ANALYZING CLAUSE AND THE X ELEMENT

What we call a clause—SV and optional X —may occupy

the space between a capital letter and a full stop, or there
may be two or more clauses present, or none.

Writers can, and do, play around with the notion of the
sentence.
The best way to analyse clauses is to begin by
finding the main verb (V): it is the one which can’t
be deleted. Then find the subject (S)—most
frequently the noun phrase to the left of the main
verb (again, this is not usually deletable). Within X,
adverbial (Av) elements will often be deletable and
mobile, while the object/ complement (O/C) will not
be deletable.
In English clauses, the commonest order of syntactic
elements is S (subject) V (verb) X (object,
complement and/or adverbial). This is the normal word
order in English.
In most clauses the element (S) will usually have been
mentioned before in a previous clause. It is therefore
‘given’ information. The X element will usually contain
‘new’ information—either extra information about S, or
a completely new person, thing or topic. (e.g. He
walked the dog. It was a chihuahua.)
Take a look at this examples:
1. S(Cigarettes) V(cause) X(cancer)
The subject can be identified by testing for person agreement on the verb:
S(Cigarettes) V(cause) cancer
S(Smoking) V(causes) cancer

2. X(Eagerly) S(he) V(tucked in)

X here is mobile and deletable, so it is an adverbial (Av):
He tucked in X Av(eagerly).
He tucked in.
He X Av(eagerly) tucked in.

3 S(She) V(was) XAv(suddenly) O/C(angry)

X here contains both Av and O/C—note that only Av is deletable:
*She was suddenly
The default clause structure in English is SVX,
with S lighter than X. Sometimes, the S element is
either heavier than X, or almost as heavy.

Though S elements are usually lighter than X

elements in English clauses, writers can thwart
our expectations of clause element order and
relative size for effect.
Take a look at these varied S and X elements. Which one has a
lighter element? S or X?
1. S (The Greyhound bus, taking the Scranton route,)
V(made) X(the trip in about fifty hours.)
2. S (His picture) V(appeared) X(in Time
without insult and in Newsweek with praise.)
S is the noun phrase to the left of the main verb; as a rule
of semantics, S is the person who does the verb; as a rule
of grammar, S and V have to agree for number and person:
S appearing to the left of the verb does not always work.

It is sometimes possible for writers to swap S and X in

order to emphasise X:
1. X(Above them) V(towers) S(Jane Bowles, the weirdest
writer of all)
2. X(Having written Humboldt a long fan letter,) S(I) V(was
invited) X(to Greenwich Village to discuss literature
and ideas.)
Let us map the sentence according to the
SVX structure:
Wives were the ladies found tied to scuttled boats at
the bottom of the lake, their hair embraced by the
seaweed.
 2 Locate the subject, 3 Locate X either by
found at the left of the deletion, substitution, or
1 Find the main movement:
verb, which should main verb. The main
*Wives were…
not be deletable: verb should agree In this clause, although
with this in terms of everything after were
Wives were the
p e r s o n / n u m b e r. could swap places with
ladies at the bottom
Element to the left of Wives, it cannot be
of the lake, their hair deleted. X is therefore
the main verb:
embraced by the S(Wives) V(were)… mobile, but not deletable,
seaweed. Check for agreement
and is therefore not an
were can’t be a d v e r b i a l . We c o u l d
by changing number: replace the whole of this
deleted. S(His wife) V(was)… X element with the word
this.
4. S (Wives) V (were) X (the ladies found tied to
scuttled boats at the bottom of the lake, their hair
embraced by the seaweed).

