Modern Grammar - ASSIGNMENT 21 James Madison University

Instructions: Optional! You can just use this as exam practice at your convenience or submit it in class Thursday if you are short on assignments.

Based both on our class discussion and on the handout that includes descriptions of transformations, attempt the following "transformations" and other questions:

1. Add an appositive to the following sentence: His masterpiece was on exhibit at the Louvre.
2. Undo the inversion in the following sentence: Out of the mouths of babies come words of wisdom.
3. Add a tag-question to the following sentence: They haven't stopped carrying frozen yogurt.
4. Turn the following into an extraposition: That his toenails are green worries him.
5. Write your own example of a preposed sentence.
6. Which of the following is an existential-there sentence (hint: the other two examples involve some other identifiable type of transformation. :) )
   1. There is always room for improvement.
   2. There he is.
   3. There goes the neighborhood.
7. Which of the following are It-clefts and which are extrapositions?
   1. It seemed impossible that I would win the election.
   2. It impressed me that those three children shared their snacks with the others.
   3. It was Lulu who sang the song.
   4. It will be Mary's contributions that make the biggest difference.
   5. It was crazy that we did not notice the signs earlier.
8. Consider the following sentences and determine which ONE has a noun complement. The others each have a relative clause in them; try to find and underline those clauses. Then look even more closely at those relative clauses and either note the relative word used in it (i.e., a relative pronoun or relative determiner) or note that there's a missing piece in that relative clause (a missing subject or object, for example):
   1. The winning player says he has skills that the other players lack.
   2. The losing player has proof that the others were cheating.
   3. The butler whom we employ is quite reliable.
   4. Nobody knows the troubles I have seen.
   5. Styrofoam, which is a non-biodegradable material, is filling up our landfills.
   6. The individual whose shoes we stole must have cold feet.