III. The students are scholars.
IV. T he students seem diligent. V. The students became scholars. VI. The students rested.
VII. T he students organized a dance marathon. V lll. The students gave the professor their homework.
IX. T he students consider the teacher intelligent. X. T he students consider the coursc a challenge.
T H E S E N T E N C E SLOTS
O ne way to think about a sentence is to picture it as a series o f positions, or slots. In the following chart, where all the slots are labeled, you’ll see that the first one in ever}7 pattern is the subject, and the second— the first posi tion in the predicate— is the main verb, also called the predicating verb.
Because the variations among the sentence patterns are in the predicates, we group the ten patterns according to their verb types: the be patterns, the linking verb patterns, the intransitive verb pattern, and the transitive
verb patterns. You’ll notice that the num ber o f slots in the predicate varies:
Six o f the patterns have two, but Pattern VI has only one slot, and three of the transitive patterns, VIII to X, each have three. The label in parentheses names the function, the role, that the slot performs in the sentence.
’ih e subscript numbers you see in some of the patterns in the chart that follows show the relationship between noun phrases: Identical numbers— such as those in Patterns III and V, where both numbers are 1— mean that the two noun phrases have the same referent; different numbers— such as those in Pattern VII, where the num bers are 1 and 2— denote different referents. Referent means the thing (or person, event, concept, and so on) that the noun or noun phrase stands for.
'lhis list o f patterns, w ith each position labeled according to its form and its role in the sentence, may look form idable at the m om ent. But d o n ’t worry— and d o n ’t try to memorize all this detail. It will fall into place as you come to understand the separate patterns.
Chapter 3: Sentence Patterns 31
The Be P a tte rn s
I NP be ADV/TP
(subject) (predicating verb) (adverbial of time or place)
T})e students are upstairs
II NP be ADJ
(subj) (pred vb) (subject complement)
The students are diligent
III NP, be NP,
(subj) (pred vb) (subj comp)
The students are scholars The L in k in g Verb Patterns
IV NP linking verb ADJ
(subj) (pred vb) (subj comp)
Ihe students seem diligent
V NP, Ink verb NP,
(subj) (pred vb) (subj comp)
7he students became scholars
The Intran sitive Verb Pattern
VI NP intransitive verb
(subj) (pred vb)
The students rested
The Transitive Verb Patterns
VII NP, transitive verb n p2
(subj) (pred vb) (direct object)
The students organized a dance marathon
VIII N P 1 trans verb N P ; N P,
(subj) (pred vb) (indirect object) (dir obj)
The students gave the professor their homework
IX NP, trans verb n p2 ADJ
(subj) (pred vb) (dir obj) (obj comp)
The students consider the teacher intelligent
X NP, trans verb NP, N P,
(subj) (pred vb) (dir obj) (obj comp)
3 2 Part II: Ihe Grammar o f Basic Sentences
T H E B E PATTERNS
The first three formulas state that when a form o f be serves as the main, or predicating, verb, an adverbial o f time or place (Pattern I), or an adjectival (Pattern II), or a noun phrase (Pattern III) will follow it. The one excep tion to this rule— and, by the way, we can think o f the sentence patterns as descriptions o f the rules that our internal com puter is programmed to follow— is a statem ent simply affirming existence, such as “1 am .” Aside from this exception, Patterns 1 through III describe all the sentences in which a form of be is the main verb. (O ther one-word forms of be are am,
is, are, was, were; and the expanded forms, described in Chapter 4, include have been, was being, might be, and will be.)
P attern I: N P be A D V /T P The students are upstairs The teacher is here. I h e last performance wa<
T h e AD V in the form ula stands for adverbial, a m odifier o f the verb. The ADV that follows be is, w ith certain exceptions, limited to when and where information, so in the formula for Pattern I we identify the slot as A D V /TP, meaning “adverbial o f time or place.”1 In the sample sentences
upstairs and /^redesignate place;yesterday designates time. 'Ihe diagram of
Pattern I shows the adverb below' the verb, which is where all adverbials are diagrammed.
In the following Pattern I sentences, the adverbials of time and place are prepositional phrases in form;
The next performance is on M onday. The students are in the library.
The diagram for the adverbial prepositional phrase is a tw o-part frame work with a slanted line for the preposition and a horizontal line for the object; ; yesterday. students arc \ A \ \ \ \ V *
N otice th at the object o f the preposition is a noun phrase, so it is dia grammed just as the subject noun phrase is— with the headword on the horizontal line and the determiner below it.
P a tte rn II: N P be ADJ The students are diligent.
The price of gasoline is ridiculous The play was very dull.
In this pattern the com plem ent that follows be is an adjectival. In the language o f traditional gram m ar, this slot is the subject com plem ent, which both completes the verb and modifies or describes the subject.2 The word complement refers to a “completer” o f the verb. O n the diagram the subject complement follows a diagonal line that slants toward the subject to show their relationship.
In the three sample sentences the subject complements are adjectives in form, as they usually are, but sometimes a prepositional phrase will fill the slot. These are set phrases, or idiomatic expressions, that name an attribute o f the subject:
Henrv is under the weather.j --- Kim is in a bad m ood.
Although these sentences may look like those you saw in Partem I, you can figure out that they belong in Pattern II because you can usually think of an adjective, a single descriptive word, that could substitute for rhe phrase:
H enry is ill. Kim is cranky.
You can also rule out Pattern I because “under the weather” and “in a bad m ood” do not supply information o f time or place.
The diagram for the prepositional phrase in a complement position has the same two-part framework that we saw before:
Chapter 3: Sentence Patterns 33
“ M orespecifically, rhe traditional label for the subject complement, in Pattern II (and IV) is predicate adjective; the traditional label for the N P in Pattern III (and V) is predicate
nom inative. W e will use the m ore general term subject complement for both adjectives and
noun phrases.
students are \ diligent
W e attach that frame to che main line by means of a pedestal. In this way the structure is immediately identifiable in terms of both form (preposi tional phrase) and function (subject complement):
3 4 Part II: the Grammar of Basic Sentences
\\
weather m ood
sM .
H cnrv iS
\
^ X Kim is / \Pattern III: N P t ^ N P ,
The students are scholars.
Professor M endez is my m ath teacher. The tournam ent was an exciting event
The N P, o f course, fills the subject slot in all o f the patterns; in Pattern 111 a noun phrase following be fills the subject com plem ent slot as well. The numbers that m ark the NPs indicate that the two noun phrases have the same referent. For example, when we say “Professor M endez is my m ath teacher,” the two NPs, “Professor Mendez” and “my m ath teacher,” refer to the same person. The subject com plem ent renames the subject;
be, the main verb, acts as an “equal sign,” connecting the subject with its
complement.
scudems are \ scholars
Exercise
Draw vertical lines to isolate the slots in the following sentences; identify each slot according to its form and function, as the example shows, 'lhen identify the sentence pattern.
Example: Our vacation
subject
was be pred ito wonderful. (Pattern. M j Subj CDfHpXX
) ) 1. Brian’s problem is serious. (Pattern______2. Ihe workers are on the roof. (Pattern_____
3. The excitement of the fans is real)’' contagious. (Pattern. 4. Brevity is the soul of wit. [Shakespeare] (Pattern___ 5. Ihe final exam was at four o’clock. (Pattern_______ 6. The kids are very silly. (Pattern__________ )
Chapter 3: Sentence Patterns 35
1. The basketball team is on a roll. (Pattern__________ )
8. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. [Ralph Waldo Emerson] (Pattern__________ }
Now do a traditional diagram of cach sentence, like those you have seen next to the patterns. (See pages 56-58 for notes on the diagrams.)