Two Qestions about clauses

Question

There are a series of conflicts that run throughout this story, the most important being Trujillo’s abuse of his dictatorship over the country; an external conflict between Trujillo and society.Could you please tell me what this sentence is made up of in terms of phrases and clauses. Thanks.the most important being Trujillo’s abuse of his dictatorship over the country= Is this an elliptical clause? The most important (conflict) being Trujillo's abuse of his dictatorship over the country. Is this now an independent clause if I insert the bracketed word?Is the first comma incorrect? Or is what follows the comma a phrase? If it is, or were, an elliptical clause would a comma be incorrect the same way it would be if a comma joined two main clauses?;an external conflict between Trujillo and society=is this an ellipse clause? (it is an external conflict between...)Do you punctuate elliptical clauses as if they were independent clause or as dependent clauses?I didn't write this sentence, so I don't need to know how to improve the sentence.Second sentence: He didn't know what to tell them. Tell them the truth that he was unsure if the boat could last through this storm, or lie to them as there was nothing they could do anyway.Are the underlined words an elliptical clause? If not, what is it?

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Eddie:
I have done many of these for you in past postings. Now it is your turn to do an independent analysis. But I will give you some directions.
First, pick out all the finite verbs in the sentence. Here is the definition of "finite verb" and brief examples:
A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules of English. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand by their own as complete sentences. he finite forms of a verb are the forms where the verb shows tense, person or singular plural. Non-finite verb forms have no person, tense or number.
I go, she goes, he went - These verb forms are finite.
To go, going, gone - These verb forms are non-finite.
In English, every grammatically complete sentence or clause must contain a finite verb; sentence fragments not containing finite verbs are described as phrases.

Post the sentence again with the finite verbs underlined.

Eddie88 · Answer

There are a series of conflicts that run throughout this story, the most important being Trujillo’s abuse of his dictatorship over the country; an external conflict between Trujillo and society.

My understanding of verbs is very poor.

I know that are is a finite verb.

But RUN could be 'to run' and it would be an infinitive, but it also could be 'I run a lot' and now it is finite correct? So how do I know in this sentence if it is finite or not?

The same thing with abuse. 'I abuse my dog', abuse here is finite...

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Hi Eddie:
Good progress!
Let's look at your underelined words.
1) "are" - yes, this is clearly an inflected finite verb. That is the only thing it can possibly be.
2) How about "run"? Sometimes it is a noun, and sometimes a verb. Noun: Hank Arron once hit 60 home runs in a baseball season.
However, in your sentence, it must be a verb, because "that" is the subject.
3) The next possible verb is being . But it is not a finite verb, because for a full inflection "is" must be present.
He is being a good student.
Therefore it is a verbal. (a gerund or participle)
4) Now we come to the word abuse. Look in the dictionary for abuse. You will see that it can be a verb or a noun. So what is it in your sentence?
Look at the word before it: Trujillo's This is a possessive noun. Do possessive nouns come before verbs? No. They come before the object that is being possessed. And any object that can be owned is a person, place or thing, so it must be a noun!
Therefore, there are only 2 finite verbs (are, run), so there are at most 2 clauses.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Eddie88;an external conflict between Trujillo and society=is this an ellipse clause?

Now you have answered the question. Does this series of words contain a verb? No, they do not. Therefore, it cannot be a clause and must be a phrase. The head word of the phrase is "conflict", which is a noun. OK. a Noun Phrase! And what is its function in the sentence?
The sentence talks about conflicts. One conflict is the abuse. It is further explained by the noun phrase as "an external conflict...". So this is a noun phrase in apposition to "abuse."

The semicolon is not (in my opinion) the correct punctuation. It should be a comma.
The sentence written as clauses:
There are a series of conflicts that run throughout this story, and the most important would be Trujillo’s abuse of his dictatorship over the country which represents an external conflict between Trujillo and society.

Eddie88 · Answer

There are a series of conflicts that run throughout this story, the most important being Trujillo’s abuse of his dictatorship over the country; an external conflict between Trujillo and society.

There are a series of conflicts=main clause

there=pronoun/non referential or existential 'there'

are=auxiliary verb or helping verb/verb 'to be'/present tense

a=indefinite article/determiner/pre modifier

series= noun

of conflicts=prepositional phrase
of=preposition
conflicts=noun/object

that run throughout this story= relative clause

that=relative pronoun/subject
run=finite verb

throughout this story=adverbial phrase
throughout=adverb//modifyig the verb 'run'
this=demonstrative pronoun/determiner
story=object of verb 'run'

Could you fix this please, if it is incorrect.
That is what I can do. I'll try figure out the rest

Thanks

Eddie88 · Answer

Thanks, again.

So if 'an external conflict...' is the noun phrase, what is 'the most important being...'

I did an anlysis of the first part if you could just check it over please.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

"series" = noun / subject of main verb
throughout this story=adverbial phrase (prepositional phrase)
story - object of preposition "throughout"

Eddie88 · Answer

Hi,

I got all this in the analysis I did two posts above this.

I mean what is

' the most important being Trujillo’s abuse of his dictatorship over the country'

Thanks a lot

AlpheccaStars · Answer

--

AlpheccaStars · Answer

What do you think about a gerund phrase? The gerund is "being".
Abuse is a noun, predicate object.

Two Qestions about clauses

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