Week 3 English II Practice Assignment

The clause in question is “Who was also my brother”.

Let’s break down why and clarify its classification based on the provided sources:

1. Identifying the Clause:

   • The sentence is: ‘The policeman, who was also my brother, helped us file a complaint.’
   • A clause is a grammatical unit that must contain a subject and a verb. In “who was also my brother,” “who” acts as the subject, and “was” is the verb, confirming it is a clause.
   • It is a subordinate clause because it “does not have independent status” and is “embedded within another sentence”. The clause “who was also my brother” cannot stand alone as a complete sentence.

2. Determining the Type of Clause:

   • The clause “who was also my brother” begins with the relative pronoun “who”.
   • It directly modifies the noun “The policeman” by providing additional, descriptive information about him. Adjectival clauses (also known as relative clauses) “occur to modify a noun” and typically appear “to the right of a noun”. They describe or qualify a noun, similar to how an adjective would.
   • Therefore, this clause is an adjectival (relative) clause.

3. Understanding “in Apposition”:

   • Apposition generally refers to a noun or phrase that provides “additional information” about another noun, often placed immediately beside it. The commas around “who was also my brother” indicate that it provides non-essential, additional information about “The policeman,” thus functioning in apposition.
   • The sources state that “subordinate clauses can also occur in apposition, meaning giving some additional information, to other nouns”.
   • One source provides an example, “Rabindranath Tagore, who is a Nobel laureate,” where “who is a Nobel laureate” is identified as a “relative clause” that provides “additional information” and is referred to as “apposition information”.

4. Addressing “Noun Clause in Apposition”:

   • A noun clause (or nominal clause) functions like a noun within a sentence, typically as a subject or an object. The clause “who was also my brother” is not functioning as the subject or object of the main sentence; it is modifying “The policeman.”
   • While a subordinate clause can be in apposition, and a relative clause can provide appositional information, the clause in the given sentence is definitively an adjectival clause, not a noun clause, based on its grammatical function (modifying a noun). The source initially refers to a relative clause as a “subordinate noun clause in apposition” but immediately clarifies it is a “relative clause” with “adjectival information”, indicating a potential imprecision in terminology in that specific instance of the transcript.

Given the options, C. Who was also my brother is the clause that is in apposition. However, it is grammatically an adjectival (relative) clause, not a noun clause. Therefore, strictly speaking, there is no noun clause in apposition in this sentence.

The final answer is $\boxed{C}$

The statement ‘Fatima takes the bus to go to work.’ is a simple sentence is B. False.

Here’s why, based on the provided sources:

1. Understanding a Simple Sentence:

   • A simple sentence is defined as having a subject and a predicate. It is also explicitly stated that “All simple sentences are independent clauses”.
   • An independent clause is a clause that “has independent status” and can “stand alone as a complete thought or sentence”. Structurally, a simple sentence “has only three things, subject, verb and object”. Examples of simple sentences provided include “Everyone needs a coach” and “Water freezes at 0 degrees centigrade”. These examples contain only one main verb and no other embedded clauses.
   • Crucially, if a sentence contains “more verbs within a sentence, they are either verbal; they have nominal features, they are verbal nouns, gerunds or another clause, a verb within another class”.

2. Analysing the Sentence:

   • The given sentence is: “Fatima takes the bus to go to work.”
   • “Fatima takes the bus” is the main clause (or independent clause). It has a subject (“Fatima”) and a finite verb (“takes”), and it can stand alone as a complete sentence.
   • The phrase “to go to work” contains the verb “to go,” which is an infinitive.
   • The sources state that an “infinitival clause, non-finite sentences can also be clause”. A non-finite clause “does not have any tense and it does not have any agreement on it”, and it “does not have that capacity to become an independent clause”; rather, it “has to remain an embedded clause”.
   • The phrase “to go to work” describes why Fatima takes the bus, indicating purpose. This is an adverbial function. The sources clarify that clauses “which is only to give additional information” are adverbial in nature.

3. Conclusion:

   • A complex sentence is defined as one that “has got several subordinate clauses in association with or within the main clause”, or more broadly, it “has an embedded clause in it”.
   • Since “to go to work” is identified as an embedded (non-finite) clause performing an adverbial function, its presence means the sentence is not a simple sentence. Instead, it is a complex sentence because it contains a main clause and an embedded subordinate clause.

To determine the number of clauses in the sentence ‘Joe buys a cup of coffee from the canteen everyday’, we first need to understand what constitutes a clause based on the provided sources.

• A clause is a grammatical unit that must contain a subject and a verb.
• A simple sentence is defined as having a subject and a predicate. A predicate contains “all other kinds of information in the sense that other than subject, everything else is part of the predicate and then everything within the predicate has to do something with the verb”.
• Crucially, a simple sentence “has only three things, subject, verb and object”.
• All simple sentences are independent clauses. An independent clause is a clause that “has independent status” and can “stand alone as a complete thought or sentence”.
• If a sentence contains “more verbs within a sentence, they are either verbal; they have nominal features, they are verbal nouns, gerunds or another clause, a verb within another class”.

