The clauses are connected with a dotted line when you diagram a sentence. In this sentence, "I jumped" is the main clause. Take the sentence: I jumped when he popped the balloon. When diagramming a sentence with an indirect object, place the indirect object-"man" in this case-on a line parallel to the base. This sentence contains a direct object money and an indirect object man. Consider the sentence: Give the man your money. Note that the phrase "you are not ready" renames "the fact. A noun clause can serve as a predicate nominative, as in this sentence: The fact is you are not ready. When diagramming the sentence, place the modifiers-effective, often, and good-on diagonal lines below the words they modify.
Individual words can have modifiers, as in the sentence: Students read books quietly. Give each object-in this case, "books" and "articles"-a separate baseline. If a predicate contains a compound object, simply treat it the same as a sentence with a one-word direct object.
Don't be thrown off by two or more direct objects, as in the sentence: Students read books and articles. Treat the clause as a sentence by separating the noun from the verb. It is diagrammed like a word, with a vertical line preceding it, but it stands on a second, raised, baseline. A predicate adjective always follows a linking verb. Now consider the sentence: Teachers are happy. To diagram, a direct object, draw a vertical line that stands on the base. At its most basic, a sentence can be composed of just a subject and a verb, as in "Birds Fly.įor example, take the sentence: Students read books. The verb is an action word: It tells you what the subject is doing. The subject of a sentence tells you what it's about. To begin diagramming a sentence, draw a baseline beneath the subject and the verb and then separate the two with a vertical line that extends through the baseline. You can learn how a sentence works, and understand its structure, by diagramming it or breaking it down to its component parts.