Sentence type

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Hello,1. He came from school and went for tuition.Is this a compound sentence?The above can be divided intoa) He came from school.b) He went for tuition.So I think it is a compound sentence.Please comment on it.Thanks.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

He came from school and went for tuition.

There is one subject in the sentence. When you analyze sentences, you can't add new words, because you will be analyzing a different sentence, not the original.

Hanuman_2000 · Answer

Hello,

So It is a simple sentence.

"AND" joins 'came from school' and "went for tuition".

It means the conjunction "and" joins , here, two verb phrases.

Am I right?
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One more question:

2. Although in poor health, she continued to carry out her duties.
Is it a complex sentence?

How shall I analyse it?

Thanks.

RandomGuy · Answer

hanuman_20002. Although in poor health, she continued to carry out her duties.
Is it a complex sentence?
How shall I analyse it?

Didn’t you already get an answer to this?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

hanuman_2000It means the conjunction "and" joins , here, two verb phrases.

That is correct. You have a compound verb, not a compound sentence.

hanuman_2000One more question:2. Although in poor health, she continued to carry out her duties. Is it a complex sentence?How shall I analyse it?Thanks.

2. Although in poor health, she continued to carry out her duties.

There is one subject (she) and one inflected verb (underlined).
"to carry" is a non-finite (not inflected verb) that is a complement to the main verb. It does not count as a main verb.

The reduced clause "although in poor health" has a subordinating conjunction, a prepositional phrase, and the implicit (understood) subject/verb "she was."
It contains an idea that is different from, but dependent on the idea in the main clause. So I would count this as a dependent clause, even though its subject and verb are implicit. But please consult your textbook for verification.

RandomGuy · Answer

AlpheccaStars"to carry" is a non-finite (not inflected verb) that is a complement to the main verb

I would say that it’s not just to carry that is complement but the entire clause to carry out her duties. There is a tendency in traditional grammar to assign functions like subject, modifier, object only to the head of an expression, but it makes a lot more sense to include any dependents (complements, modifiers, or determiners) it may have.

Here’s an example to give you a better idea of what I’m talking about. The heads are underlined, and the larger constituents and their functions are bracketed:

He [was anxious to make a good impression of himself]. [VP as predicate]
He was [anxious to make a good impression of himself]. [AdjP as predicative complement]
He was anxious [to make a good impression of himself]. [clause as comp of adjective]
He was anxious to make [a good impression of himself]. [NP as direct object]
He was anxious to make a good impression [of himself]. [PP as comp of noun]

To me, this is much more coherent than analyzing anxious as PC, (to) make as complement, impression as direct object, and of as complement.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Gus; I was being a bit lazy in mentioning only the head and not the attendant elements.

If you count the verb-less clause, the main clause and the complement clause, would you classify the original sentence as being complex, with three clauses? Traditional grammars would not count the non-finite clauses when classifying a sentence.
Suppose we remove the verbless clause:

She continued to carry out her duties.

Is this complex or simple?
Or is the question irrelevant in the context of modern theories of grammar?

RandomGuy · Answer

The grammar I subscribe to doesn’t find the distinction between ‘simple sentences’ and ‘complex sentences’ to be very useful, and makes no use of the terms. If it did, then even sentences as short and basic as I will go (where go is analyzed as a subordinate clause) would be classified as ‘complex’.

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