Kolona:

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With 'just loud enough,' the trick is to figure out which word is the one that can stand alone, without the other two: just to invade, loud to invade, enough to invade. So 'enough' is the word that modifies 'sound.' Both 'just' and 'loud' modify 'enough,' though a case might be made for 'just' to modify 'loud.' In any case, 'enough' is an adjective since it modifies a noun, and 'just' and 'loud' are adverbs since they can modify adjectives and other adverbs.

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I'm not sure I agree with this assesment. While it sounds right that 'just' and 'loud' modify 'enough', I don't agree that this makes 'loud' an adverb. I'm pretty sure it is an adjective, and that if an adverb is really called for in this situation, it should be 'loudly'.

Now, interestingly, this calls to mind that the sentence was phrased: "A buzzing sound, just loud enough to invade his nap, woke him." In this case, the entire phrase being analysed here is serving as an adjective.

Another way of writing the sentence would be: "A sound buzzed just loudly enough to invade his nap, waking him." In this case the same phrase is serving as an adverb and therefore seems to need the adverb form of 'loud'.

Now, going back to the sentence, I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that there are some missing words that are implied by the structure.

"A buzzing sound, just loud enough to invade his nap, woke him."

This is an abbreviated form of this sentence:

"A buzzing sound, which was just loud enough to invade his nap, woke him."

With this structure, it is quite clear that 'just loud enough to invade his nap' is an adjective phrase. Now, according to a grammar definition I have here, an adjective phrase has the following structure:

Optional premodifier (an adverb)
Head (an adjective or participle)
Postmodifier (an adverb, for which a prepositional or inifinitive phrase may substitute)

An adverb phrase has the same structure with an adverb for 'head'.

So, 'just' is an adverb premodifier, 'loud' the adjective head of the phrase, and 'enough to invade his nap' a postmodifier adverb, which breaks down to 'enough' (adverb head), 'to invade his nap' (postmodifier infinitive phrase)

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His ear focused on the sound, his head following as he watched intently.

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This should have had an "and" after the comma I think. Which if I understand it correctly, makes it two sentances, or clauses?

ear should be the subject
focused should be the verb
on the sound specifies what the ear was focusing on. Which makes it an adverb?
His works as an adjective here, I believe.
The second part:
he subject
watched verb
intently adverb
his head following adverb phrase?

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A fly circled the black lamp landing on the side near the top; right where the lamp grew bigger.

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I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a ‘complementizer,’ and ‘binary syntax’ sounds like a computer language breakdown. (I’m guessing here.) In any case, this might be an instance of differences across the pond. I’d understand complementizers to be ‘which’ or ‘that’ acting as nouns representing whole thoughts. With the ‘that’ in ‘that is,’ the whole thought is a reiteration of ‘he had been taking his nap.’

I did check the web, and learned that “a complementizer (which does seem to have European roots) is a conjunction which marks a complement clause,” as in “I know that he is here.” The site also went into adverbializers and relativizers (also which I’ve never heard of before), which are also types of conjunctions. I think, in the U.S, we refer to all these as conjunctive adverbs, subordinating conjunctions, ect.

As far as diagramming our sentence, "The sun was warm, and he had been having a pleasant nap; that was until the noise disturbed him.", I’d have:
‘sun was warm’ on the top line,
coordinating conjunction ‘and’ on a broken line connecting to,
‘he had been having nap’ on second tier line,
slanted broken line with ‘until’ on it connecting to,
‘noise disturbed him’ on third tier line,
a crooked broken line coming off the slanted broken line to a small line with ‘that was’ on it.
(I can just imagine trying to read all that. )

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However, I think not knowing how to diagram something isn't a good reason to get rid of it. We'd wind up with some pretty weird and choppy prose if we tried that.

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I don’t think I said that. Although I prefer Christine’s version, I specified that some word choices are stylistic, whether to the author or the characters he’s writing, and are necessary and proper. But expletives can weaken writing. The writer I quoted gave an example with the sentence, “There are many kinds of computers available that advance home businesses.” ‘There’ is considered an expletive (not to be confused with interjections). The sentence would be better without it, maybe “Businesses in the home can be advanced by the different computers available.” as DeVincentis-Hayes suggests.

I’ll go either way with labeling ‘a’ and other articles as articles or adjectives. Mainly I like the exercise of identifying modification, because sometimes ‘the,’ for instance, can actually be an adverb, as in “the more the merrier” (to what extent) “used to modify words in the comparative degree,” as my dictionary says.

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Why suggest not learning something you already know?

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There has to be a better way to ask that, LordD. That reminds me of something one of my sons used to say to our dog. Instead of saying something silly like “Scoochie, scoochie, scoochie,” he’d say, “Tell me something you don’t know.”

Okay, back to business. Jules mentioned not being sure about ‘just loud enough’ as I had it.

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While it sounds right that 'just' and 'loud' modify 'enough', I don't agree that this makes 'loud' an adverb. I'm pretty sure it is an adjective, and that if an adverb is really called for in this situation, it should be 'loudly'.

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Jules raises several valid points. Depending on how you arrange the sentence, the phrase, "just loud enough to invade his nap," can modify either ‘sound’ or ‘buzzed’ (in Jules’ rewrite), which makes it either an adjective phrase or an adverb phrase (adjectival or adverbial). Depending on whether you add implied words will also make a difference: "A buzzing sound, which was just loud enough to invade his nap, woke him."

