Can you diagram the sentences "Let's go." and "To be, or not to be, that is the question."?

Can you do your own homework?

No he can’t, thus the statement “I need help with them.”

The fluther sure is hostile to diagramming sentences!

Haha it’s not homework. I am just a grammar nerd! I know – people get so mad at me when I talk about sentence diagramming!

Yes, I can. Think of the verbal imperative, and think of independent noun clauses, and the like.

I think this sort of thing is fun, too, and yes, I can analyze them for you. Not to challenge you unfairly, and please don’t misconstrue this as a rude retort, but first I would like to see some evidence that you are an interested party like me and not a student looking for homework help.

In other words, show us your best guess before we give ours.

Totally fair – I’m working on them right now

Here are my best guesses.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i95/hsrsmith/diagramming.jpg

For the “Let’s go” sentence, I’m assuming the subject is an implied you, hence the parenthesis. And the direct object has the subject and verb ” ‘s ” (us) and “go” which would make it a noun clause.

For “To be or not to be” I’m not sure how to make a double infinitive tree – that was my best guess. And I assumed that the “that” is a floater because it wouldn’t work as a subordinating conjunction or as a relative pronoun.

What do you guys think?

@hrsmith, sentence diagrams have changed since I was in school, so let’s just talk a little bit about the structures.

My offering to perform an analysis may have been premature; or rather, I can analyze them, all right, but I may well be wrong. Here’s an initial stab at the first one; and may I say that this is exactly the kind of simple, common expression that does stump me now and then, even when more complex ones don’t faze me. Some of the common locutions seem to have hardened into an idiomatic form that we follow effortlessly and automatically, like a template, without having to build them anew; and so I think some of them must have shed the signs that show us how they were built.

I believe that the “let’s” (let us) construction is a special case and not a conventional imperative. I am tugging hard on a very old memory here (and maybe someone with formal study more recent than mine can help out), but I do not believe that the subject is an understood “you.” Some dim voice in my head is whispering that this is a subject in the accusative (objective) case, which is the proper case for the subject of an infinitive (as in “I know him to be an honest man”).

I don’t much like this idea, actually. If I had to defend some analysis of this construction, I would prefer to defend a suggestion that this is present subjunctive. But I don’t have grounds for it, and it is not analogous to other present subjunctive constructions. Again, I think this verb is a special case. Sometimes thinking of a counterpart in another language helps, but the structure of Lassen uns gehen is not revealing anything.

However, I can’t seem to turn up a reference for this; the handbooks I would consult are all at my workplace and not here at home. “Let’s” and “let us” are pretty hard to do a Web search on.

Let’s see what someone else has to say.

Wouldn’t the subject just be ‘us’?

A subject is supposed to be in the nominative case, not the accusative. That form of the pronoun would be “we,” not “us.” Technically here it is the direct object of “let,” or it would be if it were some other verb (give us, tell us, show us, etc.). I am hoping that someone can affirm my ancient recollection that this verb and this construction are a special case. The imperative ”you let us” does not make sense semantically.

Ok, now my head hurts :)

Gaudeamus igitur = Let us rejoice

Gaudeamus is indeed, the present subjunctive:

http://www.informalmusic.com/latinsoc/verbs/gaudeo.html

But “Let us” is how the Latin present subjunctive is most accurately translated, because English only has a vestigial subjunctive mood. “Gaudeamus igitur” in Latin has a definite imperative meaning, but it’s more a suggestion than a command, and that’s most accurately translated in English with the “Let us” construction.

The traditional view of English grammar would be that “Let’s go” is an imperative statement with an implied “you” subject. I suspect that the current view of English grammar would start there and continue by saying that “let” is a modal auxiliary verb that casts the whole thing into a subjunctive-ish mood.

That analysis actually feels quite comfortable in my head: it is called present subjunctive in English because it is present subjunctive in Latin. Because English grammar is modeled on Latin, whether it ought to have been or not, we still have many relics of Latin prescriptivism in English even when they don’t (and never did) make sense, such as the rule about splitting infinitives—impossible in Latin because an infinitive is one word and not two. So the form of the verb is imperative with an understood “you” because we don’t know what else to do with this, but the sense of it is still subjunctive.

