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