The grammatical functions in the main clause of each of the sentences include: Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, and Subject Complement.
1. Mary didn’t tell me where she had found the missing scissors.
[Mary] – Subject.
[me] – Indirect Object.
[where she had found the missing scissors] – Direct Object.
The fancy sports car his mother had bought generated a great deal of excitement.
[Car ] – Subject .
[a great deal of excitement] – Direct Object.
Bill seemed thoroughly satisfied with the condition of the residence.
[Bill] – Subject.
[satisfied] – Subject Compliment.
[with the condition of the residence] – Direct Object.
Beatrice claimed that she can achieve a perfect score on the assignment.
[Beatrice] – Subject.
[that she can achieve a perfect score on the assignment] – Direct Object.
Our guests walked to the shopping mall in the afternoon.
[Guests] – Subject.
[to the shopping mall] – Subject Compliment
II. Ian appreciated the gift which he received for his birthday.
(a) Gift (Direct Object marked by the determiner “the”).
(b) [which he received for his birthday] – restrictive relative clause.
(c) The gift (the antecedent of which)
(d) [for his birthday] (Direct Object)
III. Most relative clauses can be classified as restrictive or a non-restrictive. In case it is a restrictive clause, it limits the meaning of the noun “people”. If it is a nonrestrictive clause it tells about the noun but does not limit its meaning.
Older people who get frequently sick should take extra health cover. (restrictive clause)
Older people, who get frequently sick, should take extra health cover. (nonrestrictive clause)
The first sentence implies that only this group of people should be careful. It restricts information hence, it is a restrictive clause. The second sentence does not limit these people to the group. It characterizes them, but it doesn’t pick the group out. Commas are important when a nonrestrictive clause occupies the mid position within the main clause.
IV. Types of subordinate clauses.
a) I could see the horror his face exhibited when he realized he was not allowed to leave the room.
[his face exhibited] – finite compliment clause.
[when he realized] – adverbial clause.
[he was not allowed to leave the room] - finite compliment clause.
[to leave] - non-finite infinitive clause.
b) I was feeling like some impresario who watches the star member of his troupe advance to the footlights.
[who watches] - relative clause.
[the star member of his troupe advance to the footlights] – finite complement clause.
V. Types of conjunctions in subordinate clauses.
1. I found little satisfaction in the thought that the weather was fine. (that: a complementizer)
2. The theatre which is showing that film is just down the road from Myers.
(which: relative pronoun; that: determiner)
3. She was unable to offer any insights into that. (that: demonstrative)
4. Ben would not accept the apology that was offered to him. (that: complementizer)
5. Which way did the motorbike go? (which: determiner)
VI. Tree diagrams to explain structural ambiguity.
1. Gary learned [about the earthquake in Newcastle].
S.
NP. VP.
N. V. PP. PP.
Gary learned NP. NP.
P. D. N. P. N.
about the earthquake in Newcastle.
2. Gary [learned about the earthquake] in Newcastle.
S.
NP. VP.
N. PP. V. PP.
Gary NP. learned NP.
P. N. P. D. N.
in Newcastle. about the earthquake
VII. Complex sentence and question tree diagrams.
S.
VP.
Clause: Non-finite
VP.
NP.
NP. V. Od. Ger. D. N.
I found her painting the house.
S.
S’
C. S
Q. Inv. NP. VP.
Pron. N. Aux.finite N. Inv. V.
Whose assignment did Christo (e) misplace?
(Here: Inv. – inversion; Aux.finite – auxiliary finite verb; Pron. – pronoun; C. – complementizer).
In tasks number 6 and 7 we delt with syntactic strucure of the sentences. To model the way a sentence is built linguists use structure trees. There are three basic notions related to syntactic structure trees. The trees contain three levels of syntactic analysis: the constituent structure of the sentence, the syntactic category of each one of the constituents, and the grammatical function of each of these constituents. The model shows how they are represented in the trees.
