n
o
acti
SUBJ
PRED
Sentence 28
D.O.
I.O.
link
ing
S.C.
From Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792
“He
is
pron.
v.
superciliously
adv.
asked
v.
whether
conj.
his
ancestors
were
adj.
n.
v.
fools.”
n.
______________________________________________________________________________________
subj.
AVP----------------------------------------AVP
subj.
LVP
S.C.
______________________________________________________________________________________
no prepositional, appositive, or verbal phrases
______________________________________________________________________________________
------------------------independent clause------------------------------------------------dependent clause-----------------------an ID complex declarative sentence
______________________________________________________________________________________
Grammar:
This sentence looks easy at first glance; it isn’t. The challenge for students is to realize that the verb in the
independent clause is passive voice, rather than a linking verb. Consider the difference between these two
sentences: The robbers attacked him viciously or He was viciously attacked. Wollstonecraft gives us the latter
construction, a passive voice verb with an obscuring adverb superciliously that breaks up our vision of the verb.
Whether is a conjunction that expresses doubt.
Vocabulary:
To be supercilious is to be scornful, to act superior; super is over, and cilia refers to hair; the image is of the raised
eyebrow of the snob. W40
Poetics:
Notice the scornful hissing and buzzing of the s and z sounds: iS SuperCiliouSly aSked hiS anCeStorS foolS.
Writing:
Wollstonecraft put the final punch in the last syllable of the sentence: the derogatory noun fools.
39