EXERCISES

I

Divide and underscore as in the preceding sentences:

1. Birds fly.

2. Who told you about it?

3. The great man is never the boastful man.

4. To have refused would have meant disaster.
5. I shall do my best to help you.

6. Where did you find it?

7. When are we expected?

8. Is he your father?

9. The stories of O. Henry are intensely interesting.

10. Her talking so much caused the trouble.

II. Such a result could hardly have been anticipated.

II

Tell why each underscored word or group of words on the left of your perpendicular line is the subject; why each on the right is the predicate.

CHAPTER XLVII

COMPOUND SUBJECT AND COMPOUND PREDICATE

Observe how the subjects in these three sentences differ from those in Chapter XLVI:

1. Henry III, Edward III, and George III | ruled longer than

any other English kings.

2. Women and children are invited to attend.

Observe how the predicates in the following sentences differ from the predicates in Chapter XLVI:

4. He inserted the key, opened the door, entered, and found

the body lying on the floor.

5. She skated across the pond, seized the scarf, and bore it triumphantly back.

6. He left the house, but took nothing with him.

Two or more connected subjects having the same predicate form a compound subject.

Two or more connected predicates having the same subject form a compound predicate.

A subject without a connective is called a simple subject.

A predicate without a connective is called a simple predicate.

The most common connectives are and (both and), but, or (either . or), nor (neither . . . nor).

EXERCISES

I

Write two sentences with compound subjects and simple predicates; two with compound predicates and simple subjects; two with compound subjects and compound predi

cates.

II

Which subjects and predicates are simple, and which compound, in these sentences?

1. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea';
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

-GRAY: An Elegy.

2. He rose at dawn and, fired with hope,
Shot o'er the seething harbor-bar,
And reach'd the ship and caught the rope,
And whistled to the morning star.

3. Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him.

Leviticus 25: 49.

4. Gladstone, Tennyson, Darwin, Lincoln, Holmes, Poe, and Chopin were all born in the year 1809.

5. The Hungarian carried back the plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depth of the Pannonian forests. The Saracen ruled in Sicily, desolated the fertile plains of Campania, and spread terror even to the walls of Rome.

6. I walked beside the evening sea

And dreamed a dream that could not be.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS: Ebb and Flow.

7. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat.

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE TWO VOICES

The word voice is used in grammar in a special sense. You will understand its meaning if you compare the sentences in these two columns:

Notice that the subjects of the verbs in the left-hand column are represented as acting, while the subjects of the verbs in the right-hand column are represented as acted upon.

The verbs in the left-hand column are in the active voice; those in the right-hand column are in the passive voice.

Each italicized word or group of words is the object of the verb that precedes it; it receives the action of the verb. You can always find the object of a verb in a declarative sentence if you will make the sentence interrogative and begin it with Whom? or What? The answer will be the object:

Whom did I see? Him.

Whom did Charlotte Corday stab? Marat.
What do I believe? What you say.

What did I wipe away? The weeds and foam.

All the verbs or verb phrases in the left-hand column are in the active voice; those in the right-hand column are in the passive voice. But some of our verbs cannot be put into the passive voice. Why? Because in the active voice they cannot be followed by an object. You cannot sleep or roar anything or anybody. And so for the others. But, if they cannot be followed by an object in the active voice, they cannot be put into the passive voice, because you cannot fit a subject to them. Have you not noticed that the objects of the verbs in the active voice furnish the subjects of the verbs in the passive voice? Where there is no object, then, in the left-hand column, there can be no subject in the righthand column; and where there is no subject, there can be no sentence.

We may sum up by saying:

1. That the active voice represents the subject as acting while the passive voice represents the subject as acted upon.

2. That the object in the active voice becomes the subject in the passive voice.