Saturday, November 1, 2008

analyzing some sentences

1. Flying saucer can be dangerous.

This is a positive active sentence which consists of subjects and predicate. The subject and predicate are described in this following explanation:

Flying saucer can be dangerous.

Because of containing subject and predicate, those set of words above can be identified as a sentence. The words ‘flying saucer’ is an active participle which means ‘saucer which is flying’. This group of words is formed by two different words. They are flying (fly) and saucer. However, this sentence does not use verb as its predicate. It uses modal as the predicate. The word ‘dangerous’ in this sentence is an adjective. Therefore, ‘be’ is used as the auxiliary verb which succeeds the infinitive (verb I).

In conclusion, this sentence has subject which is an active participle. People may be confused by this sentence. They may identify the subject as gerund (noun) which means flying saucer (UFO/piring terbang in Indonesian). As the result, people may misunderstand the meaning of this sentence.

2. John loves Marry more than his brother.

John loves Marry more than his brother.

The set of words above is easy to understand. However, I do not see this sentence is right. It consists of a main clause ‘John loves Marry’ and a relative clause. Actually, there are two main meaning which need to be expressed. They are ‘John loves Marry’ and ‘His loves is greater than his loves to his brother’. The combination of those words can be John prefer loves Marry to his brother or John loves Marry before his brother.

In conclusion, the readers may understand the meaning of the sentence. However, the combination of two sentences above is confusing. The sentence above is one kind of degrees of comparison.

3. The shooting of the hunter was terrible

This is an active sentence using simple past tense form. This sentence consists of subject and predicate.

The shooting of the hunter was terrible

The subject of the sentence consists of two main words, ‘shooting’ and ‘hunter’. The word ‘shooting’ has two morphemes, shoot and –ing. The two morphemes create gerund (verb+ing). Gerund changes the verb to be a noun. The word ‘hunter’ is used to give additional information that explains the word ‘shooting’. In the other word, the word ‘hunter’ specifies the word ‘shooting’.

A sentence can only use either ‘be’ or verb as its predicate. It can be identified that the sentence using past form because the sentence employ ‘was’ as the predicate. The sentence above does not have verb, it has the combination of be + adjective (was terrible) as the predicate. However, this sentence does not have adverb of time showing past event.

In conclusion, the sentence above is written in past tense. However, the reader does not find any adverb of time showing past event. Therefore, it will be better if the sentence written in simple present tense; The shooting of the hunter is terrible.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

write your comment here

Followers

Copyright The Sun Shine © 2008 – 2011