SEP
- 2010-01-26
The first thing I must do when I get home is study English.
What is needed in this sentence is the particle "to" before the verb "study". That will give us the infinitive "to study". We learned in grammar school that infinitives may take the place of nouns and pronouns.
This will give us the sentence:
The first thing I must do when I get home is to study English.
Next, in order to connect "The first thing" to "I must do" we must use the subordinate conjunction "that" between the two phrases.
Now we have:
The first thing that I must do when I get home is to study English.
"that I must do" is a restrictive clause. Without "that I must do", the meaning of the sentence is lost. ("which" may also be used. Over the past hundred years or so, the use of "that" to denote restrictive [essential] clauses from nonrestrictive clauses [not essential] has shifted so that the two are often considered interchangeable. AP,APA, Chicago, and MLA style books have their own sets of rules, but in this case, the usage is fuzzy, especially in the AP book of style [newspapers and other reportage].
Now, let's break the sentence down into its basic components: subject/ verb/ predicate nominative:
thing /is / to study English
subject = "thing" verb = "is" predicate nominative* = to study English. thing/is/to study English
* A predicate nominative is a noun or pronoun that follows a copulative (linking) verb and refers back to and means the same thing as the subject.
Q:Why is "to study English" a predicate nominative when it is a verb form?
A: infinitives may be used in the same way in which a noun or pronoun is used.
Q: How can that be? The verb "study" even has a direct object.
A: infinitives may be used in the same way in which a noun or pronoun is used. Infinitives may also have a direct object.
Moving on, let's now look at how the rest of the words in the sentence function.
thing [the ,first adjectives modifying the subject] / is [ linking verb] / to study [infinitive used as a noun] English [proper noun used as the object of the infinitive "to study"]
Q: What about "when I get home"?
A: "when" is an adverbial conjunction. It indicates time. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. "when" connects the subordinate clause "I get home" to the infinitive (which is a verb form, and therefore, may be modified or explained by an adverbial subordinate clause).
The first thing that I must do is to study English [when I get home]
What makes this sentence difficult to explain is that the subordinate conjunction that and the infinitive particle to have been omitted and are implied. These omissions are not necessarily incorrect because they are in common usage. It might be better to say that their omission seems imprecise to the second-language learner.
Hi, everyone! I have recently been banging my head on the following sentence:
The first thing I must do when I get home is study English.
Now, this is one of those cases when I *know* that it is right (but maybe not-so-normative), but I can't really justify it to my student. In the end, I am, quite honestly, lost.
The problem is that I know that modal auxiliaries cannot be followed by infinitives (i.e. [u]*must to study English[/u]), but this seems to be something else. I also cannot say that "The first thing I must do when I get home" is a compound subject because then the meaning would be something like "Apple is study English." I don't know!
Hence, can someone answer the following questions:
1. Can someone please break this sentence up into parts of speech in order to demonstrate any compound subjects/objects, etc.?
2. Are there, in fact, two clauses in this sentence?
3. Is this a correct sentence?
4. Is this a normative sentence?
Thanks!