I think there's a difference between "We found/sent the children
upstairs," where "upstairs" is a place--and answers the adverbial
question of "where"--and such structures as "We found the man dead,"
where "dead" describes "man." They are not "upstairs children"; the
man, however, is a "dead man."
Your prepositional phrase as subject is a neat example, Herb.
Another is "Over the fence is out of bounds," where both subject and
subject complement are prep phrases in form, both of which are
nominals--names of places. And certainly adjectival prepositional
phrases can serve as sub. comps, as in "The teacher was in a bad
mood"--which means that prep phrases can also serve as object
complements: "We found the teacher in a bad mood."
My response to the original question, regarding "We were still some
distance away": I call that a Pattern I sentence: be followed by an
adverbial of time, just like "The children are upstairs." I diagram
those adverbials as modifiers of the verb, shown beneath and attached
to the verb, rather than on the line as subject complements. I
reserve the SC space for nominals and adjectivals that rename or
describe the subject. While adverbials do function to "complete" the
verb--and in that sense are indeed "complements"--I think it's very
valuable for students to see the distinction between adverbials and
subject complements. I think of Pattern I (NP be ADV/TP) [that's
adverbial of time or place] as the "intransitive" be pattern, in
contrast to the "linking" be patterns, those with ADJ or NP subject
complements.
I should also mention how valuable I believe sentence patterns are in
helping students organize all the details of sentence structure. I
consider the patterns and their diagrams the closet organizers for
learning form and function.
Martha
>Herb:
>
>You've got a strong point, and in making it you bring up interesting
>considerations about object complements. I suppose what you say
>about "We found/sent the children upstairs" -- that "upstairs" is an
>object complement -- applies too to the prepositional phrase in
>something like "The rescuers found the hikers in a state of
>dehydration" (dehydrated). And I think R-K did allow for
>diagramming prepositional phrases on the subject-verb line, as when
>a prepositional phrase functions as subject ("After lunch is my
>sleepy time"), so why not as object complement. . . or subject
>complement?
>
>MK
>
>----------
>From: Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
>Reply To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 4:12 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: diagramming question
>
>Without getting into the nature of "be", which I don't think is the
>problem anyway, I'm uncomfortable with this analysis. Would
>you--and Martha--do the same thing with "upstairs" in "We found/sent
>the children upstairs", where it is clearly an object complement?
>SC and OC are essentially the same thing, the latter occurring with
>a transitive verb. Why treat them differently because the major
>category type (NP vs. AdvP) is different? They are different
>structures, but functionally they are the same thing, and that's
>what RK is about, function, more than structure.
>
>
>Herb
>
> Herb:
>
> (Slavishly) following Martha, I would call "away" a required
>adverb of time and place (ADV/TP) in her Pattern 1 sentence (NP be
>ADV/TP) and put it under the verb were in the diagram -- just as
>Martha diagrams "The students are upstairs" with "upstairs" under
>are. I'll leave it to advanced theorists to explain how this "be"
>differs from a linking "be."
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> ----------
> From: Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
> Reply To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 12:38 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: diagramming question
>
> Michael,
>
> I'm getting back into RK diagrams in order to use
>them this summer with an undergrad class. Leaving the "when" out,
>since we don't have a main clause, I'd do the rest of the clause
>like this. Email doesn't let me underline or put words on a
>diagonal.
>
> we | were \ away
> \
>\
> still
>distance
>
>\
>
>some
>
>
> "some distance away" is an adverb phrase serving as
>subject complement. "still" modifies "were", and I agree with you
>on "some" and "distance".
>
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English
>Grammar on behalf of Kischner, Michael
> Sent: Tue 2/10/2004 3:08 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: diagramming question
>
>
>
> It seems to me that away modifies were;
>distance modifies away; and some modifies distance.
>
> ----------
> From: Dawn Burnette
> Reply To: Assembly for the
>Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 6:23 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: diagramming question
>
> A teacher in my department came to
>me this morning for help diagramming this clause from a Fitzgerald
>sentence: when we were still some distance away. What should she do
>with distance?
>
> Dawn
>
> Fay Sweney wrote:
>
> Whoops! Looks like a draft
>email was accidentally sent. English teachers in my school district
>are currently evaluating curriculum. One step is to identify the
>complexity of what we expect kids to learn. We are in disagreement
>about this. Using Bloom's taxonomy, how would you classify the
>complexity of questions like those below-- Comprehension?
>Application? Analysis? And why? 1. Is the underlined word in the
>following sentence a preposition? The dog ran across the street.
>2. Which of the following sentences contains a prepositional
>phrase? a. The cowboys rode their horses. b. The cowboys
>gave the horses a drink. c. The cowboys rode their horses into
>the sunset. My book was found under a fluffy pillow.3. The word
>pillow functions as a. an adjective b. a noun c. a
>preposition d. a pronoun 4. What is the structure of this
>sentence? a. simple b. compound c. complex Fay
>Sweney
>
> Lake City High School
> 6101 N. Ramsey Rd.
> Coeur d'Alene, ID 83815
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