Grammer a Week 19: Short Answer Section · 7:07pm Apr 10th, 2016
This is Grammer a Week, the periodic blog program-thing where I soapbox about a grammar subject I find interesting. You might, too! This week's installment is a little different; as a sort of poor "apology" for not posting anything grammar-related for the last few weeks, here's a three-for-one! I'll be covering the predicate nominative, conjunctive adverb, and apostrophe use.
Predicate nominative
Simply, a predicate nominative is simply a noun or pronoun that defines or provides additional information for a previously mentioned subject. It always comes after a form of "to be."
Fluttershy was an animal caretaker.
Here, "animal caretaker" is a predicate nominative that defines "Fluttershy," the subject: she's an animal caretaker.
Normally, this provides no problems and is simply a confusing term for us Grammar Nazis to throw around and confuse other people with. But the one case where the predicate nominative can become a problem is when it involves personal pronouns.
"The fashionista present today is I," Rarity said, bowing to the Princess duly.
This sentence is actually correct, even though it clearly looks wrong. As I said in a previous grammar post, when something is being acted upon, that thing should be quoted in the objective case, not the nominative. In this case, the objective form of the pronoun in question is "me," not "I." But consider that that pronoun is also a predicate nominative: it is a pronoun (I, referring to Rarity) that follows a form of "to be" and defines a previously mentioned subject (fashionista). And the predicate nominative, as per its name, is always quoted in the nominative form. In this case, that form is "I."
In the end, we are presented with two conflicting rules of grammar that argue for different forms of a pronoun. And in the end, it's up to you to decide which rule you want to abide by. The predicate nominative rule goes against the natural subject-object flow of English that we're accustomed to, but it also sounds somewhat old-timey and more formal. In general, I'd suggest abiding by the general flow of subject-object in most cases. There are only a few situations where I'd opt for the predicate nominative over the object case, such as "this is he" when answering someone on the phone. Even then, "this is him" is also acceptable.
Conjunctive adverbs
First off, what words are conjunctive adverbs? Well, you've undoubtedly seen at least a few of them before. Actually, you just have! "Undoubtedly" is a conjunctive adverb! So is "actually"! A conjunctive adverb is just a word that makes sense whether it functions as an adverb or a conjunction. There are actually (snerk) a lot of these words, regardless of whether you've heard of them or not. More complete lists can be found using Google.
As with the predicate nominative, I wouldn't mention them unless they caused grammar errors somewhere, and they do when it comes to comma splices. I elaborated on comma splices at length in a previous post, but in essence, they occur when a comma appears where there should be a period or something else of similar strength.
Rarity was going to take a walk in the park, however, it started raining quite heavily before she made it out of the door.
This sentence reads smooth, but it's actually a comma splice. The word "however," a conjunctive adverb, is separating two independent clauses when it's actually not a strong enough word to do that task. The only words capable of that are coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. You would need to either replace it with one of those conjunctions . . .
Rarity was going to take a walk in the park, but it started raining quite heavily before she made it out the door.
. . . or punctuate the comma splice as two sentences:
Rarity was going to take a walk in the park; however, it started raining quite heavily before she made it out the door.
When using these words as adverbs, punctuate them as you would any other adverb. Most often, they'll stand alone, modifying whatever word they're next to. When using these words as conjunctions, however, they must be followed by a comma. In this way, they act as common introductory phrases, not sentence linkers.
Apostrophe use
Apostrophes are considered to be a pretty elementary piece of punctuation that most people learn about them early in their English learning careers. Use to mark the possessive case, and use to mark contractions. Easy, right? Well, there is one case I can think of that give some people pause and give grammarians room to fight.
"That's the Elements' town. Its name is Ponyville," Celestia said.
The apostrophe at the end of a word without anything to follow it might look strange, but it's correct. In cases where you need to apply the possessive case to a word that already ends in -s, just add an apostrophe to the end of it. This is the case whether the word is a plural that has an -s ending (ponies' town) or a singular noun that just so happens to end in -s (Chrysalis' lair). Note how the above case is distinct from the following one; one references a plural noun, while the other references a singular one:
"That's the Element's home. It's Carousel Boutique," Twilight said.
Also note according to some style guides, it's acceptable to punctuate the first case like this: "Elements's." Looks a little strange to me, but adding an additional -s at the end of possessive already ending in -s is acceptable so long as you do that consistently.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please post them below. I'm always open to suggestions for future Grammer a Week posts.
I don't think I've ever said "this is he" in my life, unless I was trying to be funny. To my ears, it sounds terribly affected otherwise. Maybe it's another Transatlantic difference?
Ah, the old "apostrophe or not after final S" problem. My own guideline is that I never add it to plurals. So "Jess's cat" is fine, but "The girls's town" isn't. That seems to be standard practice in BrEng, but again I can only speak with confidence about this side of the Atlantic.
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It's not as if "this is he" is a particularly common construction here, either, but it certainly does exist. I have ran into older folks who argue that one should always say "this is he/she" instead of "this is him" in the situations that call for it. They're normally also the same people who argue that one should say "I'm well" instead of "I'm good."
And I've double-checked the apostrophe convention with plurals and singulars ending in -s, and you're right . . . mostly. It's actually really complicated, and neither of the conventions we quoted is completely correct. It partially depends on what style guide you want to follow. Here's the revised rule:
Plurals take the terminal apostrophe with no -s on the end. Singulars take an "apostrophe s" regardless of what they end in . . . UNLESS the word is a proper noun, OR the noun ends in an -s AND the word following starts with an s- (actress' scene), PROVIDED you subscribe to AP style; OR the word is a singular noun clause whose last component is a plural noun (United States' president), OR the word ends in an "s" sound AND is followed by "sake" (conscience' sake), PROVIDED you subscribe to CMOS style; OR the word ends in -s AND is of two syllables or more, PROVIDED you subscribe to MLA style; IN WHICH CASE, omit the terminal -s.
. . . Yeah, I'm not putting that up there.