Possessives
Here is another rule for simplifying sentences:
Possessives should always be clumped together with the word that they describe. |
Take, for example, the following "clump" of words:
- My father's truck
This phrase consists of three words, but you should think of it as just "one thing." Likewise, all of the following clumps are just "one thing".
- John's car
- his coat
- her book
- your smile
- their laughter
- my dog
- our meal
Now consider the following sentences. Each of them has more than three words, yet all of them can be simplified down to three essential elements. (The middle element is always the verb).
Subject | Verb | Object |
John's car | won | the race. |
I | love | your smile. |
Our meal | tasted | delicious. |
The teacher | graded | my essay. |
Instructions for the Quiz
Find the total number of elements.
Examples:
- In the first row, you can see that "the sun" is just one element, because "the" is an article, and articles can always be ignored.
- In the second row, we see that "Betsy's baby cried" is two elements, because "Betsy's baby" gets clumped together.
- In the third row, we have three different elements.
1 |
2 |
3 |
Total |
The sun |
|
|
1 |
Betsy's baby |
cried. |
|
2 |
Harold's dog |
ate |
our pizza. |
3 |