Let’s analyse the given sentence: ‘Joe buys a cup of coffee from the canteen everyday.’

1. Identify the subject: The subject of the sentence is “Joe”.
2. Identify the verb: The main verb associated with “Joe” is “buys”.
3. Identify other potential clauses:
   • “a cup of coffee” serves as the object of the verb “buys”. Objects are considered complements of the verb and are structurally indispensable. They do not form a separate clause.
   • “from the canteen” is a prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases can function adverbially. In this sentence, it provides information about where Joe buys coffee, thus acting as an adjunct modifying the verb “buys”. Adjuncts are optional elements and do not contain a subject-verb pair of their own.
   • “everyday” is an adverb of time modifying the verb “buys” by specifying when the action occurs. Adverbs function as adjuncts.

Since there is only one subject-verb pair (“Joe buys”) and no other embedded or subordinate clauses (such as those introduced by conjunctions like ’that’, ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘when’, ‘before’, ‘if’, or non-finite clauses like infinitives or gerunds functioning as clauses), the sentence is a simple sentence.

Therefore, the sentence ‘Joe buys a cup of coffee from the canteen everyday.’ has 1 clause.

The final answer is $\boxed{A}$

In the sentence ‘The hall of archives is a huge place,’ the complement is D. A huge place.

Here’s the breakdown, drawing upon the provided sources:

• Understanding a Complement: A complement is an “essential, structurally indispensable part of a sentence clause or a phrase”. It is a required element that completes the meaning of a verb or another element in the sentence. The sources state that if you remove a complement, it “makes the sentence incomplete” and “ungrammatical”.
• Identifying the Verb: The main verb in the sentence is “is”. This is a linking verb that connects the subject to a word or phrase that renames or describes it.
• Identifying the Subject: The subject of the sentence is “The hall of archives”.
• Function of “a huge place”: The phrase “a huge place” directly completes the meaning of the linking verb “is” by describing what “The hall of archives” is. If we remove “a huge place,” the sentence “The hall of archives is” is incomplete and does not convey a full thought, confirming that “a huge place” is an indispensable element.
• Complements of Verbs: The sources indicate that “complements are mostly looking at complements of verbs in a sentence”. They can occur “after the verb in the predicate and they are called predicative adjectives”. While “a huge place” is a noun phrase, it functions as a subject complement (specifically a predicate nominative), completing the linking verb and providing information about the subject, similar to how a predicative adjective would function. The sources provide examples like “She is beautiful” or “This book is big,” where “beautiful” and “big” are predicative adjectives functioning as complements that “complete the sense, they complete the sentence”.

Therefore, “a huge place” is the phrase that completes the verb “is” and is indispensable to the sentence’s meaning, thus making it the complement.

In the sentence ‘The hall of archives is a huge place.’, the correct answer is C. No adjuncts.

Let’s break down the components of the sentence based on the information from the sources to understand why:

1. Understanding Sentences, Complements, and Adjuncts:

   • A sentence is a fundamental tool for communication and consists of essential components.
   • All English sentences must have a subject and a predicate as their required elements.
   • Within the predicate, a complement is an “essential, structurally indispensable part of a sentence clause or a phrase”. Removing a complement makes the sentence incomplete or ungrammatical. Objects are examples of complements.
   • An adjunct, on the other hand, is an “optional element” and is a “structurally dispensable element of a sentence, a clause or a phrase”. If an adjunct is removed, it “does not structurally affect the formation of a sentence”. Adverbs typically function as adjuncts, providing “additional information”. Adjuncts can modify a verb, an entire predicate, or even a noun phrase.

2. Analysing the Sentence: ‘The hall of archives is a huge place.’

   • “The hall of archives”: This entire phrase functions as the subject of the sentence.
   • “is”: This is the main verb of the sentence, specifically a linking verb.
   • “a huge place”: As established in our previous conversation (Query 4), this phrase acts as the complement of the verb “is”. It completes the meaning of the linking verb and is essential; removing it would leave the sentence incomplete and ungrammatical (“The hall of archives is.”).

3. Examining “of archives”:

   • This is a prepositional phrase. While it modifies “The hall”, it is not an optional adjunct in the sentence. Instead, it forms an integral part of the subject noun phrase, specifying which hall.
   • The sources indicate that complements can exist within a phrase as well, not just for verbs. For example, in the phrase “the King of England”, “of England” is identified as a complement of this phrase, the King. Complements “must be closed to the head” they complement.
   • Following this principle, “of archives” is an indispensable part of identifying “The hall”, thereby functioning as a complement within the noun phrase “The hall of archives”, rather than an optional adjunct to the main sentence.

In conclusion, the sentence “The hall of archives is a huge place” consists of a subject (which itself contains a complement “of archives”) and a subject complement (“a huge place”). There are no elements present in this sentence that fit the definition of an adjunct, as all parts contribute essential structural or identifying information.