Let’s leave the adverbial rewrite alone (the one with the 'buzzed') and stick with the original sentence – which does have room for the implied words,‘ which was.’ In the original sentence, the ‘just loud enough’ phrase modified ‘sound’ and was adjectival. When you add the implied words, you end up with a whole phrase modifying ‘sound,’ shown by a broken diagram line leading down from ‘sound’ to a second tier line with “(which) (was) enough” on that line, ‘enough’ now being a predicate adjective, or possibly a predicate noun, since the dictionary says it can be either.

Jules’ breakdown of adjective phrases does seem to exemplify the differences between British and American education, because I’m not familiar with that particular terminology. I’ll have to take his word for it.

Dakota, I’m not sure how much better to “Deconstruct a story, a passage...word by word, sentence by sentence [and] Examine it closely” than by diagramming it. Several posters earlier mentioned style, but I think LordD is focused on grammar. Plus, there is that style vs. grammar discussion going on in that other thread.

And I'll have to finish this tomorrow. 'Night, all.

(Oooo...we have snow.)

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[quote]A fly circled the black lamp landing on the side near the top; right where the lamp grew bigger.

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fly subject
circled verb
lamp indirect object? (what the fly circled) black being the adjective describing the lamp.
landing second verb
on the side prep phrase (adverb phrase?) describing landing.
near the top the same as the previous.
After the semicolon...I'm not sure. lamp/grew?

Hopefully most of it is right.
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I would have said the lamp was the direct object, but I'm not very good at distinguishing direct & indirect.

The semicolon should really be a comma, which makes "right where the lamp grew bigger" a second adverb phrase, also modifying "landing".

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‘Loud’ can be an adverb or an adjective; in fact, ‘loudly’ is listed as a definition/synonym for the adverbial form of ‘loud’ in my dictionary, which means either form is okay as an adverb.

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I would have said the lamp was the direct object, but I'm not very good at distinguishing direct & indirect.

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>>>>His ear focused on the sound, his head following as he watched intently.<<<<

This should have had an "and" after the comma I think.

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From what I read, a pronoun would be a direct object, and everything else is indirect.

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A buzzing sound, just loud enough to invade his nap, woke him.

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(When diagramming a sentence, always begin by finding the verb.)

The verb is woke. What did the waking? "A buzzing sound": thus, it's the subject. The simple subject - the heart of the subject, if you will - is "sound". Woke what? "Him": thus, it's the predicate.

"Just loud enough to invade his nap": this is a modifing clause. It modifies "sound". It's not essential to identifying the sound, though, so it's enclosed in commas.

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James jerked his head up, looking around for the creator of the buzzing noise.

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Two verbs here: jerked and looking. Let's take 'em in order. What does the jerking? James: subject. Jerks what? "his head up": thus, it's the predicate - "head" being the simple predicate. I have the vague idea that there's a term for modifiers like "up", but I can't for the life of me remember. Suggestions, anyone?

What does the looking? James again, but he's not mentioned in this part of the sentence. This tells you something very important about this part of the sentence; it's a fragment, unable to stand on its own. It would thus be incorrect to write:

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Looking around for the creator of the buzzing noise.

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All sentences must have a subject and verb. If they don't have both, they are fragments, and must be attached to a complete sentence.

Looks what? "Around for...." This is a different type of predicate, known as a prepositional phrase, and as you can see it doesn't quite work with my standard "*verb* what?" line of questioning. Prepositional phrases start with a preposition; generally you can identify them because they describe a relationship to time or space. Around, behind, during, after: these are prepositions. They're pretty common as predicates, so learn to spot 'em.

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His tail started flipping from side to side, dangling below his perch in the window.

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Several verbs again. "Flipping" is the first: "His tail" is the subject", "from side to side" (another prepositional phrase) the predicate. "Started" modifies the verb. Adverbs and other verbs can modify a sentence's verb.

As a matter of style, though, modifying the verb can be dangerous. Verbs are most powerful when they're clean and direct. In this case, you could have said "His tail flipped from side to side" without loosing anything, and, if clean and sharp is to your tastes, you will gain.

The next verb is "dangling", followed by a prepositional phrase "below his perch...." We know it's not a complete sentence, because there's no subject... but it's not a sentence fragment either. You can't attach the subject to it and make a complete sentence; it doesn't make sense. What it does is describe the subject. That makes it a modifier. It's not directly beside the word it modifies, though, which makes it a misplaced modifier. *grin* After the amount of puzzlement you caused me, you can probably see why it's considered an error.

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Ok, I still use to many adverbs when I write. I try and root them out on revision.

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You and me, brother. *grin* Here's a handy hint: word search is your friend. Most word processors have a "Find" function, and you can search out anything that ends in -ly on a given piece of writing. Tedious, but after a while of it you'll start self-editing. I keep a list of words around that I overuse, mostly empty modifiers and intensifiers - really, very, eventually, finally, somewhat, and so on. It's cheating, but it's useful.

I want to run through the modifier thing again, because I don't think I was entirely clear:

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His tail started flipping from side to side, dangling below his perch in the window.

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As it stands, the phrase "dangling below his perch..." modifies "side". Now this, of course, does not make sense, and after a moment's confusion any reader will realize that it's supposed to modify "tail". That moment's confusion is something you want to avoid. In general, you should always put a modifying clause after the noun it modifies. Does that make sense?

