MC studies more grammar (Peikoff course)

Other Mini Projects
7

I took a break from this as a result of burnout (from another project) and then because I made a misquote mistake that I needed to think seriously about.

The full PDF of exercises can be downloaded from this page:

Quotes in this post are lines from the PDF.

Doing the homework for part 1:
The first exercises are to parse the sentences.

  1. When Jack came into the room, he began to remove his coat. A wise move.

First sentence: When Jack came into the room, he began to remove his coat.

  • When - subordinating conjunction
  • Jack came into the room - subordinate clause
    • Jack - subject noun
    • came - action verb past tense inflection
    • into the room - prepositional phrase
      • into - preposition
      • the - determiner adjective specifying which room
      • room - object noun
  • he began to remove his coat - main clause
    • he - subject pronoun referring to “Jack”
    • began - action verb past tense inflection
    • to remove his coat - object noun phrase
      • to remove - infinitive verbal acting as an adjective
      • his - determiner adjective specifying which coat
      • coat - subject noun

Second sentence: “A wise move.”
A sentence fragment as it lacks a subject.

I think the words “It was” are implied at the start of the sentence.

So breaking down the modified sentence: [It was] a wise move.

  • It - subject pronoun referring to the previous sentence
  • was - linking verb
  • a wise move - complement
    • a - determiner adjective (I think this is an adjective modifying “move” rather than an adverb modifying “wise” as the complement would still make sense if “wise” were removed.)
    • wise - adjective
    • move - subject noun
  1. Coming into the room, Jack began to remove his coat.
  • Coming into the room, Jack - subject phrase
    • Coming into the room - adjective phrase
      • Coming - participle adjective affecting “Jack”
      • into - prepositional adverb modifying “coming” and governing “room”
      • the - determiner adjective specifying which room
      • room - prepositional object noun
    • Jack - subject
  • began - action verb
  • to remove his coat - object noun phrase (copied from previous exercise)
    • to remove - infinitive verbal acting as an adjective
    • his - determiner adjective specifying which coat
    • coat - subject noun
  1. Italy owes a historic debt to her great sculptors. A debt she can never repay.

First sentence: “Italy owes a historic debt to her great sculptors.”

  • Italy - subject noun
  • owes - linking verb
  • a historic debt to her great sculptors - object noun phrase
    • a - determiner adjective affecting “debt”
    • historic - determiner adjective affecting “debt”
    • debt - object noun
    • to her great sculptors - prepositional adverb modifying “owes”
      • to - preposition which governs “sculptors”
      • her - adjective modifying “sculptors”
      • great - adjective modifying “sculptors”
      • sculptors - prepositional object noun

Second sentence: “A debt she can never repay.”
I don’t know how to parse this. I think I understand it fine.

Rewriting it in the way I understand it: It is a debt that she can never repay.

I think that is the right answer - there are implied words “It is” and “that”. I think I can parse the sentence now.

Parsing the sentence with implied words: [It is] a debt [that] she can never repay.

  • it is a debt - main clause
    • It - object pronoun referring to the debt in the previous sentence
    • is - linking verb
    • a debt - subject noun phrase
      • a - determiner adjective affecting “debt”
      • debt - subject noun
  • that - subordinating conjunction OR relative pronoun
  • she can never repay - subordinate clause OR relative clause
    • she - subject noun
    • can never - verb phrase
      • can - verb
      • never - adverb
    • repay - object noun

Note: This is not a final answer and I included “OR” to indicate the answers I’m not sure about. I came across relative pronouns and relative clauses while trying to parse this and I am not sure I understand them correctly. These are incomplete notes until I better understand the distinction between subordinate clauses and relative clauses (which may come up in the Peikoff course.)

There are four more exercises (which add appositives) in this homework. I will continue in my next post another day.

Concluding thoughts:
I struggled with all this and got confused quite often which I had to process before writing an answer as per the project conditions. One thing I did when confused was ask myself systematically: Is it a noun? Is it a verb? Is it an adjective? Is it an adverb? Is it a preposition? Is it a conjunction? If I only have one positive answer, then it is the right one (at least to the best of my knowledge.) If I have multiple positive answers, then I work out how to arbitrate between them. (I might also ask suitable follow-up sub-questions like: Is it a pronoun? Is it a gerund? Etc.)

It’s been a few weeks since I did the exercises in Elliot’s grammar article and I don’t think I have properly automatised very much yet. I have a lot of work still to do practising my grammar. I’m going to make an effort to avoid taking a big break from studying grammar again as I think I may have lost progress.