Lesson 6 | Proposition rules

Review

As the dots connect, the structure will begin to emerge.
Let's review the grammatical principles of this lesson.

What we learned this lesson

  1. All propositions communicate a verbal idea.
  2. The verb is the anchor for both the subject and the object.
  3. The subject of the verb tells us who or what did the verb.
  4. The object of a verb answers the what? question we are left with after noting the subject and verb.
  5. Infinitives
  6. In English, an infinitive is a verb preceded by the word "to."
  7. The only kind of infinitive to divide in bracketing is a purpose infinitive.
  8. There are 4 kinds of infinitives not to break off:
  9. Infinitives acting as the subject of another verb
  10. Complementary infinitives
  11. Infinitives connected to adjectives
  12. Infinitives connected to question words
  13. The only time to divide a non purpose-infinitive is when there are multiple infinitives connected to one verbal idea.
  14. Participles
  15. In English, participles can be recognized by their “-ing” ending (though not all “-ing” words are participles).
  16. In bracketing, we will only break off those participles that are functioning adverbially.
  17. We do not want to divide the following participles:
  18. Those functioning as a part of a multi-word “normal” (i.e. finite) verb
  19. Those functioning as an adjective
  20. Those functioning as a noun
  21. Substantivals
  22. A substantival clause is a verbal phrase that as a whole is functioning like a noun.
  23. Most of the time, there is no reason to break off a substantival clause into its own proposition.
  24. The exception to this rule is when you meet a complex substantival clause (i.e. one containing two or more verbs).

Bracketing