COMM160

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We will use this sentence to illustrate our first group of terms:

The cat in the hat ate delicious food.

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Parts of a Sentence
Parts of a Sentence	Examples	Definition
Subject	Cat is the subject.	The subject is the noun doing the action.
Object of the preposition	Hat is the object of the preposition.	Recall that in is a preposition and hat is the noun that completes the prepositional phrase. "Phases are groups of related words that lack either a subject (a doer) or a verb (an action of a state of being) or both." Working with Words, Page 28
Direct object	Food is the direct object.	The direct object answers "What?" The cat ate what? Food.
Clause	The entire sentence is a clause.	A clause contains a subject and a verb.

Next we will use this sentence:

The cat, an orange tabby, gave his owner soft kisses.

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Parts of a Sentence Continued
Parts of a Senence	Examples	Definitions
Appositive	An orange tabby is an appositive.	An appositive is a noun that further described a noun and is usually separated by commas.
Indirect object	Owner is the indirect object.	The indirect object answers "to whom" or "for whom"? The cat gave kisses to whom? His owner.

Finally, we will look at this sentence:

The cat is an orange tabby.

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Predicate nominative a.k.a. Subject complement

The cat is an orange tabby.
An orange tabby is the predicate nominative or subject complement.
It is the noun that follows a linking verb and restates the subject (Working with Words, Page 39). Linking verbs can be found on Page 59 in Working with Words.