Other Sentence Structure - GED Language Arts (RLA)

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Adapted from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, III.ii.82-117 (1599)

\[This is a speech by Mark Antony.\]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-

For Brutus is an honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable men-

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me;

But Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal \[a public festival\]

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

And sure he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause;

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?

O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

What is the function of the underlined expression, "Friends, Romans, countrymen"?

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Answer

Notice several things in this question. First, we have three classes of people (or three names for one class): "friends," "Romans," and "countrymen." Furthermore, the last of these are separated from the main clause by a comma. You can find the main clause by looking for the part of the sentence that can "stand on its own." That portion is: "Lend me your ears." This is an imperative statement. It is a command by Mark Antony and is the main clause. The list of people is separated from this by a comma because they are three nouns of direct address. They are the people whom he is addressing. The context provided by the sentence and its grammar—without the further context of the play—is all that is necessary to figure this out.

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