"Birthdays" (in new workbook)

[Julie]

(Please let me know if this question really belongs on the Harvey Help Hub, and I'll re-post.)

I'm having a little trouble identifying the subject and verb of the second stanza in "Birthdays." It begins, "How stange to think birthdays will be, when..."
My guess is that "birthdays" is the subject, and "will be" is the verb (and "strange" is a predicate adjective, at least when diagrammed???). It is the birthdays that will be strange when there are no more marks to put on the door, not the thinking that will be strange, right?

Am I on the right track?
Thanks for your help,
Julie

[On vacation]

The sentence is an ellipsis

Without the contraction it should read

"How strange it is to think that birthdays will be..."

How strange it is to think ... is the main clause and

.. that birthdays will be .... is the direct objoect of "to think"

Birthdays is the sbuject of the "DO" clause and "will be " is the verb of that clause.



That is a very tricky construction to parse.

[Carolyn]

This is a fine spot for a poetry question.

My first reaction was that you've got the sentence exactly right. But then I tried to stick in 'to think' and 'how', and my mind began spinning. And spinning.

It keeps spinning back to birthdays being the subject, and 'will be' being the verb, however. Because you can simplify the sentence to "Birthdays will be strange when ..." You can't do that with any other combination. 'How' and 'to think' both appear to modify 'strange.'

Carolyn

[Julie]

Thanks, Carolyn. I like the simplification, "birthdays will be strange when..."

We're starting tomorrow!!
Julie

[Carolyn]

Thanks for the expansion of that ellipsis. That does make it tricky to parse, and probably a good bit trickier than needs to be explained for a beginning student. Marking the subject and verb of the DO clause would be enough, I think, and if the child had questions about the rest, that would be the time to introduce the rest of it.

Carolyn