Assignment # 3

1. The salt in the wood makes it slow to burn and it was difficult to light. (p.6) [Compound sentence, 2+0]
This sentence is a compound sentence because it has two independent clauses.
The first independent clause is “The salt in the wood make it slows to burn”. The common noun “salt” in this clause functions as the subject and “make” functions as the verb.
The second independent clause is “it was difficult to light”. The pronoun “it” functions as the subject and “was” functions as the verb. The coordinator that connect the two independent clauses is "and".

2. I could not see, only sense, the towering waves. (p.56) [Simple sentence, 1+0]
This is a simple sentence because it has only one independent clause, which is the whole sentence. The pronoun “I” functions as the subject and “could…see” functions as the verb.

3. To this day, I can’t understand why the lightning did not hit the boat. (p.91) [Complex sentence, 1+1]
This is a complex sentence because it has one independent clause and one dependent clause. The independent clause is “I can’t understand”. The pronoun “I” functions as the subject and “can…understand” is the verb.
The dependent clause is “why the lightning did not hit the boat”. “Why” functions as the subordinator in this clause. The common noun “lightning” functions as the subject and “did…hit” is the verb.

4. It was blowing the boat over, so I was being driven even further by the waves that are too big. (p.46) [Compound-Complex, 2+1]
This is a compound-complex sentence because it has two independent clauses and one dependent clause.
The first independent clause is “It was blowing the boat over”. The pronoun "It" functions as the subject and "was blowing" is the verb. The coordinator between the two independent clauses is "so".
The second independent clause is “I was being driven even further by the waves”. The pronoun "I" functions as the subject and "was being driven" functions as the verb.
The dependent clause is “that are too big”. The subordinator "that" functions as the subject and "are" functions as the verb.

5. I put in new rigging and sails, sanded and repaired the blistered fiberglass hull, tried to repair a badly designed motor, gave up and replaced it – it seemed endless. (p.88)
I found that the last sentence “- it seemed endless” is hard to define whether it is a independent or dependent clause because the symbol "-" before the sentence confused me. I cannot tell that whether the symbol "-" is a coordinator or subordinator. If the symbol "-" is a coordinator, this sentence will become a compound sentence. If the symbol "-" is a subordinator, this sentence will become a complex sentence.