--They drove away. --He spends like a millionaire. --He drinks like a fish. --The farmer's boy had just milked. --Do you understand? --The cavalry spurred across the field at full speed. --Did you see? --The child did not hear.
(Sentences with numerous modifiers and of increased difficulty)
--The poor boy came home that night, all tired out, covered with mud from head to foot, with his coat torn and with a black and blue lump on his forehead. --Ethel hurried home as fast as possible. --We heard the clatter of horse's hoofs on the pavement. --And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm. --The beautiful child with the black hair is here on the lawn. --And yet through the gloom and the night The fate of a nation was riding that night. --The woman walked along in front of me with the child in her arms. --The girl's voice sounded distinctly above all the others. --To-morrow I shall come to town on foot. --He spent the summer every year with his parents in their old home on the mountain side. --That evening the old house was more lonely than ever. --They are very busy this morning. --I never did such a thing in my life! --Every now and then a group of people hurriedly crossed the street. --The doctor whispered something into the Mayor's ear. --Just then some one knocked at the door. --Here I am back again at my work. --Mary had a little lamb With fleece as white as snow.
THE ORDER OF ELEMENTS IN THE SENTENCE: PERMUTATIONS
The English (the Italian) language tends to follow the direct order in prose, inversion being very rare.
The direct order consists in placing: first, the subject, then the predicate, then the objects, direct and indirect; then the modifiers follow according to the importance they derive from the meaning of the sentence.
These ideas are after all so simple and clear that the child rarely has any difficulty in understanding them. Nevertheless, it is much easier to give the child a vivid impression of them by the permutation of parts than by explanation. This permutation is made very convenient by the sentences being printed in sections which may be moved about and combined at will. Just as the sequence of the various parts of speech was made clear by transposing the parts, here the same result can be accomplished by transposing the sections of the printed slip. Example: