(Comments on Activities)
1. Complete clause - imperative.
2. Doubtful as a clause. Resurfacing here seems to be a noun, so since there is no verb, it is not a clause. But it does not really seem to be a noun phrase either (c.f. no. 7 below). There are some grounds for arguing that there are 'verbless clauses' - and this is discussed again under Activity 7.
3. Similar comments apply, if we agree that overtaking here is a noun. However, the force of this example seems to be fairly imperative, so it feels more clause-like.
4. A complete clause with subject, predicator and adjunct.
5. A complete clause - imperative. Notice that the imperative verb beware is only imperative. We do not say he bewared of the dog.
6. This is similar to 2. There is clearly no verb here, so it is not a clause, unless we allow verbless clauses.
7. This is a noun phrase. It could be the subject of a clause, e.g.: Action for disabled customers is needed. If you compare this with 2 and 6, they seem less plausible as subjects of clauses.
8. A complete clause - imperative again.
9. Not a clause - no verb. It looks like a noun phrase, but the bit in brackets could be the remnants of a clause.
10. A noun phrase.
The sun blazed down on the scorched savannah. The dry grass rustled like sandpaper in the hot breeze. Overhead, the sky was porcelain blue. But the giraffe was donning a sea-green sou'wester. A sunbathing lion opened a quizzical eye and [E] started to roar with laughter. A pack of hyenas cackled hysterically. [R] Undeterred, the giraffe tugged on his wellies, one, two, three and four.
Gnus gnudged each other, [R] whispering and giggling. The giraffe pooh poohed their jibes and [E] unfurled a sober black umbrella. Still, the other animals broiled in the sun. Elephants sported smart new trunks. A long-legged camel shyly adjusted the bikini top on her humps. But the giraffe was studying the skies.
And sure enough, a little black cloud came scudding in from the west. Then another. Then another. Until at last the sky was as black as ink. With a violent crack, the clouds split open. The sunbathers were bathed in a torrent of rain.
E = ellipsis
R = retrievable from neighbouring clause
on the scorched savannah adjunct
rustled predicator
porcelain blue complement
a quizzical eye object
hysterically adjunct
his wellies object
each other object
giggling predicator
pooh poohed predicator
a sober black umbrella object
smart new trunks object
shyly adjunct
was studying predicator
from the west adjunct
as black as ink complement
The sunbathers subject
a. The bikini top on her humps is a noun-phrase. This is what she adjusted. On her humps is a prepositional phrase embedded in this noun-phrase.
b. The bikini top is a noun-phrase. This is what she adjusted. The place where she did this adjusting was on her humps, on her humps is an adjunct.
a. seems more probable than b.
I. Complex sentence
[1] You don't need an espresso machine [2] to enjoy the finest Italian espresso.
You should have spotted two clauses here. Notice also that the bound clause is movable in this sentence. It could be placed first. This is not necessarily the case with clauses beginning with an infinitive verb, but happens where the to means 'in order to'. It would not be possible in a sentence such as: / want my customers to enjoy the finest Italian espresso because to does not mean in order to,
2. Simple sentence - one clause.
S A V 0 (Sent. Ad.)
You just need a cafetiere or filter machine, and, (of course), Lavazza.
The only tricky point is that the object is rather complicated, consisting of several noun phrases joined together by co-ordinating conjunctions (recall that coordinating conjunctions can join nouns and noun phrases together as well as clauses - see Unit 3). The object is also interrupted at one point by a sentence adverbial element of course.
3. Not a clause - noun phrase.
4. Not a clause - noun phrase.
5. Compound sentence.
[1] This month's MOJO magazine is a special Beatles collectors edition
[2] and steps out in three deeply fabulous different covers.
Two clauses are co-ordinated by and. The second clause omits the subject because it is the same as the subject from the first clause - ellipsis.
6. Complex sentence.
[1] If you're in two minds about what to wear,
[2] trust your IQ.
Clause 1 is a bound clause, placed before the free clause in this case. The free clause is imperative.
7. Simple sentence.
Similar to 2. contains is the verb. The remainder is the object of contains.
8. Bound clause - not a sentence.
containing is the verb. Everything thereafter is the object of containing. However, unlike in 7, there is no subject here, and no tense either. This clause would normally be dependent on a neighbouring structure for its meaning to be apparent - otherwise we have no idea what is doing the containing. It is not self-standing. In this case it appeared directly under a picture of something called "The Exclusive Traveller Collection", which is a small case - containing the said cosmetic items. So the bound clause is contextualised here by a picture placed directly above the text. This is a device much used by advertising and also by manufacturers on their product packaging, e.g. Formulated for effective cleaning on a variety of household surfaces. Here, formulated is a verb, but there is no subject and no tense. Since it appears on the label of a bottle of bathroom cleaner, we know what the implied subject must be. Verbs like this are known as participles, and the bound clauses to which they belong are known as non-finite clauses.
9. Not a clause - or maybe a clause without a verb!
This structure is anomalous. One could argue that this is really a truncated clause, from which the subject (e.g. this product) and verb (e.g. is) and have been omitted. Some grammarians, e.g. Crystal (1987 and 1995), call these strings "verbless clauses". In Unit 6 we said that there might be some exceptions to the rule that a clause has to have a verb. Well here we are, but the issue of whether these structures really are clauses is controversial.
10. While stocks last.
This is a bound clause, with subordinating conjunction while. Again, it appeared as a stylistic sentence in an advertisement. Normally one would expect this to be part of a sentence in which there is an adjacent free clause.
Points of interest are numbered. Comments follow below.
Text 1
3 pieces of equipment generate pin-sharp images. You already own 2. Cast your eyes over our new range of Stylus Color printers1 and you'll discover the third.
It's a highly sophisticated crystal print-head. 2And you'll find it in them all.
Unlike conventional printheads it doesn't explode ink onto surfaces,3 it pumps it on in minute quantities, giving greater control and less misting.
So you get sharper, crisper dots which, in turn, make sharper crisper images.
Text 2
It is more than twenty years since Timberland developed the first water proof leather boot.
The original Tan Buck boot was made from silicone treated leather.
4With injection moulded soles and four rows of latex sealed stitching, to ensure even the tiniest droplet of water could not get through.
It has become a classic. 5Often copied but never replicated.
1. and appears to co-ordinate an imperative free clause and an ordinary free clause, but it is an exceptional kind of co-ordination. This is a peculiar use of and which has the effect of making the imperative clause conditional in meaning: If you cast your eyes ... The two co-ordinated clauses cannot change places at all, so that the and seems in this case to belong more firmly to the second clause than it does normally.
2. Prescriptive rules of punctuation would dictate that this clause beginning with and should be shown as part of the same sentence as the previous clause. In fact so many texts of different kinds have sentences beginning with and that the prescriptive rule is hard to sustain in a blanket sense. However, sentences beginning with and usually show less connection with the immediately preceding clauses than this one does. This example would be less likely in non-advertising texts. One reason for this style in advertising may be that copy-writers find it punchier. It is a relatively recent development, as study of older advertisements confirms.
3. This shows exactly the opposite tendency to that noted in 2. Here, prescriptive rules of punctuation would dictate that there should be a full-stop, or at least a semi-colon at this point. Alternatively, there should be a conjunction such as and, or in this case, but. The reason is that both Unlike conventional printheads it doesn't explode ink onto surfaces and it pumps it on in minute quantities are free clauses. Two free clauses should not, prescriptively, be simply run together like this, unless there is a third free clause to follow which is correctly joined on with a conjunction. People will have different views about this, but it is perhaps worth pointing out that it is one of the most disliked deviations from formal conventions of punctuation, especially in academic writing! It is far more tolerated in literary writing.
4. Syntactically, everything from The original Tan Buck boot down as far as sealed stitching is one free clause, and the rest of the sentence is a bound non-finite clause. So the full-stop after leather is prescriptively out of the question, since it occurs in the middle of what is a perfectly good clause. Conventional punctuation would allow only a comma here. The copywriter clearly had a lot to say, and probably shared the general advertiser's dislike of long sentences. A two-sentence alternative which obeys the traditional rules would be: [SI] The original Tan Buck boot was made from silicone treated leather. [S2] Injection moulded soles and four rows of latex sealed stitching ensured even the tiniest droplet of water could not get through. Whether this would sell as many boots is, needless to say, imponderable.
5. Here we have a pair of bound clauses, forming a stylistic sentence on their own. The implied subject is presumably the it from the previous clause/sentence. Various more conventional arrangements would have been possible, e.g. Often copied but never replicated, it has become a classic; but this Often ... .but ... formula is such an advertising clich- that one can well understand why the copywriter wanted it to stand alone.
1. Public notices of this kind are typical examples of isolated sentences. Notice that people still have to do some contextualising work in terms of the setting, since the reference to dogs is not completely general. It does not mean all dogs at all times, but only relevant dogs, i.e. those found in the vicinity of the notice.
2. This is another self-sufficient sentence of the public notice variety. It does make direct reference to the physical setting, but linguistically it requires no support.
3. This is more text-based. Clearly one cannot refer to an "above-named person" unless there is previous text in which the person has been named. In addition, our knowledge of such statements tells us that it is most unlikely to finish there. What would be the point of reporting this fact unless it was relevant to some further text?
4. This is harder to categorise. It could be an isolated sentence, e.g. a quotation, or a simple description in a publisher's catalogue. In fact it comes from a slightly longer text - a blurb on the back cover of the said book.
5. This is clearly discourse based, and can only be an answer to a question.
6. This is a ritual utterance which requires no previous text and no reply. Its archaic use of the exhortatory modal verb may is significant.
7. This is a trick. Further information makes it look highly text-based. In fact, it comes from an advertisement, and there is no preceding or following text - only a picture of an almost naked woman crawling on all fours over a sun-baked desert. She is wearing trainers, though, which is what is being advertised. The picture certainly does not give much information. It is as if the copywriter knows that further information is known by readers to be text-based, and has therefore deliberately used it in an isolated way.
