Week 13: I gave you Complex Structure and Indirect Objects, while I was teaching Subordinate Clauses. S/Vt- - -(S/Vt/DO) /IO/DO

Whew!  What a whirlwind of new information.  Your Our Mother Tongue lessons will really help you this week because they will hammer away the information we learned.

Class Overview

Today we delved deep into new information.  We added the sentence structure, S/Vt/IO/DO and introduced complex sentences.

Indirect Object

Important to remember about the IO

1) Comes between the Vt and DO
2) Answers the question (Vt) + (DO) . . . to or for whom or what?

Examples:

Lisa gave Hank a shoe.
Gave (Vt) + shoe (DO) . . . to or for whom or what? Answer = Hank (IO)

The present gave me joy!
Gave + joy ... to whom = me

To see a diagram of the S/Vt/IO/DO, please look below at the Complex, S/Vt/IO/DO diagram.

Complex Sentence

Simple sentence = independent clause
Compound sentence = independent clause + independent clause
Complex sentence = independent clause + dependent (subordinate) clause


Dependent (subordinate) Clause vs. Phrase

Dependent clauses and phrases both cannot stand alone in a sentence.  The big difference is that a dependent clause will have both a subject and a verb.   The phrase will not.

While I wandered the desert . . .
In the desert . . .

The first is a clause with a subject (I) and a verb (wandered).
The second is a prepositional phrase and has no S/V.


Adjectival vs. Adverbial Subordinate Clauses

Adjectival subordinate clauses are those clauses that are used as an adjective in a sentence.
When trying to determine whether a clause is adjectival, go to the questions that you memorized to determine if a word is an adjective (What kind? How many? Which? Whose?)  If the clause answers one of these questions, it is adjectival.

Another quick way to identify whether a clause is adjectival is to see whether it begins with a relative pronoun (have to be memorized).  The list of relative pronouns is in the memory work.  It begins with the word who.  As a possible memory help, I always think of describing a relative, who is a who (a person).  The word describing helps me think of adjective.

These are already familiar to us through IEW in the Who/Which clauses.

The adverbial clause works the same way, except it answers the adverb questions, and the adverbial clause begins with subordinating conjunctions (www.asia.wub).


The Subordinate Clause and Comma Use

In most sentences, the subordinate clause will be separated by commas.  The exception is when the clause is necessary to the meaning of the noun it modifies.

The family that lives around the corner has eight kids.

We will be practicing this in class.

Try to find the subordinate (dependent) clauses in the following sentences. I didn't put in commas.

When we took a break from school for Christmas I forgot all my memory work.
We love because he first loved us.
My parents who like to surprise my sisters and me won't tell us where we are going for our family vacation.

Diagramming a Subordinate Clause (and S/Vt/IO/DO)

The teacher, who read the class a story, sent me a recording.

We follow the diagram examples from the Essentials guide.  Most sentence diagramming sources prescribe a different way of diagramming the IO.  Please feel free to choose one and stick with it.  We will be using the way I taught it in class.  The important thing is that the kids are able to identify the usage in the sentences.  Thanks, Rhonda, for catching this!

Grammar (Drill)

Memorize this week's memory work.

Review the questions used to determine if a word (or clause) is an adverb or an adjective. (Charts I, L)

Dialectic (Understanding)

Work through the task sheet to diagram some S/Vt/IO/DO sentences.  Come up with three or four per day that fit the pattern then task one of them.  Here are some to get you started.

I bought my friend a birthday gift.

The boy read his sister a book.

Mom baked the kids a cake.

The pirates gave the prisoners a choice between being marooned or walking the plank.

Lucky gave me the pot of gold from the end of the rainbow.

Next, work through some complex sentences.  If this is new to the student, please just drill the idea that a subordinate clause + and independent clause = complex sentence.  Next, get to what a subordinate clause is.

Have fun!  See you next week!