Upwards and onwards:

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The sun was warm, and he had been having a pleasant nap; that was until the noise disturbed him.

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The first part of the sentence has "was" as the verb, "sun" as the subject, and "warm" as the predicate; no problem there. After the comma is another complete sentence, one with a verb ("had been having"), subject ("he"), and predicate ("nap"); you've correctly placed a comma between the two, as must always be done between two complete sentences.

The next verb is "was", and here's where your sentence begins to have a problem. "That" is trying to be a subject, and since the word "that" can be a pronoun the confusion's understandable - but in this particular sentence "that" isn't wearing its pronoun hat. It's a conjunction. This leaves "was" without a subject, making the whole phrase a sentence fragment, although - to confuse this issue - "the noise disturbed him" is a complete sentence. Except you've modified it with the preposition "until", making it a prepositional phrase, which means it must be attached to something.

Did you follow that? Good. I'm impressed. *grin*

The issue here is that sentence fragments must not appear on the other side of a semicolon. Statements to either side of a semicolon must be complete; you cannot divide an actual sentence with a semicolon. You can only join two complete sentences.

As a test, try substituting a period for a semicolon. The sentence may be more awkward, but it will still work.

The way to deal with this particular sentence is to get rid of the "that was" and, of course, the semicolon. You can then put it anywhere in the sentence that you like:

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The sun was warm, and he had been having a pleasant nap until the noise disturbed him.

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The sun was warm, and until the noise disturbed him he had been having a pleasant nap.

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I'm not sure I explained that well. Ask questions, and I shall explain better.

Next:

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The buzzing sound came again from his left.

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Verb: "came"; subject "buzzing sound"; predicate... unless I'm mistaken you have a compound predicate here; one simple ("again") and one prepositional phrase ("from his left"). Either that, or "again" is part of the phrase and my brain's fried.

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His ear focused on the sound, his head following as he watched intently.

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I'm gonna stop with the subject-verb-predicate stuff now, unless something interesting comes up: I'm sure you've got the point. *grin* You've got two complete sentences and a prepositional phrase here; a purist would insist on a conjunction after the comma, but I'm not that much of a purist. Your main problem is verb agreement. Your first verb is "focused": past tense. Your second is "following": present tense. And your third is "focused": past tense again. Stay in the past tense and you'll be much better off.

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A fly circled the black lamp landing on the side near the top; right where the lamp grew bigger.

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"A fly circled the black lamp" is a complete sentence; "landing on the side near the top" is a fragment; "right where the lamp grew bigger" is a prepositional phrase.

Again, your verb tenses do not match, but the problem doesn't stop there. "Landing...top" is trying to be a modifier, and it could work if you'd put a comma after "lamp"; technically iffy, but few would notice. Probably a better solution is to change the tense so that it matched the rest of the sentence ("landed") and join it with a conjunction:

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A fly circled the black lamp and landed on the side near the top.

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Now the prepositional phrase. What did I tell you about semicolons? Right. Again, this is difficult because "The lamp grew bigger" is a complete sentence, but because it's preceded by "where", a preposition, it's a prepositional phrase and a sentence fragment. Ditch the semicolon and you're all right.

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James was away, jumping lightly on the soft bed.

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Again, your tenses are tangled: "was" and "jumping". "Jumping" is, as it stands, a modifier, but like the last modifier it's seperated from its noun and looks as if it's modifying "away". You'd have to write:

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James, jumping lightly on the soft bed, was away.

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That's awkward. Probably better is to make the tenses agree and the phrase part of the sentence:

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James was away and jumped...

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But that's not right either. Once you've looked at the grammar, the true problem in this sentence comes to light. It's out of order. James must jump before he can be away.

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James jumped lightly on the soft bed and was away.

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It took him two bounds to reach the edge.

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Perfectly sound sentence. I can diagram it if you like, but we've already gone over most of what's here.

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Timing was almost automatic as he adjusted his back feet to touch the edge of the bed; his leap carrying him at the fly.

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Minor problem in the beginning. The verb is "was". "What was?" "Timing..." but that's not quite right. You mean "his timing". There are times when you can get away with an implied subject, but this is not, I think, one of them.

"His leap carrying him at the fly." Okay, my mistake. I identified the "-ing" construction as present tense: it's not, because present tense would be "carries", and this would be okay. What the hell is it? Anyone? My grammar manual's upstairs.

At any rate, this phrase as it stands is a fragment and can't go after a semicolon. Change the tense and make it "carried" and you're all right, although I personally would use a period. Replacing the semicolon with a comma will also work fine.

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He never considered his landing, only the fly was important.

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"He never considered his landing" is a complete sentence. So is "Only the fly was important". Two complete sentences joined only by a comma are known as a "comma splice", and it's a major grammatical error. You must either put a conjunction in there (like "and"), replace the comma with a semicolon, or replace the comma with a period. I'd use the second option, but that's me.

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The fly was hard to see against the black, but James knew where to look.

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Correct and nice. *grin*

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His jump carried him straight at the fly, but the fly buzzed off the lamp toward the ceiling before he reached it.

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Only one error here: "buzzed off the lamp toward the ceiling". As it stands, "toward" the ceiling" is a modifier for "lamp": you're saying the lamp is towards the ceiling. I suspect you meant "off the lamp and toward the ceiling", describing the movement of the fly, not the position of the lamp. Yes, Houston, grammar is important. *grin*

I had read that -ly words were problematic (I forget where), I still tend to use to many. Lately I have been reworking sentances to convert them to -ed or remove them completely.

