by Donna | Mar 11, 2011
Infinitives continued…
- They are easily confused with prepositional phrases containing the preposition to. If students learn early on when to is being used as part of an infinitive (when it is with any verb) and when it is used as a prepositional phrase (when it has an object following it), they will become better writers (for many reasons we will discuss later).
- Infinitive: He wanted to run.
- Prepositional phrases: They went to town.
3.
Infinitives are easy to recognize
because they always are to + verb.
Examples:
a. to think
b. to be
c. to show
3. To can also be a preposition (a word
that shows position). To know if the to is an infinitive or a preposition,
follow these rules:
a. Look at the word following the to.
b. If the word following to is a verb, you know
it is an infinitive. For
example: to know
c. If the word following the to is anything else
(noun, pronoun, adjective, etc.), it is a prepositional phrase. For
example: to the house
4. Any verb can be an infinitive. It just has
to have a to in front of it.
5. The to is part of the infinitive. For
example: in the case of to see, the complete verb is to see, not just see.
Tomorrow: Infinitive “pop” quiz…can you tell the difference between an infinitive and a preposition with to? J
by Donna | Mar 9, 2011
Earlier I said that we teach two main categories of verbs—action and Be a Helper, Link verbs (BHL verbs).
There is another “category” of verbs that you should learn, however. That is the group of verbs (also used as other parts of speech) known as the infinitive.
We teach infinitives as verbs (and early on) for a couple of reasons:
- While they might act like other parts of speech (i.e. modifying, being the sentence’s main subject, etc.) at times, more often than not, they act like verbs.
- They can describe what a subject is doing: The girl decided to write the letter.
- They can have BHL verbs with them: She had to take her medicine.
- They can have adverbs with them (when they are comprised of action verbs): She wanted to write beautifully.
- They can have direct objects with them (when they are comprised of action verbs): The girl wanted to eat chocolates.
- They can have predicate adjectives with them (when they are comprised of BHL verbs): She wanted to be careful.
They can have predicate nominatives with them (when they are comprised of BHL verbs): She wanted to be an actress.
Tomorrow—more on infinitives.
by Donna | Feb 23, 2011
The main subject of a sentence is never in a prepositional phrase.
This is why we spent so much time on prepositions last month. If you can find prepositions, you can find prepositional phrases. If you find prepositional phrases, you can isolate them (mentally or with parentheses) and discover that the main subject is not in a prepositional phrase. This will help you determine subject verb agreement in your sentences more clearly.
For example:
1. Kara, (along with her sisters), is coming.
a. Kara is the subject and needs the verb is
b. Sisters is not the sentence’s subject.
2. Josiah and Jake, (though not Jonathan), are at basketball.
a. Josiah and Jake are the subjects of the sentence, not Jonathan.
b. Thus, Josiah and Jake need a plural verb—are.
In review, a sentence’s main subject has the following traits:
a. It is the person or thing that the sentence is about.
b. It usually comes at the beginning of the sentence.
c. It is usually a noun or a pronoun.
d. It is the source (person or thing) of the action.
e. It is never found in a prepositional phrase.
Better study up! Tomorrow is a pop quiz! Smile…
by Donna | Feb 22, 2011
A sentence’s main subject is usually one of the following:
a. A noun (person, place, thing, or idea)
b. A pronoun (a word that replaces a noun—he, she, it, they,
etc.)
A sentence can have one subject, two subjects, or even three or more
subjects.
a. One subject: Kayla is my first daughter.
b. Two subjects: Kayla and Cami are my first two daughters.
c. Three subjects: Kayla, Cami, and Kara are my daughters.
A sentence can have one subject at the beginning, and then later in the
sentence have another subject. However, most of your sentences will have
only one subject until you are at a more advanced level of writing.
Tomorrow—putting together the subject lessons and preposition lessons—a sentence’s main subject (and actually most other subjects in the sentence) are not usually found in prepositional phrases!
by Donna | Feb 9, 2011
You are probably starting to notice that even a rudimentary knowledge of prepositions can unlock many more prepositions for you. I hope, that in the various studies we will do on LL 365, that you do not lose sight of the purpose of each one. Follow the links below to review prepositions—and join us tomorrow as we start our “sentence month”—and focus on fragments, sentences, clauses, and more!