Note to the experts: If my long-ago self-taught history of English is faulty, feel free to straighten me out. My sources for most of my understanding are (1) Baugh and Cable and (2) Otto Jespersen.

For the audience raptly awaiting an outcome of these gyrations, the present subjunctive—one of my favorite constructions, and much more common than most people think because we handle it idiomaticallly and don’t usually call it out—is the form of the verb found in sentences such as this:

It is important that you be on time for the meeting.

I could add dozens more, both from everyday speech and from literature (especially the KJV Bible, which is loaded with them and which is as pure and perfect a model of English as you’ll find anywhere), but I am supposed to be working right now. Take it away, team!

Have you checked out the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language?

A lot of modern English linguistics thinking is moving farther away from the Latin model of tenses/voices/moods—probably the clearest example is the notion that English has no real future tense, and thus the sentence “I will go to the store” is more accurately understood with “will” as a modal auxiliary verb in the same vein as “might” or “could.”

Still, one could and does say,“I’ll clean my room tomorrow. Stop nagging, mom.”

Mode depends on whether I am really planning to do it or just saying so in order to get my mom off my back.

Oh, sure, the statement is still about something in the future.

It’s just that instead of reading “will clean” as the indicative active future form of the verb—analogous to ‘lavabo’ in Latin—it’s that the ‘will’ is a modal auxiliary indicating that the speaker expects the thing to happen in the future.

(And we can get involved here with “shall” and “will”—if I were the parent of a pedant, I’d hold out for “I shall clean my room tomorrow,” to be honest.)

Interestingly enough, Fowler 2ed makes the claim, in the section on “shall” and “will,” that, much as modern grammarians claim about modern English, that Old English had no separate future tense. The discussion there about the distinction between shall and will (where shall has a connotation of duty and obligation in the first person, and will has that connotation in second and third persons) also lines up nicely with the concept of modal auxiliary carrying the meaning that Latin conveys with choice of mood and tense.

I don’t have current grammar references, but neither Fowler nor Bernstein offers pertinent help with “let.” A colleague of mine said this:
The verb “go” [in this construction] is present subjunctive, as you can see from “Let there be light.”

I countered thus:
I am not altogether persuaded that either ”go” or “be” is present subjunctive, although I want it to be. I think it may be an infinitive. Either “Let us go” has a direct object in “us” or “us” is the subject of an infinitive, which must be in the accusative. But “Let there be light” is not parallel. You have to recast it as “Let light be [there],” in which case I do think “be” is an infinitive, exactly parallel to “Allow light to be there.”

Isn’t this fun? :D

Well, there are two constructions that are very similar but have different meanings. Consider “Let us go to the movies” and “Let him go to the movies.” (The latter, as said from one parent to another, perhaps.)

The function of the former is equivalent to the Latin present subjunctive, and is a not-terribly-strong command. The function of the latter is also an imperative, but it’s much clearer grammatically.

I suspect “Let us” is an idiomatic grammatical particle that really needs to be understood as a unit—like a modal particle in German or Dutch. It casts the rest of the clause into a sort of present subjunctive mood—the same sort of thing that “Let there be light” does.

Suggestion, or invitation? I will await your judgments.

‘Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.”

Or the last four lines of Blakes’s Jerusalem, since we’ve moved on to “will” and “shall,” about which most people no longer give a rat’s ass..

” I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

Is the “shall” used simply for the internal assonance?

I still care about “will” and “shall” and have from the moment in tenth grade that I was first instructed on the difference. Had I a rat’s ass, I should give it freely and gladly. I am full of admiration for those who use them correctly. I do know how, but as an American I ordinarily can’t do it without sounding very affected. One of the reasons that I love British fiction, especially older fiction, is that people (even children) do generally use these two correctly, and it is sweet music to my inner ear.

In the Eliot quote above, I think this is the very “let’s go” we have been discussing. I would like to see a sound analysis of the relationship between “us” and “you and I” here, which I find intuitively correct but analytically elusive. And does it or does it not shed light on the subjunctive-versus-infinitive question?