One thing I noticed as I was reading to catch up that I think is important enough to mention:

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"The sun was warm and he had been having a pleasant nap until the noise disturbed him. "

The comma was not precisely wrong. It was one of those commas you can put in there if you want to keep the sentence read at a certain rythm, but since the and only connects a list of two (the sun was warm =1 and he had been having a pleasant nap = 2) I also like to avoid semicolons because they break rythm, especially when used in this manner to separate two things that could have been two sentences.

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As I understand it, whenever you have a compound sentence that has two different subjects, each with its own verb, you have to put a comma between them--right before the conjunction.

Did we get that direct object and indirect object have to do with the verb and not the noun? Die is intransitive. It does not automatically need an object, but can have one if there is a preposition used:

He died for his country.
The indirect object here would be country, specifically his country.

Kill is transitive, meaning it needs a direct object (except for the slang "that kills")

She killed him.

She killed Bob.

Both him and Bob are direct objects. However, the indirect object can still be added in a prepositional phrase.

She killed Bob for her country

She killed Bob for his money.

The word murder almost obligates an indirect object as well as a direct object, making it a rarer class of ditransitive verb.

*She murdered Bob.

This sentence is grammatical, but leaves us dangling.

She murdered Bob in a fit of rage.

She murdered Bob in cold blood.

She murdered Bob with a weapon.

The classic ditransitive verb is give. Someone gives something to someone else.

The logic extends, going back to the die line of reasoning, to the word Assasinate where there is a subject (in syntax called an agent where the subject is a being performing an active verb) an object (syntax: patient), an implied motive or tool, and a cause.

She assasinated Bob with a sickle for communism.

Eat, feed, feast is another series of verbs that work in a similar fashion. But I can't think of others right off the bat.

Piling up one adverb upon another is a mark of "purple prose".

"I love you just so very truly much."

But I don't know if adjusting the verb is always right.

"I stalk you." Just doesn't sound right.

On this sentence:

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James was away, jumping lightly on the soft bed.

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I think "jumping" is a participle acting as an adjective to James, so the agreement isn't necessary. I think the reversal of his state and action is designed to illustrate the sudden nature of his motion. So I vote no change on that one.

An important point to make about any observations I share is that Linguistics is concerned with observing language rather than prescribing how it should be. So my initial statement that grammar shouldn't be bothered with, that's kind of where I'm coming from.

Participial phrase:
Jumping lightly on the bed, the cat was away.

or... The cat, jumping lightly on the bed, was away.

Second clause:

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"The sun was warm and he had been having a pleasant nap until the noise disturbed him."

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The thing that is so interesting about correcting someone's grammar is that one has to know what it should mean in order to fix it

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His ear focused on the sound, his head following as he watched intently.

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If you add an ‘and’ after the comma, you’d have to change ‘following’ to ‘followed’ as Rick suggested. The sentence is okay as it is, though, so the text around it and the writer’s style would dictate the arrangement. Flow, mood, the other words surrounding it, subtleties of intent, among other things, all would feed into the final decision — all those things from which style is born.

Whether you add an ‘and’ or not before ‘his head following,’ I believe there is an understood ‘was’ here, at least for purposes of dissection and/or diagramming: His ear focused on the sound, (and) his head (was) following as he watched intently. So these are two independent clauses, which could be two separate sentences. Obviously, if you broke them into two sentences, you’d have to supply the understood ‘was,’ otherwise “his head following as he watched intently” doesn’t make sense.

(Now if that understood ‘was’ is wrong, all bets are off. )

Yes: ‘ear’ = subject; ‘focused’ = verb. ‘On the sound’ is an adverb, specifically an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying ‘focused.’
There are three clauses here, two independent, one dependent:
His ear focused on the sound
(and) his head (was) following
as he watched intently
‘And’ and ‘as’ are the conjunctions.

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A fly circled the black lamp landing on the side near the top; right where the lamp grew bigger.

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This sentence needs rewriting, IMHO. As written, it could be the lamp that is landing. At the very least, a comma should separate ‘lamp’ and ‘landing.’ The semicolon is incorrect; as the sentence stands, it should be a comma, but as I said, I’d go for a more aggressive revision. Maybe: A fly circled the black lamp and landed near the top where the lamp was widest. (Isn’t the top of a lamp its narrowest? ‘Grew bigger’ probably isn’t the best word choice here.)

In any case, working with the original sentence, fly/subject, circled/verb, and ‘lamp’ is a direct object, (not an indirect object, which has to have a direct object present first, as in He gave the customer her change. He (N) gave (V) customer (IO) change (DO).)
Rick’s Aristarchus example it exactly right as to direct objects.

Breaking down a sentence, especially for diagramming, often necessitates rearranging it elementally. Although the stylistic rendering of the sentence is
“A fly circled the black lamp, landing on the side near the top…”
the breakdown of the sentence makes it read,
“A fly, landing on the side near the top, circled the black lamp.”

What is helpful about this necessary rearranging is that you can often see the need for a rewrite, as I think you can here. ‘Landing on the side’ of what? Still, you wouldn’t write, “A fly, landing of the side of the black lamp near the top, circled it.” The fly landed and then circled? So switch the actual sentence around to rewrite it: “A fly, circling the black lamp, landed on the side near the top where the lamp was widest.” (I italicized ‘on the side’ because I think it doesn’t make sense; does only one side reach the top? I’d jettison that phrase.)

