SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Most simple sentences of more than one word consist of two nuclei: the subject and the predicate.
Usually the subject and predicate occur in that order in a statement.

SUBJECT PREDICATE
Computers can deal with different kinds of problems.
Digital technology in the telephone network is nothing new.
What is new is the transfer of speech digitally.

NOTE: Inversion
Look at the following sentences, and identify the subject.

1. Here is a brief description of some of the many high-level languages.

2. Among the basic machine tools are lathe, the shaper, the planer, and the milling machine. Auxiliary
to these are drilling and boring machines, grinders, saws, and various metal-forming machines.
3. The special-purpose automobiles are designed to perform a definite kind of work. To these belong
ambulances, fire, and garbage trucks, etc.
4. A satellite in circular orbit 35,800 km away from the earth will complete a revolution in 24 hours, as
does the earth below it.
5. So helpful is the machine that nearly all the city homes have one.

6. So rarely does a comet appear visible to the naked eye that when one does, it is considered a major
event.

7. A good source of a ready made "robot" stepper motor system is an old dot matrix computer printer. 
Not only does it contain several motors, but it also has in it the electronics to drive them which can
be interfaced to your control computer via the parallel port.
8. Had the employees followed the safety procedures properly, the accident could have been avoided.

9. Were the builders to finish their work to schedule, they would receive a bonus.
10. Should the tickets fail to arrive before the departure date, we would arrange to have duplicates
waiting at the airport.
11. Hardly had I finished writing my essay when the examiner announced the end of the exam.

12. On top of the aluminium-copper alloy is a layer of molten salt.

13. The closer an object is to another object, the greater is the gravity between the two objects.

14. Only when it has received this signal will the control unit start the wash program.
15. No less impressive than the invention of the laser was the development of the wheel.

16. Lilienfeld also filed identical patents in the United States in 1926 and 1928. However, Lilienfeld did
not publish any research articles about his devices nor did his patents cite any specific examples of a
working prototype.
PRACTICE

Identify the subject of the following sentences. Make a stroke (/) to separate the (extended)
subject from the predicative verb. Underline the core subject ONCE, and the predicative verb
TWICE.

1. A computer program called the compiler, which is unique for each computer, does this.

2. Although systems programs are a part of the software, the manufacturer of the machine usually
provides them.

3. Institutions either purchase these programs as packages or commission their own programmers to
write them to meet the specifications of the users.

4. Usually a single instruction written in a high-level language, when transformed into machine code,
results in several instructions.

5. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current flowing
through another pair of terminals.

6. The data switching exchange (DSE) controls the set up and clear down of data calls, and monitors
the connections and functions of the network.

7. The first commercially available radio and telephone system, known as improved mobile telephone
service was put into service in 1946.

8. The thermionic triode, a vacuum tube invented in 1907, enabled amplified radio technology and long-

distance telephony.

9. The first practically implemented device was a point-contact transistor invented in 1947 by

American physicists.

10. Because any slight increase in voltage beyond the breakdown point causes a large increase in
current, Zener diodes are often used as a kind of overspill to protect sensitive circuits from
fluctuations in the power supply.

11. Remember, not so long ago, when the telephone used to be a simple receiver connected by a wire
to the wall. And all you used your phone for was to make a phone call.

12. The first move towards a full range of interactive services aimed directly at the ordinary person was
the "Homelink" system.

13. The nonlinear behaviour of active components and their ability to control electron flows makes
amplification of weak signals possible and electronics is widely used in information processing,
telecommunications and signal processing.

14. The solution to this problem was cellular radio. Metropolitan areas were divided into cells of no more
than a few miles in diameter, each cell operating on a set of frequencies (send and receive) that
differed from the frequencies of the adjacent cells.
15. The systems were also designed to locate particular subscribers by paging them in each of the cells.
When the vehicle in which a paged subscriber was riding was located, the equipment assigned sets
of frequencies to it, and conversation could begin.

