[Grammar] Compound sentence or Simple or Complex?

[Undak]

Pauline says there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood,swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a woodstove. Is it complex or compound or simple? And why?

[Soup]

Originally Posted by Undak

Pauline says there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood,swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a woodstove. Is it complex or compound or simple? And why?

As with your other posts, please provide your answers first.

[Undak]

Thank you for your reply. I understand almost everything by reading the page you linked. But I don't understand this sentence.
Pauline says there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood, swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a woodstove. Do you mean it is the compound sentence? I thought it was a simple or complex sentence.
I thought Pauline says (that)there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood, swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a woodstove. "That" is a relative pronoun, too. So it is a complex sentence.

[Soup]

Hi Undak

Look at the structure of the sentence again. It has just the one verb:

Ex: Pauline says (that) there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood, swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a wood stove.

Subject: Pauline
Verb: says
Verb's object: (that) there is nothing relaxing about ...

Simple = one verb
Compound and Complex = two or more verbs

[Undak]

But there are sentences which have 2 verbs and they are still simple.
For example: Paul watches tv and listens to music. How about this one?
You mean the compound sentence's subjects and verbs have to be equal?

[Soup]

Re: Pauline says (that) there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood, swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a wood stove.

Hi Undak

It's considered a complex sentence. The reason being, omitted that is viewed as a subordinating conjunction.

[svartnik]

Even simple sentences may have two words:

I went to the city and had an icecream. -- simple

'went' and 'had' are a compound verb in this simple sentence.

I went to the city but he did not. -- compound: two indep clauses + a coordinator

I went to the city after I ate my icecream. -- complex: main + one dep. clause.

Pauline says there is nothing relaxing about chopping wood,swatting mosquitoes, and cooking over a woodstove. -- complex

Pauline says -- main clause
that there... -- sub
sub clause:

there: grammatical subject
is: verb
nothing: subect complement
relaxing: present participle modifying nothing
about x;y, and z -- adverbial element; prep phrase
'and' is a conjunction joining the objects of the preposition (about) and not clauses