Last Revised 8/10/06
 
KISS Grammar Workbooks
Level Five Instructional Material
     This material is for on-line reference. For a more developed, sequential presentation of this material, see the Printable Books.

     Eight additional constructions will enable you to explain almost every word in any sentence that you read or write.

# 1 Nouns Used as Adverbs

     Some nouns function as adverbs, usually to indicate a spatial or temporal orientation: "The plane crashed five miles from here." The construction is close to the prepositional phrase: 

They drove six miles. They drove for six miles.
but, as in our example, there frequently is no preposition that fits such that we could say that it is ellipsed. Thus the construction needs to be included in the theory. And it proves useful. For example, it provides a simple explanation for "fishing" in: 
They went fishing.
In traditional grammar texts, such verbals create problems, if they are not ignored, but why can it not simply be considered as a gerund, i.e., a verbal noun, here functioning as an adverb, comparable to "They went north"? It does not indicate spatial or temporal orientation, but it certainly functions as an adverb, indicating the purpose of their going.
In a few cases we have the rather odd case of adverbs functioning as nouns that function as adverbs. Consider, for example, 
The sooner he leaves, the better it will be.
"Sooner" is normally considered an adverb, but it can function as a noun. Imagine a case in which someone says, "He will leave sooner than he intended." And someone else responds -- "Sooner is not good enough. I want him to leave now." Clearly, "sooner" functions as a noun subject of "is." Likewise in "the sooner ... the better," the adjective "the" designates "sooner" as a noun, but it still functions as an adverbs to "leaves." And similarly, "the" designates "better" as a noun, but it functions as an adverb to the previous "the sooner."
# 2 Interjections
Simple Interjections
Advanced Intejections
Interjection or Direct Object?
Notes for Parents and Teachers

# 3 Direct Address

     Direct address is similar to an interjection except that it indicates the person spoken to:

Mary, Jane called.

# 4 Delayed Subjects and Sentences

     This instructional material has been expanded and placed in a separate document. Click here to get it.

# 5 Retained Complements

     Retained complements are simply predicate nouns, predicate adjectives, or direct or indirect objects that appear after passive verbs, whether finite or verbals:

Bill was given a dollar.
Most textbooks limit this construction to retained objects and objective complements. But expanding the concept to include predicate nouns and predicate adjectives simplifies explanations:
a.) Murray was considered foolish. 
b.) Terri was made a queen for a day.
These two examples are identical except that the first ends with a retained predicate adjective, the second with a retained predicate noun. If we exclude the concept of retained predicate adjectives and nouns, then (a) requires the following explanation:
"Murray was considered foolish" is the passive form of the active: "Someone considered Murray foolish." "Murray" is the subject, and "foolish" is the predicate adjective of the ellipsed infinitive "to be," which functions as the direct object of "considered." In the passive version, the ellipsed infinitive is the retained object and "foolish" is a predicate adjective after it. 
Rather than go through this cumbersome technical explanation, you can simply state "retained predicate adjective" or "retained predicate noun."
# 6 Appositives
[Sorry, this material has been moved.]
# 7 Post-Positioned Adjectives -- The Short Cut
[Instructional Material]

     "Post-Positioned Adjective" is not a category that is required to explain how every word in every sentence relates to the main S/V/C pattern, but it can save time and explanation. Suppose, for  example, that we were analyzing the sentence: 

He was watching his son, soundly asleep, quiet and peaceful 
after a hard day of play.
Within the rules of KISS Grammar, we could expand this to: 
He was watching his son, [*who was* soundly asleep, 
quiet and peaceful after a hard day of play.]
And we could explain "asleep, quiet, and peaceful" as "predicate adjectives to the ellipsed "who was." The "*who*" through "play" is an adjectival clause that modifies "son."
     To avoid the lengthy explanation, it is easier simply to consider such words as "post-positioned adjectives."  In effect, the post-positioned adjective results from the reduction of an adjectival clause that has a S/V/PA pattern, just as an appositive is the reduction of an adjectival clause that has a S/V/PN pattern: 
She was watching her son, the fullback on the high school team.
She was watching her son, [*who was* the fullback on the high school team.]
     As sentences become more heavily embedded, post-positioned adjectives can be separated from the word they modify by a number of other constructions. Consider the following sentence from the Lambs' version of Shakespeare's The Tempest:
Prospero, who had enjoined Ferdinand this task merely as a trial of his love, was not at his books, as his daughter supposed, but was standing by them invisible, to overhear what they said.
# 8 Noun Absolutes
This material has been expanded and put on a separate pages.
For Students For Parents & Teachers
Punctuation Rules for KISS Level Five Notes
This border is based on
Evelyn De Morgan's S O S
(British, 1855-1919) 1916
Illusions Gallery http://www.illusionsgallery.com
[for educational use only]
Click here for the directory of my backgrounds based on art.