Back to our original sentence: ‘landing’ is a participle (a verbal acting as an adjective), modifying ‘fly,’ with the adverbial prepositional phrases, ‘on the side’ and ‘near the top’ modifying ‘landing’ (landing where?). With “right where the lamp grew bigger,” ‘right’ is an adverb modifying ‘landing,’ ‘where’ is a conjunction connecting ‘landing’ with the phrase ‘the lamp grew bigger,’ in which phrase you have lamp (N)/grew (V)/bigger (Adv) (How did it grow?).

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‘Loud’ can be an adverb or an adjective; in fact, ‘loudly’ is listed as a definition/synonym for the adverbial form of ‘loud’ in my dictionary, which means either form is okay as an adverb.

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Mine only gives 'loud' as an adjective, and lists only 'loudly' as its adverbial form. Could be a US/UK usage difference.

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I have two dictionaries without the adverbial ‘loud’ as well, so while it may be a US/UK difference, it might be simply matter of how thorough different dictionaries are, especially if the use of ‘loud’ as an adverb is more colloquial.

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Two verbs here: jerked and looking. Let's take 'em in order. What does the jerking? James: subject. Jerks what? "his head up": thus, it's the predicate - "head" being the simple predicate…

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‘Head’ can’t be the simple predicate since the simple predicate is the main verb of a sentence. ‘Jerked’ is the simple predicate. In fact, let’s pursue this angle. ‘James’ is the simple subject to ‘jerked’ as the simple predicate. But what are the complete subject and predicate? Complete subject: ‘James, looking around for the creator of the buzzing sound.’ Complete predicate: ‘jerked his head up.’

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Looks what? "Around for...." This is a different type of predicate, known as a prepositional phrase, and as you can see it doesn't quite work with my standard "*verb* what?" line of questioning. Prepositional phrases start with a preposition; generally you can identify them because they describe a relationship to time or space. Around, behind, during, after: these are prepositions. They're pretty common as predicates, so learn to spot 'em.

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I don’t think I’d call a prepositional phrase a predicate, since it could be found anywhere in a sentence, including somewhere in the complete subject. A predicate is the main verb and the rest of that part of the sentence that modifies it. Although ‘for the creator’ and ‘of the buzzing noise’ are prepositional phrases with ‘for’ and ‘of’ being the prepositions, ‘around’ here is not a preposition. It’s an adverb modifying the participle ‘looking’ (verbal acting as an adjective). Looking where? Around.

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Several verbs again. "Flipping" is the first: "His tail" is the subject", "from side to side" (another prepositional phrase) the predicate. "Started" modifies the verb. Adverbs and other verbs can modify a sentence's verb….

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At the risk of inciting more grammarphobia, I’m beginning to think that mastering verbals is key to solving most of the problems in grammar. Those verbs putting on airs like they were other parts of speech seem to be the bugaboos of grammar. And – here comes my broken record – diagramming helps expose them because everything has a place and there’s a place for everything.

‘Flipping,’ though a verb, is a verbal, in this case a gerund, a verb acting as a noun, specifically the direct object of the real verb in the sentence, ‘started.’

I’d be hard-pressed to agree that “adverbs and other verbs can modify a sentence's verb.” The closest to modifying that verbs get is being certain types of verbals. Calling even an auxiliary verb a modifier would be incorrect since modifiers by nature can be removed from the sentence and you’d still have a sentence. An auxiliary verb is a part of the basic sentence. ‘He had gone’ would be incomplete as ‘He gone.’

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The next verb is "dangling", followed by a prepositional phrase "below his perch...." We know it's not a complete sentence, because there's no subject... but it's not a sentence fragment either. You can't attach the subject to it and make a complete sentence; it doesn't make sense. What it does is describe the subject. That makes it a modifier. It's not directly beside the word it modifies, though, which makes it a misplaced modifier.

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Verbal problems again, although you’re on the right track recognizing ‘dangling’ as modifying the subject, ‘tail.’ Which is a clue, since verbs don’t modify nouns – unless they’re verbals.

As much as I hate to be contentious, I don’t believe ‘dangling’ is a misplaced modifier if “a misplaced modifier acts on something other than what the writer intended…and is in the wrong position relative to what it should be affecting.” (from Anne Stilman in Grammatically Correct.) I don’t see any confusion in our sentence; ‘dangling’ doesn’t seem to be attempting to modify ‘side’ or anything else incorrectly. In fact, you rightfully attributed it as modifying the subject.

From the same book, an example of a misplaced modifier: “At its next meeting, the Board of Education will debate whether teachers should be allowed to administer adrenaline to students who experience severe allergic reactions without written permission.” As Ms. Stilman notes, “One has to admire the discipline of those students who do first obtain permission.

