1-Modification and Subordination
1-Modification and Subordination
The easiest and most common way of developing the basic sentence pattern is by adding a modifier. To modify means to change or alter. A modifier, therefore, is a word or word group that changes the meaning of another word or word group that is more basic to the sentence.
e.g. Luis eats / apples.
By adding a modifier to the object, we can alter the meaning of "apples."
e.g. Luis eats/green apples.
We can also modify the subject.
e.g. Little Luis eats/green apples.
And even the verb.
e.g. Little Luis never eats/green apples.
Notice how the basic pattern remains even after several modifiers have been added. This is because modifiers cluster around base elements like iron filings around a magnet.
The principle that describes this relationship between modifiers and more basic sentence elements is subordination. Subordination means taking a position of lesser importance or rank. In the Army, for example, a private is subordinate to a captain and a captain to a general. Likewise, when we say a modifier is subordinate to the base element, we mean it has less importance and is dependent upon that more basic element for its claim to a place in the sentence.
The river was / cold.
Adding a little modification, we get this:
The recently thawed river was/icy cold.
"Recently" modifies "thawed," while the two words join together to modify "river," the base word of the cluster.
Whole sentences can be joined in this way:
Although the recently thawed river was icy cold, we dove right in.
Now the former sentence, which was also an independent clause, has become a part of a larger whole. It is now subordinate to "we dove right in," which becomes the new base clause of the sentence. Without our base clause we would be left with a subordinate element that had no independent element to depend on, like an orphan.
Modification and subordination can help you in two ways: first, they can help you understand how your sentence elements relate to each other and to the sentence as a whole; second, they're important tools for combining those elements into more complex and sophisticated sentences.