English Language & Usage Asked on April 28, 2021
I am analyzing a novel for my M.A. project and I’m wondering what is the bold part of the following sentence. Is it a sentence fragment or maybe a dependent clause? Or is it a full sentence as it contains a subject, a verb, and an object?
Example: You can’t be serious about this schedule of battles.
Many thanks in advance.
"You can’t be serious about this schedule of battles."
First note that this is a simple sentence with the independent clause You can’t be serious. Tacked on to this clause is the prepositional phrase about this schedule of battles, which acts adverbially to modify the adjective "serious."
By definition, a sentence fragment is a group of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point but is grammatically incomplete. Thus, as you can see, the highlighted part of the sentence is clearly not a sentence fragment. Nor is it a dependent clause, because it can stand on its own meaningfully— which a dependent clause is incapable of, by definition. It therefore is a clause with the subject as "You", the verb "can't be", and the adjective "serious" acting as the subject complement. I suppose that's all there's to it.
Correct answer by user405662 on April 28, 2021
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