Plain English

Adjective clause, (none).

Complete predicate, would give the working class of the world, now, in our day, the freedom which they seek.

Analyze the dependent clause, which they seek, just as a principal clause is analyzed. They is the simple subject, seek is the simple predicate, which is the direct object. The complete predicate is seek which.

449. Notice that the first two sentences given in the exercise below are imperative sentences,—the subject, the pronoun you, being omitted so that the entire sentence is the complete predicate. As for example: Take the place which belongs to you. The omitted subject is the pronoun you. Take the place which belongs to you is the complete predicate, made up of the simple predicate take; its object, the noun place; the adjective the, and the adjective clause, which belongs to you, both of which modify the noun place.

Exercise 6

Using the outline given above, analyze the following complex sentences.

1. Take the place which belongs to you.

2. Let us believe that brave deeds will never die.

3. The orator knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the simplest words.

4. Gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the human heart.

5. Children should be taught that it is their duty to think for themselves.

6. We will be slaves as long as we are ignorant.

7. We must teach our fellow men that honor comes from within.

8. Cause and effect cannot be severed for the effect already blooms in the cause.

9. Men measure their esteem of each other by what each has.

10. Our esteem should be measured by what each is.

11. What I must do is all that concerns me.

12. The great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps the independence of solitude.

13. The only right is what is after my constitution.

14. Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.

15. They who build on ideas build for eternity.

Exercise 7

We have studied all the parts of speech, and now our work is to combine these parts for the expression of thought. It will be good practice and very helpful to us to mark these different parts of speech in our reading. This helps us to grow familiar with their use. It also helps us to add words to our vocabulary and to learn how to use them correctly. In the following quotation, mark underneath each word, the name of every part of speech. Use n. for noun, v. for verb, pro. for pronoun, adv. for adverb, adj. for adjective, p. for preposition and c. for conjunction. Write v. p. under the verb phrases. For example:

Mark in this manner every part of speech in the following quotation:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman,—in a word, oppressor and oppressed,—stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the middle ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society, that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society, has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. —Communist Manifesto.

Exercise 8

In the following quotation, mark all of the clauses and determine whether they are dependent or independent clauses. If they are dependent clauses, determine whether they are noun, adjective or adverb clauses. Mark all the sentences and tell whether they are simple or complex.

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of our country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my forebodings may be groundless. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a refuge from the power of the people. In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit to raise a warning voice against the approach of a returning despotism.... It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of it, induces him to labor. Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could not have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. I bid the laboring people beware of surrendering the power which they possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to shut the door of advancement for such as they, and fix new disabilities and burdens upon them until all of liberty shall be lost.

In the early days of our race the Almighty said to the first of mankind, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," and since then, if we except the light and air of Heaven, no good thing has been or can be enjoyed by us without first having cost labor. And inasmuch as most good things have been produced by labor, it follows that all such things belong of right to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened, in all ages of the world, that some have labored and others have without labor enjoyed a large portion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any government.

It seems strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing bread from the sweat of other men's faces.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. —Lincoln.

Exercise 9

In the following poem find all of the assertive, interrogative and imperative sentences. Mark all of the simple sentences and all of the complex sentences. Mark all of the dependent clauses and determine whether each is used as a noun, adjective or adverb clause. The verbs and the verb phrases are in italics.

Shall you complain who feed the world,
Who clothe the world,
Who house the world?
Shall you complain who are the world,
Of what the world may do?
As from this hour you are the power,
The world must follow you.

The world's life hangs on your right hand,
Your strong right hand,
Your skilled right hand;
You hold the whole world in your hand;
See to it what you do!
For dark or light or wrong or right,
The world is made by you.

Then rise as you never rose before,
Nor hoped before,
Nor dared before;
And show as never was shown before
The power that lies in you.
Stand all as one; see justice done;
Believe and dare and do.

    —Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

SPELLING