I was going to stop here, but I see we’ve progressed beyond this point, so to wrap this up, hopefully as succinctly as possible:

“James was away, jumping lightly on the soft bed.”
James/noun; was/verb. ‘Away’ is an adverb. The faint of heart need not read the following rabbit trail: A case might be made that ‘away’ here is used like ‘off’ as in ‘He’s off and running,’ in which case the coordinating conjunction, ‘and,’ must connect like parts; so ‘off’ and ‘running’ have to be the same part of speech. Either they are both verbs or both nouns; they can’t be both be adverbs because ‘running,’ in none of its manifestations, can be an adverb. I find a noun category for ‘off’ (“The state or condition of being off), and ‘running’ can be a gerund (verbal acting as a noun), so they can be dual predicate nouns. By extrapolation, ‘away,’ which has ‘off’ as one of its adverbial definitions, so we know there’s a link between them, can be substituted for ‘off’ (the state or condition of being away), so ‘off and running’ can be ’away and running.’ The argument that both elements might both be verbs is only supported by idiomatic expressions like ‘off with you,’ which seems like weak support. So I vote ‘away’ as either adverb or noun.

Dividing the sentence into the complete subject and the complete predicate, which is basically what diagramming does, gives us: ‘James, jumping lightly on the soft bed’ as complete subject; ‘was away’ as complete predicate. ‘Jumping’ is a participle (verbal acting as an adjective); lightly/adv; on the bed/adverbial prepositional phrase.

“It took him two bounds to reach the edge.”
Here’s a great example of an expletive, ‘It,’ which would be on a line hovering above the subject, which happens to be the infinitive phrase, ‘to reach the edge.’ (Maybe this is what is meant as a complex noun.) Took/verb; him/indirect object; bounds/direct object; two/adj.

“Timing was almost automatic as he adjusted his back feet to touch the edge of the bed; his leap carrying him at the fly.”
Timing (n)/ was (v)/ automatic (predicate adj). I think there should be a ‘his’ before ‘timing.’ ‘As’ is a conjunction connecting to he (n)/ adjusted (v) /feet (direct obj). ‘To touch the edge of the bed’ is an infinitive phrase modifying ‘he,’ as in ‘To touch the edge of the bed, he adjusted his feet.’ Then we have another understood conjunction and an understood auxiliary verb: ‘(and) his leap (was) carrying him at the fly.’ So: leap (n)/ (was) carrying (v)/ him (direct obj).

“He never considered his landing, only the fly was important.”
I think a semicolon would be better here or, better yet, break this into two sentences. As it stands: He (n)/ considered (v)/ landing (direct obj). I’d guess another understood conjunction is called for, this time ‘because,’ as in ‘(because) only the fly was important.’ Fly (n)/ was (v)/ important (predicate adj). ‘Only,’ I believe, is an adverb modifying ‘was’ (to what extent, ie, limiting the verb, ‘was.’ It wasn’t the only fly, and the fly wasn’t only important. It was only, or only was.)

“The fly was hard to see against the black, but James knew where to look.”
“Fly (n)/ was (v)/ hard (predicate adj); ‘to see’/ adj. infinitive modifying ‘hard’; ‘against the black’/prep. phrase modifying ‘to see.’ ‘But’/coordinating conj, connecting James (n)/ knew (v) /where (direct object); ‘to look’/infinitive phrase modifying ‘where.’ Or, James/knew/to look, with ‘where’ as the object of the infinitive phrase. Not sure about that.

“His jump carried him straight at the fly, but the fly buzzed off the lamp toward the ceiling before he reached it.”
Jump/carried/him, with ‘straight’ an adv modifying ‘carried,’ and ‘at the fly’ a prep phrase modifying ‘straight.’ ‘But’ a conj, connecting to fly/buzzed, with ‘off the lamp,’ and ‘toward the ceiling’ as prep phrases modifying ‘buzzed.’ ‘Before’ another conj, connecting to he/reached/it.

“His tail started flipping from side to side, dangling below his perch in the window.”

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In general, you should always put a modifying clause after the noun it modifies.

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This is where strict adherence to rules or guidelines can stifle creativity. Yes, often separating modifying clauses can lead to misplaced modifiers, but in sentences like this one I don’t think there’s any confusion. ‘Dangling’ doesn’t seem to be modifying ‘side’ by mistake. If you write all your sentences with noun/modifying phrase/ verb, your writing would sound pretty formulaic. Better to vary your sentence patterns.

“The sun was warm, and he had been having a pleasant nap; that was until the noise disturbed him.”

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The first part of the sentence has "was" as the verb, "sun" as the subject, and "warm" as the predicate

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I think you’re confusing ‘predicate,’ which is the verb, with predicate noun/nominative and predicate adjective, the latter being what ‘warm’ is here. And ‘nap’ may be part of the predicate, but not the verb which is the only part of speech regarded as a simple predicate. ‘Nap’ is a noun and direct object here: he/had been having/nap.

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"the noise disturbed him" is a complete sentence. Except you've modified it with the preposition "until", making it a prepositional phrase

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‘Until’ may be a preposition at times, but here it’s a subordinating conjunction, making ‘until the noise disturbed him’ a dependent clause, not a complete sentence.

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unless I'm mistaken you have a compound predicate here; one simple ("again") and one prepositional phrase ("from his left"). Either that, or "again" is part of the phrase and my brain's fried.

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Compound predicate? Predicates are predicated on verbs; the verb is the main word for the simple predicate, the entire part of the sentence that modifies the verb is the complete predicate. ‘Again’ is an adverb modifying the verb ‘came.’ ‘From his left’ is a prepositional phrase also modifying ‘came.’