8. Novelists have different ways of getting started, and there is inevitably a tendency for opening sentences to be relatively isolated. This is a good example. In principle such a statement needs no further comment. The fact that we know that it is followed by three hundred pages of narrative is not really a reason for classifying it as text-based. Compare this with the following opening: With its two fighting claws held forward like a wrestler's arms the big pandinus scorpion emerged with a dry rustle from the finger-sized hole under the rock. (lan Fleming, Diamonds are Forever). Here the definite article in front of scorpion and rock seem to locate this sentence in mid-narrative. Yet it is the opening sentence of the book. The choice of a text-based sentence in opening position, plunging the reader straight into the action, is fairly typical of the thriller genre.
A noun phrase such as three men in a boat is not syntactically free-standing since it typically occupies the subject or object position in a clause, rather than constituting a clause or sentence by itself. In conversation it can be the answer to a question: Q: What can you see in this picture? A: Three men in a boat. Or it might be an exclamation: Look! Three men in a boat! When written down, these examples can be regarded as stylistic sentences, i.e. they begin with a capital letter and end with a full-stop or other sentence boundary marker such as an exclamation mark. They succeed communicatively since they are contextualised by the preceding discourse and/or by the physical context of the dialogue, but because they are dependent on this contextualisation for success, they are not regarded as syntactically free-standing. A noun phrase uttered out of the blue will cause bafflement unless the hearer can swiftly locate the intended context.
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is grammatically self-standing. It is a clause having subject, full verb and complement, and therefore constitutes a simple sentence. If someone said this to you divorced from any apparent linguistic or physical context, you might be puzzled as to why they had said it, but at least you would be able to reply to the content, for example by saying: I know. It would be much more difficult to reply to something like three men in a boat if similarly divorced from any context.
When it comes to book titles, the full-sentence type is much less common than the noun-phrase type. Sometimes the author has derived the title directly from words spoken by one of the characters in the book, e.g. We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea; or it might be suggestive of the sort of thing one of the characters might say. Other full-sentence titles attempt to summarise the content of a story or one of the key events in it, e.g. Five Go On Holiday or Mr Norris Changes Trains. The full-sentence title may be much less common because sentences are too precise. Noun-phrases have more open-ended implications.
Full sentences and noun phrases are not the only possibilities for titles. Where The Wild Things Are is a dependent, subordinate or bound clause - the three labels mean the same thing, remember. Like Three men in a boat, this is not free-standing syntactically. It can be communicatively successful under similar conditions, e.g. as the answer to a question: Where do your dreams lead you? It does not seem to work too well as an exclamation, and as an out-of-the blue utterance would be virtually uninterpretable. It typically occurs as part of a longer sentence, e.g.: I can't imagine where the wild things are or: I am planning a visit to Tunbridge Wells, where the wild things are. It is part of a freestanding item, but is not free-standing itself, and is thus not a sentence. Notice that the same words, rearranged as Where are the wild things?, do constitute a free clause, and thus also a sentence. For Whom The Bell Tolls is another example of a bound clause. In this case the actual sentence in which this bound clause was originally embedded is retrievable, since it is such a well-known literary allusion.
In Now We Are Six there is doubt over whether Now is an adverb or a conjunction. If this title could equally well be expressed as We are six now, the word now is an adverb, and the title is a free-standing clause, and therefore a sentence. The meaning is something like: At long last we are six. If it is a conjunction, the title is a subordinate clause, and not freestanding. The meaning then is more like Since we are six, ... and there would be an implied main clause to follow such as we can read these grown-up poems. A.A. Milne may not have been sure what he meant, or he may have been consciously ambiguous.
How Green Was My Valley is a clause and a sentence. The subject of the clause comes after the verb, and the complement before it. A more prosaic equivalent would be "my valley (subject) was (verb) unusually green (complement)". This happens in these exclamatory type clauses, but is not the normal ordering.
Don't Tell Alfred is a clause and a sentence. It is imperative, and therefore lacks a subject.
Select Phrases In The Canton Dialect is a noun phrase.
Down And Out In Paris And London appears not to be a sentence, since it appears not to be a clause either. Nor is it a noun-phrase. Semantically it consists of a descriptive element: Down And Out and a place element In Paris And London. Syntactically it is somewhat problematic, but this type of structure is relatively common in book titles. Some other examples are: Eyeless in Gaza (adjective + prepositional phrase) or Darkness At Noon and Alice Through The Looking Glass (both noun + prepositional phrase). The elements in these titles might be imagined as components of "truncated clauses" such as (There was) Darkness At Noon or (This book describes being) Down And Out In Paris And London, or Alice (went) Through The Looking Glass, but we really have insufficient evidence to be sure precisely what clauses might underlie such structures. They are somewhat anomalous syntactically speaking, but perfectly effective nonetheless.
Finally, To Kill A Mockingbird is another bound clause, not free-standing, and not a sentence. It is similar to Where The Wild Things Are in some ways, but there are also differences, which will be explored at a later stage.
