June learning activity: grammar

[alanforr]

This post is a grammar analysis of some material from the first chapter of “Flux” by Stephen Baxter.

Dura woke with a start.

There was something wrong. The photons didn’t smell right.

Her hand floated before her face, dimly visible, and she flexed her fingers. Disturbed electron gas, spiralling dizzily around the Magfield lines, sparkled purple-white around the fingertips. The Air in her eyes was warm, stale, and she could make out only vague shapes.

The first sentence reads:

Dura woke with a start.

This sentence is in a paragraph on its own. The subject of the sentence is “Dura”. The word “woke” is an action verb. The word “start” is a noun and it is the object of the sentence. The word “with” is a preposition.

The second sentence reads:

There was something wrong.

The word “something” is a noun and is the subject of the sentence. The word “wrong” is an adjective that describes “something” and is the object of the sentence. The word “there” is an adverb that specifies that at the time and place where Dura awoke something was wrong. The word “was” is a linking verb, linking the “there” to the “something wrong”. This sentence is also the topic sentence of the paragraph, which is about what is wrong.

The photons didn’t smell right.

The word “photons” is the subject of the sentence. The word “didn’t” is a contraction of “did” and “not”: “did” is a verb and “not” is an adverb that modifies the “did”. The word “smell” is an action verb indicating that the photons gave rise to a particular smell. The word “right” is an adverb modifying “smell”. This sentence states specifically what was wrong.

The paragraph as a whole states Dura’s judgement that something was wrong, and then explains specifically what was wrong.

The first sentence of the next paragraph reads:

Her hand floated before her face, dimly visible, and she flexed her fingers.

This is a complex sentence with two clauses joined by the conjunction “and”.

The first clause has the subject “hand”, modified by the adjective “her” which indicates the owner of the hand. The word “floated” is an action verb. The object of the sentence is “face”, which is modified by “her”. The word “before” is a preposition indicating where the hand is floating. The words “dimly” and “visible” are both adjectives describing her hand.

The second clause has the subject “she”. It has an action verb “flexed”. The object is “fingers”, which is modified by “her”.

The second sentence of that paragraph reads:

Disturbed electron gas, spiralling dizzily around the Magfield lines, sparkled purple-white around the fingertips.

The subject of the sentence is “electron gas”. The word “electron” is a noun and “electron gas” is a noun phrase meaning “a gas of electrons”. The object of the sentence is “fingertips”. The word “sparkled” is a verb, which is modified by the adverb “purple-white”. The word “around” is a preposition indicating how the sparkling is related to her fingertips. The material between the commas is a phrase not a clause because it doesn’t have a reference to the electron gas, which would be the subject of such a clause. The word “spiralling” is a verb, which is modified by the adverb “dizzily”. “Magfield lines” is a noun phrase meaning “lines of the Magfield”.

The third sentence of that paragraph reads:

The Air in her eyes was warm, stale, and she could make out only vague shapes.

It is a complex sentence with two clauses joined by the conjunction “and”. The first clause has the subject “Air”. The word “was” is a linking verb that links the “Air” to the adjectives “warm” and “stale”. The word “in” is a preposition indicating the Air’s relationship to her eyes. The word “eyes” is a noun.

This paragraph is about Dura’s environment and how she was observing it.

[JustinCEO]

@alanforr

The first sentence reads:

Dura woke with a start.

This sentence is in a paragraph on its own. The subject of the sentence is “Dura”. The word “woke” is an action verb. The word “start” is a noun and it is the object of the sentence. The word “with” is a preposition.

i think “start” is the object of an adverbial prepositional phrase, “with a start”, that describes the manner of waking, and is not the object of the sentence

[JustinCEO]

@alanforr

The second sentence reads:

There was something wrong.

The word “something” is a noun and is the subject of the sentence. The word “wrong” is an adjective that describes “something” and is the object of the sentence. The word “there” is an adverb that specifies that at the time and place where Dura awoke something was wrong. The word “was” is a linking verb, linking the “there” to the “something wrong”. This sentence is also the topic sentence of the paragraph, which is about what is wrong.

Agree @ “something” is a noun-subject.

Agree @ “wrong” is adjective. Disagree @ “wrong” being object of sentence. Object is a noun job and “wrong” isn’t a noun. Because we have a linking verb, though, and the basic structure (of the real words) is “something was wrong”, I’d call “wrong” a complement.

Disagree @ your analysis of “there”. I’d call it an expletive that permits the sentence to get started without the subject being first. See my April 4, 2019 FI Post “[grammar] Expletives, Dummy Pronouns” for some discussion of that topic.

[Elliot]

@JustinCEO

i think “start” is the object of an adverbial prepositional phrase, “with a start”, that describes the manner of waking, and is not the object of the sentence

That phrasing was confusing to me. I’d say “start” is the (prepositional) object of “with”, not that it’s the object of the phrase because it’s within the phrase. “of … phrase” is kinda ambiguous about whether it’s within the phrase or an external thing with a relationship with the phrase.

[JustinCEO]

i meant “within the adverbial prepositional phrase, ‘with a start’, ‘start’ serves as the object.” i see the issue tho

[Elliot]

@alanforr

The second sentence reads:

There was something wrong.

The word “something” is a noun and is the subject of the sentence. The word “wrong” is an adjective that describes “something” and is the object of the sentence.

Objects are only nouns. And adjectives normally go to the left of their noun, not to the right (“red car” not “car red”) so there’s something to explain here.