“His ear focused on the sound, his head following as he watched intently.“

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Your main problem is verb agreement. Your first verb is "focused": past tense. Your second is "following": present tense. And your third is "focused": past tense again. Stay in the past tense and you'll be much better off ….Again, your verb tenses do not match…."Landing...top" is trying to be a … Probably a better solution is to change the tense so that it matched the rest of the sentence ("landed") and join it with a conjunction….Again, your tenses are tangled: "was" and "jumping". "Jumping" is, as it stands, a modifier, but like the last modifier it's seperated from its noun and looks as if it's modifying "away"…."His leap carrying him at the fly." Okay, my mistake. I identified the "-ing" construction as present tense: it's not, because present tense would be "carries", and this would be okay. What the hell is it? Anyone? My grammar manual's upstairs.

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Verb agreement is not the issue in any of this. There are legitimate verbals here fooling you into thinking you’re dealing with verbs, when you’re really dealing with verbs acting as other parts of speech. And they’re allowed to do that.

Infinitives: the ‘to be’ form of verbs; can be nouns adjectives, or adverbs.

Participles: usually “–ing” forms of verbs, but can be past tense with “-ed” ending, or the past participle of irregular verbs; used as adjectives.

Gerunds: “-ing” forms of verbs; used as nouns.

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"right where the lamp grew bigger" is a prepositional phrase.

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Huh? There’s no preposition here. ‘Right’ is an adverb modifying the participle ‘landing,’ ‘where’ is a subordinating conjunction in the dependent clause, ‘where the lamp grew bigger.’

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The verb is "was". "What was?" "Timing..." but that's not quite right. You mean "his timing". There are times when you can get away with an implied subject, but this is not, I think, one of them.

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‘His’ isn’t an implied subject, but a possessive pronoun that was inadvisably left out, I think.

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"buzzed off the lamp toward the ceiling". As it stands, "toward" the ceiling" is a modifier for "lamp"

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No, ‘toward the ceiling’ modifies ‘buzzed.’ Where did he buzz? Toward the ceiling. The lamp wasn’t ‘toward the ceiling.’

franc li, you wrote,

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Die is intransitive. It does not automatically need an object, but can have one if there is a preposition used:
He died for his country.
The indirect object here would be country, specifically his country.

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‘Die’ is intransitive, which means it doesn’t take an object, preposition or not. In “He died for his country,” ‘for his country’ is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying ‘died.’ How did he die? For his country. You cannot have an indirect object without an object. ‘Country’ is the object of the prepositional phrase.

An example of an indirect object would be ‘athlete’ in the sentence, “They gave the athlete the medal.” There is an implied preposition ‘to’: they gave (to) the athlete the medal -- which is why diagramming an indirect object is often below the main line, like a prepositional phrase, but without the preposition. An indirect object can also be diagrammed on the main line, after the verb, with the same straight dividing line a direct object has, with another line and the direct object right after.

“She murdered Bob.” is fine as a sentence. Adding ‘in a fit of rage’ merely gives more info.

“Ditransitive verb?” That’s a new one on me. Do you mean verbs that can be transitive and intransitive? ‘Give’ is such a verb, but it’s not unique in that.

Wow. I gotta get to bed.

tail = noun, simple subject
started = verb, simple predicate

Question: his tail started what?
Answer: flipping

Direct objects answer the question 'what?' If 'flipping' answers 'what?', it is the direct object; if it's the direct object, it has to be a noun or a pronoun; if it has to be a noun or a pronoun and it looks like a verb, it must be a gerund.

We could just as easily have had an infinitive as the direct object, if the verbal had been the 'to be' form of 'flip. "His tail started to flip from side to side."

I love flipping.

I love apples.

I started flipping.

*I started apples.

Verbs are either intransitive, transitive, or ditransitive.

Start is tricky because it sometimes is intransitive, but it can also be transitive or a linking verb.

There was a loud noise. She started.

He started the car.

It started raining

It started to rain.

"Direct objects answer 'what'..."
I don't see how this rule is useful, since the same could be said of subjects, objects of prepositions, a lot of verbs, pretty much any word that isn't acting as a preposition or an adverb.

Some verbs have, conceptually, empty spaces that need to be filled after them. Some don't. That is what I was trying to illustrate.

Start, unfortunately, sometimes does and sometimes doesn't. But I don't think there is a lot of mystery here. We all know it sounds okay the way it is, except for kat.

How do you make a sentence using give as an intransitive or even a singly transitive verb? To give means subject gives direct object an indirect object.

I guess there is now the usage "I gave blood." But if it weren't implied that there was some sort of charitable institution involved, that would be a very odd thing to tell someone. "Give blood."

[This message has been edited by franc li (edited December 16, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by franc li (edited December 16, 2004).]

Using "us (plural noun)" as the subject of a sentence is wrong. "Us writers" or "us readers" or "us Hatrack people" should never be the subject of a sentence.

You wouldn't say, "Us like to talk about writing," so why would you say, "Us writers like to talk about writing"?

"We writers" and "we readers" and "we Hatrack people" are the proper ways to say this kind of thing in the subject of a sentence.

Kolona, I am working on chapter one. I know it probably shouldn't take that long...but it has some good explinations that requires reading more than once. I haven't found the right way to get the terms past the barriers in my head that seem to reject the terms as I read them.

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I think started is acting as a linking verb and not as a transitive verb. If the word flipping were a gerund, it would make sense if replaced with a noun.

