I disagree with my daughter's grammar book's answer key. Here are the sentences. The cat will be mad if you leave it out all night. The press, before they could enter, had to show indentification. The underlined part is a dependent clause. On this I agree with the answer key. The second part asks "what word does the clause modify". I say that the first one modifies "will be." I reason that it answers the question "when" which is an adverbial question. The book says that it modifies "mad." That would still make it an adverbial question, but I can't think of any adverbs that modify adjectives that answer the question "when". In the second sentence, I say that the dependent clause modifies "show." My reasons are the same as for the first sentence. The answer key says that it modifies "press". So, what do you think? I checked online to see if there were corrections posted to the book, but didn't find any. It's the Straight Forward, Advanced English Series, Clauses and Phrases book.
I formed my answer before I read yours just to make sure I wasn't biased. I agree with the answer key. (Sorry!) 1. It's not answering a "when" question, but a "why" one. Turn the sentence around like this: "If you leave the cat out all night, he will be mad." He will be out all night, or he will be mad? Mad makes more sense. Another way to look at #1 is to say that the phrase could modify the cat as well. It's a sentence that can be read backward and forward and still make sense, so it's not a direct object. "The cat will be mad" and "Mad will be the cat" both mean the same thing. "Mad" is a predicate adjective describing "cat". A sentence with a direct object can't be read back and forth. (The dog fed the man, or the man fed the dog... both mean something completely different.) 2. The second seems very cut and dry to me, so I'm not sure how to explain it. "...before they could enter..." is a "who" question. Before WHO could enter? Before THE PRESS could enter.
Oh, I don't know--what she said. Actually, this is tricky stuff to me. I understand a lot of grammar, but not all. In the end, I wonder if how much we really have to know in order to write grammatically correct. The second one is trickier for me. I think it modifies show also. I wonder if it would have made any difference if it was like this: The press had to show identification before they could enter.
I will say this, I am still trying to wrap my head around this and in one way I am glad. If I can see how some concepts are hard for me to understand, maybe it will help me understand when my son has a hard time.
I have to agree with the answer key for the reasons people have already said. It looks perfectly correct.
I finally figured out what I would have put down for an answer: The press, before they could enter, had to show identification. I would have thought it was modifying show and answering the question when.
Alice, I'm with you on this. Adverbs that tell when. The antecedents of the pronouns (it/cat, they/press) in these clauses are what the answer book said, but the clauses themselves appear to me to modify the verbs and answer a conditional "when" ("IF" this, "Before" that). Take heart, love, as I do - with the fact that not all grammarians will agree on every single point. I don't know the links right off the top of my head, but I know there are a few good diagramming sites on the web - you could put these sentences in and have them diagrammed and see how that comes out...
That's a good idea! I'm trying it now at Reed-Kellogg Diagrammer. The diagram hangs both clauses off the verb so they are adverbial clauses. The other answers to the sentences in this set followed my logic of taking the clause as a whole and find out what question it answers and allowing it to dictate whether it was acting as an adverb, adjective or noun. For example: "My face turned red when I tripped and fell." The book agreed that "when I tripped and fell" modifies turned. To me, that was a similar function to the "The press" one. Thanks for reminding me about the diagram program!
The face didn't trip and fall, though. The face turned red..... when the person tripped and fell. I would've said that one was turned, too. (I love grammar, but trust me... I won't be jumping in on any math conversations! :lol
Interesting. I just went to that site and put in your sentences. I just wanted to see the diagrams. I love how that program works! I put in the first one, no problem. I put in the one about the press, and it kept telling me "Can find no utterance." If I put the "because" at the beginning, it showed it fine. If I put it at the end, it showed it fine. Showed nothing when I put it in the middle....
