The complete idiot guide part 17 ppt

As with solitary appositives, appositive phrases are placed near the noun or pronoun they describe.. Part and Participle A participle is a form of a verb that functions as an adjective.

Chapter I I : Phrases: Prime-Time Players \ki

Confusing: Do you know my friend Bill?

Is Bill the friend or is the speaker talking to Bill?

Clear: Do you know my friend, Bill?

Appositive Phrases

Appositive phrases are nouns or pronouns with modifiers Appositive phrases provide

additional information and description to the sentence As with solitary appositives,

appositive phrases are placed near the noun or pronoun they describe For example:

• Columbia University, the second-largest

landowner in New York City {after the

Catholic Church), is part of the Ivy

League

• David Prowse, the guy in the Darth Vader

suit in the Star Wars movies, did not find

out that his lines were going to be

dubbed over by James Earl Jones until

he saw the screening of the movie

Appositives are great stylistic devices because they allow you to eliminate unnecessary words and put more information in one sentence They can also help you

• Create more graceful sentences

• Eliminate repetition

• Create a beat or rhythm in your writing

• Make your writing more interesting

Here's an example:

Two sentences: Phineas T Barnum was a great American showman Barnum was near

death in 1891 when a New York newspaper asked if he'd like to have his obituary

published while he could still read it

One sentence: Phineas T Barnum, a great American showman, was near death in 1891

when a New York newspaper asked if he'd like to have his obituary published while he could still read it

You Could Look It Up _ Appositive phrases are

nouns or pronouns with modifiers

In grammar lingo, nonessential appositives are called "nonrestric-tive."

More on this and other stylistic devices in Part 5

I M t Part 3 : Usage and Abusaqe

appositives with commas

The Moment of Truth

As with appositives, appositive phrases come in two varieties: essential and tial Don't set off essential appositives with commas, but be sure to set off nonessen-tial appositives with commas

Essential appositive: The famous British mystery writer

Danger, Will Robinson ASa t h a Christie disappeared in 1924 and was missing Don't set off essential

Nonessential appositive: Agatha Christie, the famous British mystery writer, disappeared in 1924 and was

missing for 10 days

One of the most common writing errors concerns misuse of commas with appositives and appositive phrases Writers sometimes set off essential appositives with commas, but neglect those poor nonessential ones You would never do that, would you? To make sure you're not guilty of that comma abuse, let's take a minute to practice, shall we? Add commas as needed to each of the following sentences

1 Isadora Duncan a great American dancer of the early twentieth century has become almost as famous for her death as her dancing

2 John Styth Pemberton an Atlanta pharmacist created the original Coca-Cola

in 1886

3 Richard Nixon is the only American president who was forced to resign his office

4 King Louis XIV of France a ballet dancer from the time he was a teenager established the Royal Ballet Company

5 Robert Benchley the American humorist and critic was a member of the

Algonquin table of noted wits

6 Nellie Melba a famous Australian soprano of the late nineteenth and early twen-tieth century gave her name to a snack food called "melba toast."

7 The centaur a mythological creature is said to feast on raw flesh and prodigious amounts of liquor

8 Alexander the Great died of a fever

9 Ferrets a domesticated variety of polecats were first tamed in 1500 B.C.E by the Egyptians

10 Some people consider the number 13 unlucky

Chapter I I : Phrases: Prime-Time Players U S

Answers

1 Isadora Duncan, a great American dancer of the early twentieth century, has

become almost as famous for her death as her dancing

2 John Styth Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, created the original Coca-Cola in

U

3 No punctuation change needed

4 King Louis XIV of France, a ballet dancer from the time he was a teenager,

established the Royal Ballet Company

5 Robert Benchley, the American humorist and critic, was a member of the

Algonquin table of noted wits

6 Nellie Melba, a famous Australian soprano of the late nineteenth and early

twentieth century, gave her name to a snack food called "melba toast."

