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 Finding Clauses
Practice Exercise # 1

Directions:  [Work through the text one sentence at a time.]
1. First place parentheses ( ) around every prepositional phrase.
2. Underline every subject once, every finite verb twice, and label complements (PA, PN, IO or DO). [Reminder: A predicate adjective describes the subject; a predicate noun "equals" the subject; an indirect object is someone or thing "to" or "for" whom (or what) the action of the verb is performed. Any other complement has to be a direct object.]
 

The text is:
      A Sunday school teacher asked her little children, as they were on their way to church service, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."
Note: In creating these pages, I cannot create a double underline. I will therefore underline both subjects and finite verbs once, but subjects will be in green; finite verbs in blue.

Sentence #1

     Work your way through the text one sentence at a time. The first sentence is:
      A Sunday school teacherasked her little children, as theywere (on their way) (to church service,) "And why isitnecessary [PA] to be quiet (in church)?" 
Review Prepositional Phrases Review S/V/C patterns.

     Because there is more than one S/V/C pattern, begin with the last pattern and work backwards. In this case, that pattern is "it is necessary." Since a clause is an S/V/C pattern and all the words that chunk to it, we need to find the beginning and ending of this clause.

    Find the last word in that clause. "To be quiet in church" tells what "it" is, i.e., what is necessary. Thus this clause ends with "church."
     Find the first word in that clause. Remember that every word in a text has to chunk to something else, and also remember that you already have an excellent unconscious command of English. It shouldn't take much thought to realize that the "And why" goes with the "it is necessary" clause. Thus the first word in this clause is the "And."
     Having determined the beginning and ending words of the clause, we need to check to see if it is subordinate or main. Because "And" often joins main clauses, you may be tempted to consider this a main clause. Note, however, that the entire clause is a quotation, and it answers the question "The teacher asked what?" Thus the entire clause is the complement (specifically, the direct object) of "asked." 
      A Sunday school teacherasked her little children, as theywere (on their way) (to church service,) [DO of "asked" "And why isitnecessary [PA] to be quiet (in church)?" ]
     Because we still have two unanalyzed S/V/C patterns ("teacher asked" and "they were"), we are not finished with this sentence. Working backwards, we move to the next S/V/C pattern, "they were." Because the "And why" clause chunks to "asked," this clause ends with "church service." It begins with the subordinate conjunction "as." What does it chunk to? The "as" indicates that the clause tells "when the teacher asked," and thus chunks to "asked."
      A Sunday school teacherasked her little children, [Adverb to "asked" as theywere (on their way) (to church service,)] [DO of "asked" "And why isitnecessary to be quiet (in church)?" ]
      We are now down to one unanalyzed S/V/C pattern, based on "teacher asked." This has to be the core of the main clause. At this point, all you need to do is to put a vertical line at the end of this sentence. 
     [Note that since a clause is an S/V/C pattern and all the words that chunk to it,  both the "as" clause and the "And whey" clause are parts of this main clause.]
      A Sunday school teacherasked her little children, [Adverb to "asked" as theywere (on their way) (to church service,)] [DO of "asked" "And why isitnecessary to be quiet (in church)?" ] /
     We are finished with this sentence. 

Sentence #2

The second sentence is:
      One bright little girlreplied, "Because peopleare sleeping."
Review Prepositional Phrases Review S/V/C patterns.

      Again we begin at the end with the last S/V/C pattern. The last word in this clause is obviously "sleeping." Find the first word in the clause. In front of "people," we find "because," a subordinate conjunction which is also the first word in the clause. 
     If we look at what this clause chunks to, we find that it answers the question "The girl replied what?" The clause is thus the complement (specifically direct object) of "replied."
      One bright little girlreplied, [DO of "replied" "Because peopleare sleeping." ]
     Down to one unanalyzed pattern, we can simply put a vertical line at the end of the sentence. We are finished with this text.
      One bright little girlreplied, [DO of "replied" "Because peopleare sleeping." ] /