In the Blake, no, I think the “shall” in the second line has exactly the force of the “will” in the first: expressive of determination.

“Let him go to the movies” is a simple, uncomplicated imperative with “him” as direct object and does not express a suggestion or invitation as does “let us,” which was the basis for my colleague’s argument for the subjunctive. “Idiomatic grammatical particle that really needs to be understood as a unit” is what I was trying to say with “Some of the common locutions seem to have hardened into an idiomatic form that we follow effortlessly and automatically, like a template, without having to build them anew; and so I think some of them must have shed the signs that show us how they were built.”

So let us say, then, you and I: how shall we advise hsrsmith in the matter of diagramming “Let’s go”?

Not a clue. I“m off to eat a peach and scuttle to bed.

(And I agree with you completely about “will” and “shall.” I feel the same way about “that” and “which.”)

(And I do too about “that” and “which,” except that I don’t turn to the Brits for satisfaction. I’d rank that among the top five errors I correct professionally.)

Glad to see that you dare. How are your trousers doing?

Unrolling them as I type. If you are a professional editor/ proof-reader, do you sometimes feel like strangling your authors?

I don’t usually limit myself to contemplating murder by a single means. Sometimes imagining creative methods of dispatch relieves a lot of pressure, much as it did for the Mikado.

I am an editor by profession and a writer by avocation. I warmed up as a freelance proofreader in the seventies and early eighties, working mainly for textbook publishers. This was after an ill-advised career as a computer applications programmer.

There are some writers I do want to kill by page 2, yes. My rule is that if I start to get mad, I have to walk away for a while; but when I come back, damned if they aren’t still doing it.

However, I do distinguish among authors. I see four gross categories:
—hired professional writers
—academicians who are experts in their fields but who need their writing edited both substantively and at the line level
—would-be authors who may or may not be writers (and probably aren’t)
—private clients who are not trying to be writers at all but need to get something written—a personal statement for an application, a flyer, a resume—and who just want someone to help make it correct

I have the least patience with the first group, but I must exhibit patience nonetheless and work with them in a collaborative way, always picking up the slack but at the same time coaching and teaching; they are my bread and butter.

I love the second group and would do academic work for professors all the time if I could earn enough at it. They respect boundaries of expertise and truly appreciate someone who midwifes their book or journal article or colloquium paper without altering their voice or style.

I try never to work for the third group so I won’t have blood on my hands, but I do it routinely as a volunteer working on little newsletters and club magazines. A few of them have the wit to appreciate what they are getting for free. I don’t want to antagonize them because I will be smiling their way when I get laid off from my high-tech job.

I am very kind and gentle with the last group and hope they will come back; but while I am still employed full time, I do not have to work on any brochures for carpet cleaning services or weekly bulletins for real estate agents.

Real literary authors never come my way. Maybe someday.

@hsrsmith, it might have been quicker to consult the Ents, but it looks like no one wants to dispute your first diagram, even though it would be nice to hang some decorative qualifiers from it.

As to the second: well, somebody start, please.

@gailcalled: “shall” has stronger force than “will” in the first person, though it’s reversed in second and third person. So the speaker will not cease from mental fight, and his sword shall not sleep, and those both have the same meaning of simple prediction, not conviction or intent.

If he had said “I shall not cease from mental fight, nor will my sword sleep in my hand,” then the meaning would have had a connotation of conviction or intent—it was the speaker’s choice and commitment to not cease, and the sword’s choice and commitment to not sleep.

At least according to Fowler.

And I am not a professional proofreader, merely an amateur, and I feel like strangling authors and editors on a regular basis. My favorite favorite error, and one that has caused more than one book to have a sudden introduction to the wall, is “flaunt” for “flout.”

Has either of you had the pleasure of reading essays written by 12th graders? I’d ask, “What do you mean?” They’d answer, “I meant this.” I’d say, “Go back and write that,”

Shall we overcome? I think not, but let’s see.

My youngest step-son wrote a novel and asked all of the family to read it. Talk about a Procrustean bed.