[grammar] Sentence analysis: "I like philosophy because it involves thinking methods."

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

http://fallibleideas.com/grammar (part 4):

> For these practice sentences, first mark clauses and phrases (using curly and angle brackets), then make a short outline, then write and answer a question for each word.

> · I like philosophy because it involves thinking methods.

Version with clauses and phrases marked: {{I like philosophy} because {it involves <thinking methods>.}}

This sentence consists of two simple clauses joined by a subordinating conjunction.

First simple clause:

- What action happens? Like.

- Who/what does the liking? I.

- Who/what do I like? Philosophy.

Subordinating conjunction that joins the two simple clauses:

- What is the relationship between the two simple clauses? Because.

Second simple clause:

- What action happens? Involves.

- Who/what does the involving? It. (This is a reference to "philosophy".)

- What does it involve? Methods.

- What kind of methods? Thinking.

[Elliot Temple]

How many clauses do you think this sentence has?

Elliot Temple
www.elliottemple.com

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

Two.

I now realize that I made at least two mistakes in my post.

1. I should have said "clause" instead of "simple clause". There's no such thing as a "simple clause". As http://fallibleideas.com/grammar says:

>> ”Clause” is the grammar word for “simple sentence”.

2. I shouldn't have marked the entire sentence as if it were a clause:

>> Version with clauses and phrases marked: {{I like philosophy} because {it involves <thinking methods>.}}

Corrected version with clauses and phrases marked: {I like philosophy} because {it involves <thinking methods>.}

Postmortem to follow.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

I think my most important mistake here was thinking that I understood a term that I didn't actually understand: I thought sentences were a kind of clause, and that "simple clause" was the term for what is actually called a "clause".

One thing I could do to help prevent this kind of mistake in the future is look up the definition of a term if I notice I'm using it for the first time. Here, the new term was "simple clause".

Some flaws in that approach: I'm not confident that I would recognize when I'm using a term for the first time. I also don't know of an automated way to detect terms that I'm using for the first time, because they may contain more than one word.