Homer A Wk 18 Wooden Horse

[ninnasue59]

Both sentences for shuffle exercises confuse me ...

1) Isn't "years" a noun and the indirect object with "Nine" the adjective to "years"? Doesn't the sentence mean "the Greeks laid siege [for] nine years"? In the IG, "years" is marked as an adverb.

2) In the Errata section, there is a note for Homer B, Wk 1 that "like" is a preposition when the meaning is "possessing the characteristic of". In the IG for Homer A Wk 18, "like" is diagrammed as a subject complement with "idol" as an objective complement. In marking the sentence, "like" is labeled an adjective. I am thoroughly confused!

Thanks! Linda

[Carolyn]

Excellent questions!

"Years" is a noun. It's functioning as an adverbial noun in this sentence, and we chose to call it an adverb to show the role it was playing. It can't be an indirect object, since the indirect object receives the direct object. The diagram for the sentence has some problems. We'll fix it so that 'years' is in the normal adverbial position, with 'nine' modifying it as an adjective.

'Like' is a tricky word. It can be a preposition with the meaning you cite, but it doesn't have to be. With a linking verb such as in the sentence of Homer A Week 18, there absolutely *has* to be a subject complement. 'Like', therefore, gets dubbed the predicate adjective/subject complement. The sentence isn't saying that 'Thou, like an idol, looked.' (intransitive). It's saying 'Thou looked like an idol' (linking).

Does that help?

Carolyn

In the words of Descriptive English Grammar "in some cases, however, like is commonly regarded as an adjective, but may be construed as a preposition." The examples they give of such uses are "A fool like Jones can never be convinced." or (as an adverb or preposition, instead of an adj.) "He runs like a deer". Both constructions are permissible and shown diagrammed.

[ninnasue59]

Thanks Carolyn for being so quick with a reply! We are doing these exercises tomorrow in our co-op class! However ... I am still a little confused with the second sentence.

"Like" in this sentence seems to say that the horse possessed the characteristics of an idol (similar to the Homer B sentence cited on Errata board - "they saw what looked like smoke"). I don't want to go into class and say, "Because I said so." I want to understand so I can explain it to the students.

Yes, of course "nine" is not an IO - I told you I was confused! I feel a little silly about that one, now. So, as an adverbial noun, "years" can take an adjective. In a diagram then, "years" would come off of "laid" and "Nine" off of "years"? That is how I diagrammed it at first, but then got my knickers in a twist because "years" is a noun and even if an adverb, adjectives don't modify adverbs, and my head began to swim ... I had forgotten about adverbial nouns.

Thanks again for your help!

[Carolyn]

You've got the right idea for diagramming nine years.

The evening did not permit for coming to an authoritative answer. You can definitely tell your class "Authorities differ on how they would treat 'like' in this sentence." For my point of view, I would explain that 'looked' carries the meaning of 'appeared' or 'seemed' in this sense, and that it can be treated as a linking verb. The thing to link it to is the subject complement 'like'. And 'like' can take a dative construction (like 'similis' in Latin), so you needn't worry about a noun modifying an adjective. ('unlike' and 'near' also take this construction, by the way). So 'idol' would be diagrammed in the same sort of position as an indirect object ... either on a diagonal from like, or on a horizontal line under like, joined to it by a diagonal line (ala prepositional phrase) with nothing on it.

Carolyn

[ninnasue59]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!

[Carolyn]

After more discussion, we've decided that 'like' does not HAVE to be a preposition. In some circumstances it can be, but it is not clear if this is one of those circumstances.

One way of skinning this grammatical cat is by asking if 'like smoke' or 'like an idol' is adverbial. And if it is adverbial, what does that do to the meaning of the verb 'looked'. He looked how? In the same way that smoke would look? How does smoke look? It has no eyes. (This is the part that isn't clear to me, as you may be able to tell.)

If it's not adverbial, it's adjectival. If it modifies the subject, then we're left with the sentence core 'It looked'. I want to know either where it looked, or what it looked like. So ... 'like' ends up being most easily explained as a predicate adjective/subject complement, rather than part of the subject.

Carolyn