sentence pattern

Question

What do we call for these sentence patterns and how do we use them correctly?1 Peter woke up feeling very ill.2 He did not like being sick. 3 How good it felt to be healthy once more!

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

1 Peter woke up feeling very ill. This is a reduced clause (with a present participle) that modifies "Peter."
eg. Peter, feeling very ill, did not get up and go to school.
Another analysis is that the clause is adverbial, describing the manner in which Peter woke up.

2 He did not like being sick. This is a reduced clause (with a present participle) that is the complement of the verb "like." Traditional grammar books might tell you that "being" is a gerund, a direct object of "like."

He did not like his elder sister.
He did not like green eggs and ham.
He did not like feeling sick.
He did not like being sick.

3 How good it felt to be healthy once more!
The sentence above is a transformation of the sentence below, which has the reduced clause (with an infinitive) as the subject.
To be healthy once more felt good.

You can read more about this pattern (cleft sentences using "it") here: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/cleft-sentences-it-was-in-june-we-got-married.

sentence pattern

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions