Diagramming Sentences
Sentence Diagrams
~ One Way of Learning English Grammar ~
Sentences from the United States Constitution
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Diagramming SentencesSentence Diagrams ~ One Way of Learning English Grammar ~ Sentences from the United States Constitution |
| Amendment 13: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. |
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| Lesson 12: 1. The prepositional phrase to their jurisdiction functions as the adverbial modifier of the adjective subject. 2. Whereof is called a relative adverb; it could be replaced by the prepositional phrase of which, in which which is a relative pronoun. The diagonal line is solid on the lower end as an indication of the unexpressed adverbial element of which. |
| Apologia pro descriptione mea: 1. My diagram assumes that, in our society, convicts are not slaves and that, therefore, the phrase except as a punishment for a crime modifies only servitude, not slavery as well. 2. Apparently as is an expletive here, a word that takes up space in a sentence without adding to the meaning. Its expletive status might be made clearer by understanding except as a conjunction. That would give us except x x as a punishment, where x x stands for it be, and punishment would be a subjective complement; however, I see no need for this. |
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