7 The centaur, a mythological

crea-ture, is said to feast on raw flesh and

prodigious amounts of liquor

8 No punctuation change needed

9 Ferrets, a domesticated variety

of polecats, were first tamed in

1500 B.C.E by the Egyptians

10 No punctuation change needed

Take My Word for It

Appositives, as with other parts

of a sentence, can be com-pound To create a compound appositive, connect the apposi-tives with a correlative

conjunc-tion: and, but, or, for, so, nor, and yet

Verbal Phrases: Talk Soup

A verbal is a verb form used as another part of speech Like Gaul, verbals come in

three varieties: participles, gerunds, and infinitives Each type has a different function in

a sentence:

• Participles function as adjectives

• Gerunds function as nouns

• Infinitives function as nouns, adjectives,

or adverbs

You Could Look It Up

A verbal is a verb form

used as another part of speech

I M > P a r t 3 : Usage and Abusaqe

Although a verbal doesn't function as a verb in a sentence, it does retain two qualities

of a verb:

• A verbal can be described by adverbs and adverbial phrases

• A verbal can add modifiers to become a verbal phrase

Let's get to know the three verbals a little better

Part and Participle

A participle is a form of a verb that functions as an adjective There are two kinds of participles: present participles and past participles

• Present participles end in -ing (jumping, burning,

You Could look It Up _, SpeMng)

-• Past participles usually end in -ed, -t, or -en (jumped, burnt, spoken)

A participle is a form

of a verb that functions as an

adjective

In the mood to add some participle action to your sentences? Here's how you do it:

• The howling children disturbed the neighbors

The present participle "howling" describes the noun "children."

• Fred Flintstone gave Barney Rubble a crumbling rock

The present participle "crumbling" describes the noun "rock."

• The frozen candy bar broke her $900 bridgework

The past participle "frozen" describes the noun "candy bar."

• Annoyed, Rita ate dinner by herself in the bathroom

The past participle "annoyed" describes the noun "Rita."

Don't confuse participles and verbs Participles aren't preceded by a helping verb, as these examples show:

• The sputtering car jerked down the road, (participle)

• The car was sputtering down the road, (verb)

Chapter I I : Phrases: Prime-Time Players H 7

Participle phrases contain a participle modified by an adverb or an adverbial phrase The whole kit and caboodle acts as an adjective, as these examples show:

• Swimming slowly, I didn't notice the shark on my tail

The participle phrase "swimming slowly" describes the pronoun "I."

• Annoyed by its heavy breathing, I told it to get lost

The participle phrase "Annoyed by its heavy breathing" describes the pronoun "I." However, the participle phrase can also be placed after the word it describes In that case, it is usually set off by commas, as in this example:

• "My sister, burning the toast, looked distracted."

Like appositives, participles and participle phrases are an indispensable part of the

writer's bag of tricks because they allow you to create concise and interesting

tences Use them to combine information from two or more sentences into one sen-tence Notice how much more punch the following sentence has when it is combined

by using a participle:

Two sentences: Noel Coward made a slight but pointed adjustment to an old cliché He

once described another writer as every other inch a gentleman

One sentence: Making a slight but pointed adjustment to the old cliché, Noel Coward

once described another writer as every other inch a gentleman

Gerund Phrases

A gerund is a form of a verb used as a noun Remember the following two guidelines

when you hunt for gerunds:

• Gerunds always end in -ing

• Gerunds always act as nouns

Gerunds can function as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of a preposi-tion, predicate nominatives, and appositives Here are some examples of gerunds:

• Leroy expanded his skills by studying ^^0^%

The gerund "studying" is the object of fifTj 6 ^ ° u Could Look It Up

the preposition "by." ^ « 4 3 ? A g e r u n d is Q v e r b f o r m

• At the age of 10, Irving started running use< ^ QS a n o u n

-The gerund "running" is a direct object

I M I Part 3 : Usage and Abusaqe

• My mother's sole occupation, kvetching, makes her tedious company

The gerund "kvetching" (an especially virulent form of complaining) is an

appositive in this sentence

Like a participle, a gerund can be part of a phrase In that case, the whole package is

called a gerund phrase (Got you with that one, didn't I?) Here are some gerund

phrases busy at work in their sentences:

• The quiet, steady rowing soothed him

The gerund phrase is "the quiet, steady rowing."

Danger, Will Robinson

Don't confuse gerunds

and present participles, because

both end in -ing A gerund

func-tions only as a noun, while a

participle functions only as an

modifier

• My evening routine features jogging slowly around the block

The gerund phrase is "jogging slowly around the block."

• Thousands of "Dead Heads" show their

dedica-tion to their departed leader by following what s left of The Grateful Dead around the country

The gerund phrase is "following what's left of The Grateful Dead around the country."

