[Grammar] Article 3 - Sentence Construction

[TalonRider]

Sentence Construction

Part 1

Create good sentence structure by using the acronym SVC (subject, verb, completer).

 

Subjects:

 

Subjects come first to tell you who or what you re talking about. Subjects are nouns or pronouns. Nouns name people, places, things, qualities, concepts, and "active" things including gerunds (actions that are things).

People: Bill, secretary, mother, child

Places: office, Chicago, Georgia

Things: car, television, memo, desk

Qualities: truthfulness, honesty, attentiveness

"Active" things: singing, running, traveling

 

Pronouns:

A pronoun may "pitch it" for a noun so that the same people, places and things are not repeated over and over.

 

Without pronouns, this statement is awkward and redundant: The manager went into the manager's office to prepare the manager's report for the meeting at which the manager planned to present the manager's new budget request.

 

Pronouns allow a more concise and clear statement: The manager went into her office to prepare her report for the meeting at which point she planned to present her new budget request.

 

Caution: A pronoun must agree with its "antecedent" (the word for which it stands).

• Incorrect: Each of the boys liked their teacher.
  
• Correct: Each of the boys liked his teacher.
  

Pronouns that act as subjects:

I ....................... we

you ................... they

he ..................... who

she ................... it

 

Pronouns that act as objects (objects of verbs or objects of prepositions):

me .................... us

you ................... them

him ................... whom

her ................... it

 

Pronouns that show ownership (possessives):

my, mine ............. our, ours

Your, yours .......... their, theirs

his ....................... her, hers

 

Caution: Who and whom should not be used interchangeably.

• To figure out whether to use who or whom, replace the word with he or him. If he sounds right, use who. If him sounds right, use whom.
  

Reflexive pronouns:

 

her ............................. it

myself ........................ ourselves

yourself, yourselves .... themselves

himself ....................... itself

herself

 

Reflexive pronouns are used in three main situations:

• When the subject and object are the same.
  
• As the object of a preposition, referring to the subject.
  
• When you want to emphasize the subject.
  

Caution: Do not use a reflexive pronoun unless the sentence contains the noun to which it refers. For example, myself would only appear in a sentence containing I.

• Incorrect: Jim, Esperanza, and myself were planning a trip.
  
• Correct: Jim, Esperanza, and I were planning a trip.
   
  

Exercise - Pronouns: Reflexive, Subject/Object

Choose the correct word to finish each of the following sentences.

 

Feel free to post your answers or you may PM or email them to Talonrider. Be sure to include the full article title.

 

1. Kai, Chandra, and _____________(I, me, myself) are headed to the conference now.

 

2. Give the paperwork to _____________(she, her, herself) so that it can be submitted this pay period.

 

3. Edward stayed all weekend to finish that report all by _____________(he, him, himself).

 

4. Anders gave a copy of that memo to Jim, Tom, and _____________(I, me, myself).

 

5. To _____________(who, whom) should the packages be addressed?

 

6. The company's analysts _____________( they, their, themselves) knew what _____________(they, them, their) predictions were based on, but no one else understood_____________(them, their, themselves).

 

7. Just between you and_____________(I, me), I think this is the best work we've ever done.

 

8. Jonquil wondered why _____________(she, her) employees complained about a lack of vacation since _____________(she, her) __________(hers, herself) never took a day off.

Edited August 30, 2011 by TalonRider
To clean up coding problem.

[sat8997]

1. Kai, Chandra, and I are headed to the conference now.

 

2. Give the paperwork to her so that it can be submitted this pay period.

 

3. Edward stayed all weekend to finish that report all by himself.

 

4. Anders gave a copy of that memo to Jim, Tom, and me.

 

5. To whom should the packages be addressed?

 

6. The company

[Razor]

A good way to remember who and whom for southerners like me...

 

Who=I

Whom=Me

 

Substitue I or me in the place of who or whom. The one that's correct is the one whose counterpart you should use. For people who can't remember it other ways, that's a hell of a nifty trick. I've got a big thing on pronoun case planned because... um... well let's put it this way. If 75% of grammatical mistakes have to do with the verb, then 24% have to do with pronoun case. Basically, it's something very important (And HUGE on standardized tests like ACT/SAT, for anyone who may be taking those soon...) and very often misused.

[Bondwriter]

Pronouns that show ownership (possessives):

my, mine ............. our, ours

Your, yours .......... their, theirs

his ....................... her, hers

 

My, your, his, her, its, our, their would qualify as possessive adjectives for me. They don't stand on their own (except like in phrases like "Oh, my!" but that's about it. Plus you can't walk around saying things like "Oh, our!" if you're collectively awestruck, foryou'll sound silly. ) They always are used with a noun: my lover, your drool, his butt, etc...

 

But once again, knowing all this stuff doesn't make you the perfect guest at dinner parties, and is just a good help to understand how your sentence works and allows you to reread better. And hopefully quit screwing up with these whose/ who's, its/it's, their/ they're that are so annoying. And that my word processor's spell-checker underlines in green, by the way. (As Razor points out, it's still big in some standardized testing, though)

 

But I agree a number of educated people make mistakes about pronoun case in speech, using subject for object and vice-versa.

 

And Jonquil is a fun-hating person. I bet people at work gossip about her lack of sex life.

 

Great job you have going there, J team.

[Razor]

What about "That red car is mine." Or maybe "This is yours." Those aren't adjectives; they're predicate nouns. They come after a linking verb, and rename the subject. This is yours=Yours is this. Which red car is yours? Well, mine is THAT red car. See? So people do use them a good bit, but you don't especially realize when you do.

[Bondwriter]

What about "That red car is mine." Or maybe "This is yours." Those aren't adjectives; they're predicate nouns.

You're right on this one. Language bias, I guess, since possesive adjectives and possessive pronouns take different forms in French, and without an example right away I couldn't picture the red car stuff. I'm surprised that people vain enough to own a red car may be discussing grammar. <listens to the annoyed howl of red car owners in the audience...>Then, are they predicate pronouns?

[TalonRider]

Exercise Answers

 

1. Kai, Chandra, and

I

are headed to the conference now.

 

2. Give the paperwork to

her

so that it can be submitted this pay period.

 

3. Edward stayed all weekend to finish that report all by

himself

.

 

4. Anders gave a copy of that memo to Jim, Tom, and

me

.

 

5. To

whom

should the packages be addressed?

 

6. The company