Clause elements

Question

How would you analyse this sentence:For my brother to feel, that he does not know the right term, must seem a real impediment.

Cbsteh · Accepted Answer

Unclear, I'm afraid. Are you trying to say something like:
My brother could not decribe his feelings and that frustrated him
Chris.

Reefannie · Answer

Foggy sentence.

My brother feels frustrated since he does not know the right term.

Not knowing the right term makes my brother feel inadequate.

Does this help?

K.

Avangi · Answer

frankie321 For my brother to feel, that he does not know the right term, must seem a real impediment.

Hi frankie, thanks for joining us. Welcome to English Forums.

Nix the comma after "feel."

The feeling is bad. If this were your sentence, the subject would be "feeling," the verb would be "to be," and we'd have an adjective complement, "bad."

The subject in your example is, "For my brother to feel that he does not know the right term. " I'd guess that the verb is "must seem [to be] ," and the complement (or, predicate nominative) is the noun, "a real impediment ."

"A" is an article and "real" is an adjective modifying the noun, "impediment."

"that he does not know the right term" is probably a noun clause, to which the relative pronoun "that" may be said to belong. (I guess the antecedent of "that" is the infinitive "to feel.") The subject of the clause is "he," the verb is "does not know," and "the right term" is direct object of the verb, "to know," "right" being an adjective modifying the noun, "term." This whole relative clause is direct object of the infinitive verb, "to feel."

I would say the subject ("For my brother to feel that he does not know the right term") might be considered to be a prepositional phrase, within which we find the infinitive phrase, "to feel etc." So we have a relative (noun) clause within an infinitive phrase within a prepositional phrase.

How far we can go with "must seem [to be]" I'm not sure. I think "must" is considered an auxilliary verb. "Must be an impediment" would be easier.

Any corrections or enhancements to this would be most welcome.

- A.

Clause elements

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