Just as you know a lot about word categories without necessarily realizing that you do, you know a lot about combining words into phrases and phrases into sentences. As we talk about phrases and sentences, we'll be referring to many of the word categories you learned about in Part I, so check back there if you need to.

Let's start by taking a look at the following sentence:

1. The little boy laughed.

If you were asked to divide the sentence into two parts, what would the parts be? Speakers of English typically separate the sentence after the word boy:

1. 2. The little boy + laughed.

Other groupings, like the ones below, generally seem unnatural to native speakers of English:

1. 3. The + little boy laughed.

2. 4. The little + boy laughed.

That is, we all sense that the little boy forms a unit and that laughed forms another unit. Units like these are called phrases.

So we can start off our discussion by suggesting that there are two parts to sentence. We could call them Part A and Part B, or Harry and George, but we'll use the terminology of modern linguistics and refer to them as the noun phrase and the verb phrase. The noun phrase in our sentence is the little boy; the verb phrase is laughed. Of course, there are other phrases as well. We'll look at the most common ones in the units of Part II.

Test yourself 18.1

1. You can hide between trips and make believe you're innocent.

2. Was it near here or over there?

3. Roger looked around but he didn't see anything.

4. They'll eat chicken or turkey for dinner.

5. Mr. Joseph pulled out three letters and handed one to each of the men.

Test yourself 18.2

1. Mr. Eagle was called away on business, so Mrs. Broxton took his place at the meeting. sentences

2. He'd heard of it, but he didn't like the idea. sentences

3. Erin felt real excitement and enthusiasm. nouns

4. It was raining hard, yet we went to the ball game. sentences

5. The airline attendant asked,“Would you like coffee or tea?” nouns

Test yourself 18.3

1. I'll be near or between the stacks. prepositions

2. He came up with a quick and effective remedy. adjectives

3. I hope you won't worry or brood too much about it. verbs

4. This trip will be expensive but worthwhile. adjectives

5. I am at or near a breakthrough. prepositions

An adjective is a word that refers to a characteristic of a noun. How can you identify an adjective?

If you can put a word between the and a noun (like boy, or idea), then that word is an adjective.

For example, since we can say the tall boy, tall is an adjective. Similarly, we can say the silly boy, the interesting boy, and the young boy. Therefore, silly, interesting, and young are all adjectives.

A number of adjectives, all used in the phrase the –– boy are listed below. The adjectives are underlined:

1. the brilliant boy

2. the embarrassed boy

3. the blonde boy

4. the hungry boy

5. the delightful boy

Compare these phrases to *the very boy, *the a boy, and *the talk boy. Very, a, and talk are not adjectives.

What do adjectives actually do? Adjectives always tell us something about a noun. Another way of saying this is that they modify a noun. In the phrases we've just looked at, the underlined adjectives tell us something about, or modify, the noun boy.

In August 1992 Pat Easterling wrote to me, suggesting an edition of some of the Homeric Hymns for this series. Fortunately the long delay in completing the present volume has not deterred several younger scholars from undertaking more detailed commentaries on each of these three poems. This has made it easier for me to see my own work as a stage in a process, rather than an attempt to offer a final verdict on all the possible questions which might arise.

I have not undertaken a new examination of the manuscripts, but have used the apparatus criticus of Càssola. In the Introduction linguistic issues are briefly discussed, and there is still scope for further work in this area. Equally, my suggestions about the dating and provenance of these hymns are very provisional, and I should be only too happy if others can improve on these. I regret that it has not been possible to discuss more extensively the Nachleben of the Hymns, a subject on which much more remains to be said, or to include some of the shorter ones as I had originally hoped to do.

In view of the fact that Andrew Faulkner's major edition of the Hymn to Aphrodite is now published, I have also kept my commentary on this poem (which I had drafted first of all) relatively brief, and have paid more detailed attention to the other two hymns.