can anyone tell me which of the following is a complex sentence???
1.But the journey of the coal driver is a reminder that often beneath the juggernaut of the Chinese economy are three guys squeezed into the cab of a filthy truck hauling coal, a trip multiplied daily by untold thousands.
2. If sometimes tedious: a few minutes later, he cranked up the engine and lurched forward another 30 feet.
3. He estimated that the 250-mile trip to A point would take five days, including at least two at the inspection station in B point before he could cross the river and head west.
4.For a poor place, the toll collected there is like a tithe for every pebble of black gold leaving its borders: the fee for a ton of coal is about $7.
5.Then he switched off the engine and waited for the next flurry of driving, maybe another 20minutes off.
One device to use in identifying complex sentences is finding that "signal word" -- could be a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun or the word "that" -- not all of those work, but most of them do.
Then you need to isolate all the clauses and phrases in each sentence -- and identify them. I'll do the last one below:
Then he switched off the engine and waited<~~subject (he) and compound verb (switched, waited) make up the bulk of one independent clause; so far it's a simple sentence for the next flurry<~~prepositional phrase of driving<~~prepositional phrase, maybe another 20 minutes off<~~seems like an adverbial phrase of some kind, telling when.
OK -- so I found only one clause (each clause has to have a subject and verb, remember) so it has to be a simple sentence.
Try identifying the parts of the other four sentences, and let me know what you think.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/clauses.htm
Remember that a complex sentence must have one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/sntstrct.html
Scroll down for the explanation of complex sentence.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_clause.html
Scroll down and read about dependent marker words <~~the key to identifying dependent clauses.
=)
To identify a complex sentence, you can look for signal words like subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, or the word "that." Additionally, you need to identify the clauses and phrases in each sentence.
1. "But the journey of the coal driver is a reminder that often beneath the juggernaut of the Chinese economy are three guys squeezed into the cab of a filthy truck hauling coal, a trip multiplied daily by untold thousands."
In this sentence, "that often beneath the juggernaut of the Chinese economy are three guys squeezed into the cab of a filthy truck hauling coal" is a dependent clause introduced by the subordinating conjunction "that." The main clause is "the journey of the coal driver is a reminder." Therefore, this is a complex sentence.
2. "If sometimes tedious: a few minutes later, he cranked up the engine and lurched forward another 30 feet."
In this sentence, there is no subordinating conjunction or dependent marker word. It consists of two independent clauses, "If sometimes tedious" and "a few minutes later, he cranked up the engine and lurched forward another 30 feet." Therefore, this is not a complex sentence.
3. "He estimated that the 250-mile trip to A point would take five days, including at least two at the inspection station in B point before he could cross the river and head west."
In this sentence, "that the 250-mile trip to A point would take five days, including at least two at the inspection station in B point before he could cross the river and head west" is a dependent clause introduced by the word "that." The main clause is "He estimated." Thus, this is a complex sentence.
4. "For a poor place, the toll collected there is like a tithe for every pebble of black gold leaving its borders: the fee for a ton of coal is about $7."
In this sentence, there is no dependent clause. Both "For a poor place, the toll collected there is like a tithe for every pebble of black gold leaving its borders" and "the fee for a ton of coal is about $7" are independent clauses. Therefore, this is not a complex sentence.
5. "Then he switched off the engine and waited for the next flurry of driving, maybe another 20 minutes off."
In this sentence, there are no dependent clauses. "Then he switched off the engine and waited" is the only independent clause. Therefore, this is not a complex sentence.