Having spotted a school of fish near the surface, the pelican plunged into the water.
Driving to Chicago that night, a sudden thought had hit me.
Those look easy and fun.
I have some other work I must do, then I will diagram them.
It occurred to me that other people witnessing this thread but not participating might be interested to see the empty diagram and see if they could place the text.
Frank, from where would you branch the participle? Verb? Subject? What does the participle do? In my opinion, the sentence is open to two interpretations:Originally Posted by Kondorosi
- plunged because
- plunged when
I does not modify the bird, but an authority on grammar says it does.
Is this participle not dangling in mid-air? I am not sure it is not.
I got your mail with the diagrams. Thanks. You sure?
Sure about what?
Probably not.
Hello Frank,
See my second post in this thread.
"Having spotted..." I feel modifies "pelican" --"what kind of a pelican?" a "having-spotted-...pelican".
If you mean what is the prepositional phrase "into the water" modifying, I think it answers the question "where (or whither)" about plunged -- hence adverbial.
Here in the USA kids are taught that a test for an adjective is whether it asks or answers one of these five questions -- what kind of, how many, how much, whose, and which one.
The test for an adverb is whether it asks or answers one of these four questions -- how, when, where, why.
That info is actually part of my little booklet "Atapentka. Gmr" (All the average person ever needs to know about grammar), but it's on the opening pages of the booklet, which so far have not been put on the "competitive sentence diagramming.com" website.
(I sent you as an attachment "Atapentka. Syntax".)
How do they elicit a determiner?
I like your hat. Which one? Whose? Yours. In my book, "your" is a possessive determiner.
In 'I have five hats,' 'five' is a quantifier, a determiner.
You said the participle describes the bird. Are these not possible below?
Having spotted a school of fish near the surface, the pelican plunged into the water = When the pelican spotted a school of fish...
Having spotted a school of fish near the surface, the pelican plunged into the water = Because the pelican spotted a school of fish...
Yes, in both cases.
And if the interpretation is that the writer means "when" or "because" I guess I would put the participial phrase under the simple predicate.
It is a matter of interpretation -- which, incidentally, Reed-Kellogg demonstrates.
And yes, to those terms above (like possessive determiner). In the USA those are referrred to as possessive pronouns. A dialectic difference.
How nice that the term doen't matter in the diagram.
LF
Diagrams just speak for themselves.
Where would you branch the participle from the base line?I stepped back down two steps, avoiding a small lump of dog's-business that rested in some litter and leaves.
And here?I straightened my coat, pulling it closed where I had unfortunately lost a button.
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