English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm revising my English language knowledge. I thought why not to start by basics. And at this moment I'm at Parts of a Sentence.
In given statement:
They are washing the dishes.
"They" is a simple subject, "are washing" compound predicate "the dishes" dependent clause
Is that correct? If not, please explain which element is described wrongly. Is there any tool that can analyze my sentences and give me hints what are respective elements?
That is not correct.
They
Noun and the subject of the sentence.
are washing
Simple predicate.
are washing the dishes
Full predicate.
The verb "washing" is transitive in this use context, so "the dishes" is simply the object of the verb phrase "are washing".
They are washing the dishes.
The subject is "they" and the predicate verb phrase is "are washing the dishes".
"Be" is a catenative verb and "washing the dishes" is an embedded subordinate clause as its catenative complement.
The noun phrase "the dishes" is thus direct object of "washing" (not "are washing")
