Linguistic Approaches to Literature - Assignment 2 James Madison University

Instructions: Do each of the questions below. [This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

1. Sentence creation and identification
   1. Find or create an example of a sentence with a very big subject. Write it down and then underline the noun (or pronoun) that seems to be the word at the heart of this big subject.
   2. Find or create a sentence that has no complements and no adjuncts in the predicate. (While it's not absolutely necessary, feel free to make it interesting/startling even with this constraint!)
   3. Add an adjunct of your choice to the end of the following sentence:
      "The shadowy figures approached us ___________________________."

2. How many clauses can you find in the following sentence:
   When the moon rose above the trees, the young campers were bathed in its white glow and they started dancing like little khaki-clad fairies.

3. Underline all the nouns in the example sentence from the question above.
4. AND HERE'S A REAL CHALLENGE FOR YOU! :) :
   Below are the first 26 lines of Milton's Paradise Lost. Where do you think the first whole sentence ends? (FYI, there's not necessarily a single right answer...) What is the first complete clause in that sentence?
   1 OF MAN’S first disobedience, and the fruit
   2 Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
   3 Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
   4With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
   5 Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
   6 Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
   7 Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
   8That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
   9 In the beginning how the heavens and earth
   10 Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
   11 Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
   12 Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
   13 Invoke thy aid to my adventrous song,
   14 That with no middle flight intends to soar
   15 Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
   16 Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
   17 And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
   18 Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
   19 Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first
   20 Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
   21 Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss,
   22 And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
   23 Illumine, what is low raise and support;
   24 That, to the highth of this great argument,
   25 I may assert Eternal Providence,
   26 And justify the ways of God to men.