Earlier today, when I first responded to John's post, I suggested that the
verb was "is running," but Bruce said that reordering the sentence would
prove me wrong.
Bruce, what is wrong with the way Eduard has reordered the sentence below
(and Linda in another post)?
Obviously, "running" isn't active in the sense in which it is used in John's
student's sentence. Is it, instead, a linking verb, much the way "smelling"
would be in the sentence "My garden is smelling lovely today"?
Of course, we would be more likely to write "My garden smells lovely today"
or "A patch of white hair runs from the back of his skull . . . " But if we
wrote "is smelling" or "is running," are we dealing with a different
construction completely?
Nancy
Nancy L. Tuten, PhD
Professor of English
Director of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program
Columbia College
Columbia, South Carolina
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803-786-3706
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduard C. Hanganu
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 10:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What Is This?
Hi, John:
I believe that that we might be able to make sense of this syntactic
structure, which seems to be a complex sentence, if we reordered the
words:
"A patch of white hair that opens up into his lips is running from
the back of his scull down to his front."
It appears now clear that the main sentence is:
"A patch of white hair is running from the back of his scull down to
his front."
The subject is *a patch of white hair*, and the predicate *is running
from the back of his scull down to his front.*
The verb of the main clause, *is running,* is in the Progressive
Present Tense.
There are two verb complements in the sentence, both prepositional
phrases. The first prepositional phrase, *from the back of his
scull,* is an adverbial of place. The second, *down to his front*,is
also an adverbial of place.
The main clause, "A patch of white hair is running from the back of
his scull down to his front," is interrupted in the middle by a
restrictive relative clause, *that opens up into his lips.*
Let me summarize, now:
A patch of white hair [subject] that opens up into his lips
[restrictive relative clause ]is running [Verb in the Present
Progressive Tense] from the back of his scull [Prepositional Phrase -
Adverbial of Place] down to his front [ Prepositional Phrase -
Adverbial of Place].
The comma seems to separate the two parts of the compound verb, that
is, it separates *is* from *running* and should probably be left out,
unless you consider "Running from the back of his skull down to the
front" an introductory verbal phrase in the initial syntactic
structure. In such a case, I would leave it there.
Eduard
On Sun, 12 Mar 2006, John Crow wrote...
>A student wrote the following sentence in an essay:
>
>Running from the back of his skull down to the front, is a patch of
white
>hair that opens up into his lips.
>The comma doesn't belong there, but I'm not sure why. Is
the "Running"
>phrase a gerund? If so, then I understand why the comma is wrong:
it
>separates the subject from the verb However, the phrase doesn't
behave like
>a gerund. Compare:
>
>Running around the lake is a part of my daily routine. --> It is a
part of
>my daily routine. --> A part of my daily routine is running around
the
>lake.
>
>In this sentence, the "Running" phrase behaves like a true noun
phrase in a
>linking verb sentence. My student's "Running" phrase doesn't behave
like an
>NP. It feels participial, modifying "patch". If so, then the comma
would
>be correct. But it's not.
>
>Any ideas out there?
>
>John
>
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