Note that the very large X element can be simplified here

by replacing it with one word:
Wives were X(this).
Read through the sample text and find out which
is the opening of a novel. What kind of
atmosphere is created?
Can you explain this by the way the passage
patterns SVX elements—their order, relative
sizes, and the tense used on V?
Look also at the types of things that are placed in
S position, and their relationship to V. How does
this contribute to the effect?
It is night-time, early evening. The lights It the far end of the house lies what must On the bed are spread a long
of the house lie along a line. On the left be the living-room. At all angles stand nightshirt and pyjama trousers,
is the kitchen. Below the pots of chairs, occupied by trim rotund cushions,
coriander on the windowsill stares the the elastic slacked into
lapped in brocade antimacassars. On the
light bulb in a glass calyx shade. There sofa, facing the open window, sits a bagginess. There is no one
is no one about. The clock in the stove woman. She is reading, though she has about. The young girl must be
tells the time but emits no sound. On also been knitting. She gets up and walks asleep because in the other lit
two cooling racks three pale-yellow over to the piano. Momentarily, her hand window, elongated like a Cranach
sponge cakes lie cooling. The curtains of lies spread over the keys. She looks down
the next window, partly drawn, leave a figure by the effect of framing, the
at the keyboard, but thinks better of it. She
slice of light on the lawn. The light cuts walks back to the sofa, picks up the woman is visible. She is standing
into a table, massed with books: at the magazine. She fumbles with an attached at the table where the girl was
table, a girl in a dark gym tunic is perfume sample; the sachet will not come working. As with the girl, the
seated, humped over, tongue crammed open. She sits down. She reaches for the woman’s head is bent over the
into cheek, writing. Her hair, which-is portable radio at her side. Her thumb and
greasy, stands on end, skewered into
books. The sickle of chin brackets
forefinger are pursed around the on/off
rough tufts around her left ear. Her right knob, but she thinks better of it. She
that of nose. She moves her
hand works at speed; she cannot keep settles back in the sofa. There is no sound hands in amongst the books,
her eyes off it. Her left lies flat on the about. The TV is flickering. It is midnight. stops herself, moves the books
page with the careful, balancing action There are two lights on in the house. One again. She spends some time in
of a child who first learns to form letters is on in a bedroom. Two beds stand in
—as though she were pacifying the
this manner, shuffling, pausing,
close parallel, separated by a bedside
pace of the words. At moments when table; only one bed is turned down. On the
shuffling, then retreats to the
she looks up, this hand drifts back to her bedside table, painted buff eggshell off- bedroom empty-handed. She
head, around the ear, there to work and white, lies a New English Bible, abutting does not forget to turn off the
twist. on a colonnade of pill phials. light.
Clause and X mapping:
The dominant clause structure here is SVX. It is also the case that many clauses
conform to our expectations about the relative sizes of S and X elements, for example
in the first sentence:
S(It) V(is) X(night-time, early evening)
However, the basic pattern is varied—in the second sentence, for example, S is
heavier (larger) than X:
S(The lights of the house) V(lie) X(along a line)
while in the third sentence, X is placed at the front of the clause:
X(On the left) V(is) S(the kitchen)
and in the fourth sentence this type of construction is repeated, with the slots before
and after the verb both expanded:
X(Below the pots of coriander on the windowsill) V(stares) S(the light
bulb in a glass calyx shade)
The fifth sentence mirrors the structure of the first:
S(There) V(is) X(no one about)
Note too that the passage uses the simple present tense—relatively unusual in novels
SAMPLE ANALYSIS:

We can say that these clauses have a simple basic structure —they are almost
all SVX with V in the present tense—but that the writer varies the structure. On
the one hand the pattern is not so insistent that it calls attention to itself; on the
other the variations are not so great that they disrupt the repetitive effect. This
structural patterning, and the use of present tense, gives the passage its sense
of inevitability—things could not be other than as they are (note the high
frequency of the verb be).
When the types of thing that fill the subject role are analysed, it becomes clear
that human agency is almost entirely lacking from the piece:
It, The lights, the kitchen, the light bulb, There, The clock, cakes,
The curtains, The light
Despite the semantic rule that the subject ‘does’ the verb, and is therefore likely
to be an animate being, here subjects are often inanimate objects and dummy
subjects (It and there). This subverts our expectations of the relationship
between the subject and verb. Note too that the first human subject element, a
girl, is the subject of a passive verb, is seated. This absence of human action is
continued—parts of the girl, rather than she herself, are the subjects of
subsequent verbs: her hair stands, her right hand writes, even her eyes behave
independently. In the second paragraph, the woman begins three actions, but
breaks off each one: she almost plays the piano, almost opens some perfume,
almost turns the radio on or off.
The combined effect of this is of distance—the narrator appears not to be
familiar with the house, yet describes it in great detail. There is a lot of restless
activity going on, but it is disconnected: the woman does not complete her
actions; only parts of the girl act, rather than her as an entity.