[Elliot]

Also subjects normally go to the left of the verb, so saying “something” is the subject of “was” merits some explanation of what’s going on.

[Elliot]

The word “was” is a linking verb, linking the “there” to the “something wrong”.

If that were correct, then wouldn’t “there” be the subject and “something wrong” (either the phrase or one of the words) be the complement? Cuz you’d have an “X was Y” sentence structure, and in that case X would be the subject.

[JustinCEO]

@alanforr

The first sentence of the next paragraph reads:

Her hand floated before her face, dimly visible, and she flexed her fingers.

This is a complex sentence with two clauses joined by the conjunction “and”.

The first clause has the subject “hand”, modified by the adjective “her” which indicates the owner of the hand. The word “floated” is an action verb. The object of the sentence is “face”, which is modified by “her”. The word “before” is a preposition indicating where the hand is floating. The words “dimly” and “visible” are both adjectives describing her hand.

Re: “before her face”, similar issue as with previous sentences - since “face” is the object of “before” within the prepositional phrase “before her face”, “face” can’t also be the object of the sentence.

“dimly” is an adverb (-ly ending big indicator) so it can’t modify “hand” directly. It can modify an adjective like “visible” tho and tell you what manner of visible the hand was (it was dimly visible)

[JustinCEO]

@alanforr

The second sentence of that paragraph reads:

Disturbed electron gas, spiralling dizzily around the Magfield lines, sparkled purple-white around the fingertips.

The subject of the sentence is “electron gas”. The word “electron” is a noun and “electron gas” is a noun phrase meaning “a gas of electrons”. The object of the sentence is “fingertips”. The word “sparkled” is a verb, which is modified by the adverb “purple-white”. The word “around” is a preposition indicating how the sparkling is related to her fingertips. The material between the commas is a phrase not a clause because it doesn’t have a reference to the electron gas, which would be the subject of such a clause. The word “spiralling” is a verb, which is modified by the adverb “dizzily”. “Magfield lines” is a noun phrase meaning “lines of the Magfield”.

Re: electron gas, I think your reading is fair, but you could also treat “electron” as a noun doing an adjective job describing the kind of “gas”, with “gas” as the main subject. It’s a bit like a sentence involving “toy soldier” we discussed on FI list. Anyways I think your reading is reasonable too, just mentioning alternative.

I think “spiralling dizzily around the Magfield lines” is a participial phrase modifying gas. So “spiralling” is a participle/verbal, not a verb. “before” is a preposition with “fingertips” as its object so “fingertips” can’t be object of the sentence

[alanforr]

I agree that “wrong” is a complement. The post about expletives and dummy pronouns was interesting.

[alanforr]

I’m going to try analysing the first sentence again:

Dura woke with a start.

The subject of the sentence is “Dura”. The word “woke” is an action verb. The phrase “with a start” describes how Dura woke so it modifies woke and it starts with the preposition “with” so it is an adverbial prepositional phrase. The sentence doesn’t have an object or complement.

[alanforr]

Now I’ll try the second sentence:

@alanforr

There was something wrong.

The subject is “something”. The complement is “wrong”. The word “was” is a linking verb. The word “there” is an expletive that acts as a substitute for starting the sentence with the subject.

[alanforr]

Sentence 4:

@alanforr

Her hand floated before her face, dimly visible, and she flexed her fingers.

This is a complex sentence with two clauses joined by the conjunction “and”.

The second clause has the subject “she”. It has an action verb “flexed”. The object is “fingers”, which is modified by “her”.

The first clause has the subject “hand”.

“before her face” is a prepositional phrase, where “before” is the preposition and face is the prepositional object of “before”. This phrase modifies “floated” so it is an adverbial prepositional phrase.

The word “visible” is an adjective modifying “hand” and “dimly” is an adverb modifying “visible”.

[Elliot]

I’d suggest following some steps from my grammar article (like verb before subject) or making sentence trees.

[alanforr]

The next sentence is:

@alanforr

Disturbed electron gas, spiralling dizzily around the Magfield lines, sparkled purple-white around the fingertips.

I made a tree for it:

[Elliot]

spiralling isn’t a verb. see Fallible Ideas – Grammar in the section on “verbals”.

i’m also curious where you got the term “designator” since i haven’t seen it. the terms i’m familiar with that could go there are: determiner, adjective, modifier, article.

otherwise looks right.

[alanforr]

spiralling isn’t a verb. see Fallible Ideas – Grammar in the section on “verbals”.

“Spiralling” is an adjective based on a verb so it is a participle.

i’m also curious where you got the term “designator” since i haven’t seen it. the terms i’m familiar with that could go there are: determiner, adjective, modifier, article.

I should have used “determiner” instead. I don’t know where I got the idea that “designator” was the appropriate term.

A new version of the tree:

[alanforr]

A tree for the last sentence:

The Air in her eyes was warm, stale, and she could make out only vague shapes.

[Elliot]

There are a few issues, including:

air (n) → her (n)

why do you have a noun as a child of a noun? what does that mean?

make (v) → she (n)

“she make …” is not grammatical. it’d be “she makes …” if those were the subject and verb. that indicates that something’s wrong there. (the issue in this section is partly stylistic and there’s disagreement about the best way to do it.)

was (v) → and (c)

this is partly stylistic and people disagree about the best way to do it, but if you were making the tree with lisp s-expressions you’d do (and (was …) (make …)) not (was … (and (make …)))