Lesson 3: Describing Words
Diagramming Adjectives and Adverbs
We learned how to diagram complement adjectives earlier in this lesson, but how do we diagram regular adjectives, and how do we diagram adverbs?
Adjectives and adverbs do not have their own shelves, rather they go under a shelf, directly beneath the word they modify. Let’s look at two parts of our super sentence for the examples. For the second example, we have added a word that is not in the original sentence.
”Carl woke up early.”
1. What is the subject? Carl
2. What is the verb? woke up
3. Is the verb a definitive linking verb (“to be”, “to become”, “to seem”)? no
4. Is there a word after the verb that renames or describes the subject of the sentence? no
5. Is the verb transferring action to an object? (Is an object receiving the action of the verb?) no
”Woke up” is not a linking verb or a transitive verb, therefore it’s intransitive. That leaves the word “early,” an -ly adverb.
Take a look at the diagram of “Carl woke up early.” Structurally, it looks exactly like the diagram of “Carl woke up.” There are no new shelves. The adverb “early” is simply placed beneath the verb(s) it modifies.
”He made an early breakfast ready.”
1. What is the subject? He
2. What is the verb? made
3. Is the verb a definitive linking verb (“to be”, “to become”, “to seem”)? no
4. Is there a word after the verb that renames or describes the subject of the sentence? no
5. Is the verb transferring its action to an object? (Is an object receiving the action of the verb?) yes, “breakfast”
So ”made” is a transitive verb, and “breakfast” is the DO. That leaves “an,” “early,” and “ready.” “Ready” comes after the DO and describes it and so is the object complement adjective (OCA). What are the words “an” and “early” doing? You should realize that “an” is the indefinite article, and “early” is telling me about “breakfast” and so functioning as an adjective.
Finally, notice that “early” is an adverb in the first sentence (because it modifies a verb), and an adjective in the second (as it modifies a noun). Watch out for words that can switch hit!