinner;" "Considering the burnish of her French tastes, her noticing even this is creditable."

 

(6) Single words: as, "Oh, yes! everybody knew them;" "No, let him perish;" "Well, he somehow lived along;" "Why, grandma, how you're winking!" "Now, this story runs thus."

 

Another caution.

There are some adverbs, such as perhaps, truly, really, undoubtedly, besides, etc., and some conjunctions, such as however, then, moreover, therefore, nevertheless, etc., that have an office in the sentence, and should not be confused with the words spoken of above. The words well, now, why, and so on, are independent when they merely arrest the attention without being necessary.