16. A teleconference or teleseminar is the live exchange and mass articulation of information among

several persons and machines remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system.

17. On transmission systems, these facilities are commonly called bulk-power substations; on or near
factories or mines, they are termed industrial substations; and where they supply residential and
commercial areas, distribution substations.

18. Some plants, totalling several million kilowatts of installed capacity, actually draw power from other
generating facilities during light system-loan periods to pump water from a river or lake into an
artificial reservoir at a point from which it can be drawn through a hydroelectric station when the
power system needs additional generation. Although such installations consume about 50% more
energy than they return to the power system, their use is justified because they can convert surplus
power during low-demand periods into prime power to serve system needs during peak-demand
intervals.

19. A call goes over the local PSTN network to the nearest gateway server, which digitizes the analog
voice signal, compresses it into IP packets, and moves it onto the Internet for transport to a gateway
at the receiving end. With its support for computer-to-telephone calls, telephone-to-computer calls
and telephone-to-telephone calls, Internet telephony represents a significant step - toward the
integration of voice and data networks.

20. A mobile phone is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link
while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a
connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public
switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular
network architecture, and, therefore, mobile telephones are often also called cellular
telephones or cell phones. In addition to telephony, 2000s-era mobile phones support a variety of
other services, such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless
communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, video games, and digital photography.
Mobile phones offering only those capabilities are known as feature phones; mobile phones which
offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.

21. Attenuation in modern optical cables is far less than in electrical copper cables, leading to long-haul
fiber connections with repeater distances of 70–150 kilometers (43–93 mi). The erbium-doped fiber
amplifier, which reduced the cost of long-distance fiber systems by reducing or eliminating optical-
electrical-optical repeaters, was co-developed by teams led by David N. Payneof the University of
Southampton and Emmanuel Desurvire at Bell Labs in 1986.

22. The advantages of optical fiber communication with respect to copper wire systems are:
 Broad bandwidth: A single optical fiber can carry over 3,000,000 full-duplex voice calls or 90,000 TV
channels.

 Immunity to electromagnetic interference: Light transmission through optical fibers is unaffected by

other electromagnetic radiation nearby. The optical fiber is electrically non-conductive, so it does not
act as an antenna to pick up electromagnetic signals. Information traveling inside the optical fiber is
immune to electromagnetic interference, even electromagnetic pulses generated by nuclear devices.

 Low attenuation loss over long distances: Attenuation loss can be as low as 0.2 dB/km in optical
fiber cables, allowing transmission over long distances without the need for repeaters.

 Electrical insulator: Optical fibers do not conduct electricity, preventing problems with ground

loops and conduction of lightning. Optical fibers can be strung on poles alongside high voltage
power cables.

 Material cost and theft prevention: Conventional cable systems use large amounts of copper. Global
copper prices experienced a boom in the 2000s, and copper has been a target of metal theft.

 Security of information passed down the cable: Copper can be tapped with very little chance of
detection.

23. An optical fiber is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide (nonconducting waveguide) that transmits light

along its axis, by the process of total internal reflection. The fiber consists of a core surrounded by
a cladding layer, both of which are made of dielectric materials. To confine the optical signal in the
core, the refractive index of the core must be greater than that of the cladding. The boundary
between the core and cladding may either be abrupt, in step-index fiber, or gradual, in graded-index
fiber.

24. Attenuation in fiber optics, also known as transmission loss, is the reduction in intensity of the light
beam (or signal) as it travels through the transmission medium. Attenuation coefficients in fiber
optics usually use units of dB/km through the medium due to the relatively high quality of
transparency of modern optical transmission media. The medium is usually a fiber of silica glass that
confines the incident light beam to the inside. Attenuation is an important factor limiting the
transmission of a digital signal across large distances. Thus, much research has gone into both
limiting the attenuation and maximizing the amplification of the optical signal. Empirical research has
shown that attenuation in optical fiber is caused primarily by both scattering and absorption. Single-
mode optical fibers can be made with extremely low loss.