Grammar

[chunkysquares]

So I put on my traveling cap, and scurried with my fat little legs to the library to borrow The Road. Good good, no comment till the end of the show

Comments

[maggotthemango]

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think it's a complete sentence. Unless Yodaisms are grammatically correct. I know if it was phrased "He could not see watched shapes claiming him." it would be a complete sentence, but when it's reversed like that, I really don't know.

But what I am sure about is the one example you gave- "The bike that mike could not ride." is an incomplete sentence. "Mike could not ride a bike." is a complete sentence.

[chunkysquares]

Its not? man my grammar is so shot. What breaks it then?

[maggotthemango]

"The bike that mike could not ride." is an incomplete sentence because there is only a subject. "The bike" is the subject, while the rest of the fragment describes the bike. What kind of bike is it? It's the bike that mike could not ride. So you have a subject and a descriptor. There is no action, hence the incomplete sentence.

"Watched shapes claiming him he could not see." has a subject and a verb but they're reversed. I can't recall whether this is allowed or not. Dave, where the fuck are you?

Dave don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'

[dangermouse82]

OK, so here it is (Mike, I now have time to devote full attention to this-- Hersh was bugging me yesterday, hence the half-assed answer). Chris is right about the bike sentence. Though, technically, your first bike sentence ("The bike Mike could not ride") is not as incomplete as the second-- you've just inverted the subject and the direct object. Such inversions happen all the time in professional writing (mostly plays and poetry), but they still violate the rules of grammar, whatever that means. Worse, it's vague as to the meaning of the sentence (hence this LJ entry