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That’s a good point, franc li. I thought ‘started’ might be a linking verb, which is why I hedged my bet when I originally addressed the sentence:

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'Started' is the verb in the sentence. 'Flipping,' on the other hand, is a verb acting out of character. Since it answers the question, "What?", it's acting as a noun, so it's a gerund and a direct object. (Unless 'started' is one of those weird linking verbs like 'become' and 'remain,' in which case 'flipping' would be the predicate noun or nominative.)

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But I probably should have specified in my second mention that the “what?” belonged to the “who/did/what?” of basic sentence structure -- a useful trio of questions to start with in deconstructing sentences -- the “what?” being the object, predicate noun or even just generally the rest of the sentence.

“I started flipping” and “I started apples” are interesting configurations. If you finish the second to make it a sentence, “I started flipping apples” (‘pancakes’ would probably work better here, but let’s keep the words to a minimum ), I think it’s easier to see ‘started’ as a helping verb and ‘flipping’ then as a verb, with ‘apples’ the direct object. (Although it’s a little like staring at those pictures that are two things at the same time. I can still mentally entertain the sentence as a transitive ‘started’ and a gerund ‘flipping’ as direct object. )

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Did we get that direct object and indirect object have to do with the verb and not the noun? Die is intransitive. It does not automatically need an object, but can have one if there is a preposition used

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You had me with the first two sentences above, but lost me on the third. Having a preposition has nothing to do with whether an intransitive verb has an object. By definition, intransitive verbs do not have objects. If there is an object, then the verb is transitive. “He died for his country” has neither a direct object nor an indirect object. ‘For his country’ is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying ‘die.’ How did he die? For his country. He could have died ‘in agony’ or ‘on the bus.’ Same construction. ‘Country’ is the object of the preposition ‘for.’ An indirect object is dependent upon a direct object, and there isn’t one here; couldn’t be, since ‘die’ is intransitive.

(Always exceptions, of course. Although the rule is overwhelmingly that indirect objects only occur with direct objects, in rare cases indirect objects can occur alone, as in the sentence “Mary told the committee.” Obviously, there is an implied direct object here, namely, “Mary told the committee the information.” My humble opinion is that these exceptions are the give in grammar, the flexibility that enables us to vary our sentences. How boring if each sentence absolutely had to spell out every single implied word.)

However, what you might be referencing with your preposition comment is that, when they’re present, indirect objects have implied prepositions, but those implied prepositions aren’t even placed in parentheses in diagramming, unlike other implied words.

Indirect objects “answer the questions for whom or to whom or for what and to what” (DeVicentis-Hayes). In the sentence,
“They gave the athlete the medal,”
‘athlete’ is the indirect object and ‘medal’ is the direct object, and the sentence is shorthand for
They gave (to) the athlete the medal.”
Had it been written,
“They gave the medal to the athlete,” then ‘medal’ becomes the direct object, while ‘to the athlete’ is a prepositional phrase modifying ‘gave.’ ‘Gave’ in both cases is transitive, so it has an object in both sentences, though different objects because of the different structures of the sentences.

Adding ‘for her country’ to ‘She killed Bob’ doesn’t make ‘country’ the indirect object, if for no other reason than it comes after the direct object, ‘Bob.’ Indirect objects come before direct objects. In “She killed Bob,” ‘Bob’ is the direct object but, again, the prepositional phrase ‘for her country’ has nothing to do with an indirect object. ‘Kill’ may be transitive there, but can also be intransitive, as in “She killed for her country,” where there’s no direct object.

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The classic ditransitive verb is give. Someone gives something to someone else.

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Ditransitive? Don’t know that I’ve ever heard of that – or if I did, I’ve forgotten. Had to look it up. Learned that ditransitive verbs take indirect and direct objects. Okay, so I’m familiar with the concept, not the label. By the same token, verbs that take only direct objects are monotransitive (singly transitive). Makes sense.

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How do you make a sentence using give as an intransitive or even a singly transitive verb? To give means subject gives direct object an indirect object.

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‘Give’ can be intransitive, and though my main dictionary lists “to make gifts” as the first definition after v.i., I’m hard-pressed to think of it in a sentence that way; the next definition in the intransitive section, “to yield to pressure,” is easier, as in “The mattress gave under her weight.” Here again, there’s a prepositional phrase that modifies the verb; there is no direct or indirect object; ‘weight’ is the object of the preposition.

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I guess there is now the usage "I gave blood." But if it weren't implied that there was some sort of charitable institution involved, that would be a very odd thing to tell someone. "Give blood."

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That seems similar to Mary and the committee, with the implied direct object. And yet it could be the singly transitive use of ‘give.’ “I gave blood.” Who/did/what.

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She murdered Bob….is grammatical, but leaves us dangling.

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If it’s grammatical, where’s the dangling? “She murdered Bob” is fine just as it is. Who/did/what. Adding prepositional phrases may satisfy our desire for detail, but is unnecessary to the coherence of the basic sentence.

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The word murder almost obligates an indirect object as well as a direct object, making it a rarer class of ditransitive verb….The logic extends, going back to the die line of reasoning, to the word Assasinate where there is a subject (in syntax called an agent where the subject is a being performing an active verb) an object (syntax: patient), an implied motive or tool, and a cause.
She assasinated Bob with a sickle for communism.

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I’m not sure that syntax can contradict grammar. ‘Assassinated’ here is a monotransitive verb, with ‘Bob’ as the direct object, no indirect object (which would come before the direct object), and two prepositional phrases modifying the verb.

How's that for perfect confusion?