Infinitive Phrases: The Final Frontier

Last but not least we have the infinitive, a form of the verb that comes after the word

to and acts as a noun, adjective, or adverb Versatile little babies, infinitives can fill as

many roles as gerunds, with the addition of adjectives and adverbs Here are some examples:

• To succeed takes courage, foresight, and luck

The infinitive is "to succeed," and it functions as the subject

• Alone in her cubicle, all she wanted was to survive

The infinitive is "to survive," and it functions as the direct object

• Afraid to move, she froze in terror

You Could Look It Up

The infinitive is a verb

form that comes after the word to

and functions as a noun,

adjec-tive, or adverb The infinitive is "to move," and it modifies the

adverb "afraid."

Chapter I I : Phrases: Prime-Time Players H 9

An infinitive can be used as a phrase An infinitive phrase, as with the other verbal phrases, contains modifiers that together act as a single part of speech Following are some examples:

• His goal, to break into Fort Knox, was

never achieved

The infinitive phrase is "to break into

Fort Knox" and modifies the noun "goal."

• The pilgrim's hope was to reach the shrine

before sundown

The infinitive phrase "to reach the

shrine before sundown" describes "hope."

I 1 Danger, Will Robinson

Don't confuse infinitives with prepositional phrases that begin with to Remember that a prepositional phrase always ends with a noun or a pronoun; an infinitive always ends with a verb

The Least You Need to Know

• A phrase is a group of words, without a subject or a verb, that functions as a

single part of speech Phrases cannot stand alone as independent units

• Prepositional phrases begin with a preposition and end with a noun or pronoun; they can function as adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases

• Appositives rename another noun or pronoun; appositive phrases include modi-fiers

• Verbals are verb forms used as another part of speech Participles function as adjectives, gerunds function as nouns, infinitives function as nouns, adjectives,

or adverbs

• This sounds a lot more difficult than it is

Chapter

Clauses: Kickin' It Up a Notch

In This Chapter

• Learn about independent clauses

• Discover dependent clauses

• Explore adverb, adjective, and noun clauses

You know all about Santa Claus, retractable claws, and Claus von Bulow There's no reason to be claustrophobic: Clauses are your friends

In this chapter, you meet independent and dependent clauses, including adverb,

adjective, and noun clauses Along the way, you learn how to use clauses to add description, show relationships between ideas, and eliminate unneces-sary words

Clauses: Phrases on Steroids

You've got words, you've got phrases, and now you've got clauses The

pro-gression suggests that clauses are pumped up phrases Indeed, clauses tend

to be beefier than phrases That's because a clause is a group of words with its own subject and verb

Like phrases, clauses enrich your written and oral expression by adding details and making your meaning more exact Clauses also allow you to combine ideas to show their relationship This adds logic and cohesion, very good things when you're trying to communicate

1 5 2 P a r t 3 : Usage and Abusaqe

You Could Look It Up

A clause is a group of

words with its own subject and

verb An independent (main)

clause is a complete sentence; a

dependent (subordinate) clause

is part of a sentence A

depend-ent clause cannot stand alone

There are two types of clauses: independent clauses (main clauses) and dependent clauses (subordinate

clauses and relative clauses)

• An independent clause is a complete sentence; it can stand alone

• A dependent (subordinate) clause is part of a sentence; it cannot stand alone

Here are some examples of each type of clause

Until Captain Cooke returned

from his voyage to Tahiti,

Although they had the worst

batting average in baseball,

Because his salary in 1930 and

1931 was $80,000,

Tattooing was not known in the Western world

The New York Mets won the World Series in 1969

Babe Ruth was the best-paid athlete in the world at the time

Strictly Speaking

Why is there a period at the end

of each independent clause?

Because they are complete

sen-tences Note that there's no period

at the end of each dependent

clause That's because they're not

complete sentences

Independent Clauses: Top Dogs

An independent clause contains a subject and a pred-icate It can stand alone as a sentence because it expresses a complete thought The three independ-ent clauses shown on the previous chart all contain a subject and a verb and express a complete idea The following table shows some independent clauses divided into their subjects and predicates

The door opened

Dancing burns up 200 to 400 calories per hour

Elvis's twin died at birth on January 8, 1935

Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history

It was the fifth game of the 1956 Series