Sentence 4.
“It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast.
This is a compound-complex sentence because the first independent clause is It made the boy sad and the second is he always went down.
Look at the first independent clause and its attached dependent phrase.
It = pronoun
made = verb
the = determiner/article
boy = noun
sad= adjective
to = preposition
see = verb
the = determiner/article
old = adjective
man = noun
come = verb
in = preposition
each = adjective
day = noun
with = preposition
his = determiner/possessive pronoun
skiff = noun
empty = adjective
The first dependent phrase is the infinitive phrase to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and it acts as a delayed subject using the dummy It.
Recall an infinitive is a verbal. There are three kinds of verbals;
- the infinitive ( starts with to and then has the root verb attached to it, for example to see) which can act like a noun (subject, direct object, indirect object, subject compliment, appositive, delayed appositive), adjective or an adverb
- the participle (-ed, -ing ending words) which acts as adjective
- the gerund (-ing ending words) which acts as a noun (subject, object, subject compliment, object of a preposition, appositive, delayed appositive).
Lesson 13: Consider using an infinitive phrase as a delayed elaboration of a simple subject and separate the two by ensconcing the independent clause in-between like book-ends. Vary your technique here, using a delayed appositive infinitive one time, an appositive gerund the next time, a delayed infinitive subject after that, etc.
Also in to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty there isn't two prepositional phrases at the end since in is not a preposition but a verb particle attached to the verb come and day is the direct object of come in. You can avoid confusing prepositions with particles by moving the suspected prepositional phrase to the front of the sentence to see if the sentence still makes sense. If we do that here it would read in each day to see the old man come with his skiff empty which is nonsensical and therefore in is a particle not a preposition.
Notice the placement of the adjective empty in the prepositional phrase with his skiff empty. The adjective in this position provides punctuation and syntactic, emotional stress.
Lesson 14: Don't be afraid to move your adjectives behind it's noun (note: it must follow right after the noun) if it can add further emotional impact and flourish.
The other independent clause and its attached dependent phrase is he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast
Broken down we have.
He = pronoun
always = adverb
went = verb
down= adverb
to = preposition
help= verb
him = pronoun
carry = verb
the = determiner/article
coiled = adjective
lines = noun
or = conjunction
the = determiner/article
gaff = noun
and = conjunction
harpoon = noun
and= conjunction
the = determiner/article
sail = noun
that = determiner/demonstrative pronoun
was = auxiliary verb
furled = verb
around = preposition
the = determiner/article
mast = noun
This sentence is tricky because it’s missing a prepositional phrase that answers where the boy went when he went down. Hemingway leaves it out and has the reader infer that the boy is going down to the shore or dock. If it’s explicitly stated it becomes he always went down to the shore/to the dock to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast.
Lesson 15: Consider leaving out prepositional phrases if they can be implied without hindering the logic of the sentence.
The phrase to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail is an infinitive phrase acting as an adverb modifying the verb went (simple past tense of go) and that was furled around the mast is an adjectival clause modifying the noun sail.
Notice the use of the correlative conjunctions either ... or and how they create duple parallelism, while embedded in this structure is a rule of three parallelism with the gaff and harpoon and the sail. Also note how the article and conjunction are used by first presenting the by itself and then and by itself and then both together. A nice little pattern to delight the subconscious and likely consciously missed by most readers. Could these subtleties be part of what makes a narrative great. Was Hemingway conscious of this, using them with intent.
The other parallelism that could also be missed because of its large size and because it spans between the two independent phrases is the use of two large infinitive phrases, one in each of the independent clauses. So if we said the independent clause is A and the infinitive phrase is B the structure of the entire sentence would look like;
A B and A B
Finally, the last bit of hidden parallelism is the syllable count in each independent clause; both have five syllables!
Lesson 16: Use parallelism at every level to create complex cohesion.
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