MY LATE SON

The point, of course, is that if you could push yourself down, right near the end, and with little or no pain, then you would do it in order to feel yourself come back again. I was never your favorite. I never was your favorite son. My brother was your favorite. Or it was my other brother--my half brother from my mother's other marriage--that's your favorite.

The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott. An excellent book. A perfect small book.

This is its first sentence:

"The Cullens were Irish; but it was in France that I met them and was able to form an impression of their love and their trouble."

Because of the semi-colon, I'm thinking that that's one big sentence--even though the semi-colon joins two independent clauses. By using the semi-colon, Wescott is saying, "This is one big sentence."

The subject of the first independent clause is "The Cullens.

"the" is a determiner. It is an article. The definite article.

"Cullens" is a plural proper noun.

The main verb of the first independent clause is "were." It is plural and in the past tense. Tense does not mean time, but we can assume from "were" that we are talking about the past.

"Irish" is an adjective. It is a subject complement that modifies "The Cullens." It tells us something about them.

After that independent clause, we have a semi-colon. Following the semi-colon is "but," which, in this case, looks not to be a coordinating conjunction but a conjunctive adverb--sort of similar to a word like "however."

"it was in France that I met them" is something special. This might be what's called a cleft sentence in that I could move things around and change it to "I met them in France." By having a cleft sentence, Wescott puts emphasis on "France," since that word appears in the middle.

"it" would ordinarily be called a pronoun, but it doesn't look to be referring to an antecedent here. I don't know what this "it" is. It might be expletive it. It's not a pronoun--that much must be true.

Since "it" might be an expletive, I'm not sure if it's the true subject. Or it is the subject but not a strong one. (In a more direct sentence "I" would be the subject."

"it" is the subject.

"was" is the main verb. It is the "to be" verb in the past tense.

"in France" is a prepositional phrase.

"in" is the preposition.

"France" is the object of the preposition. This prepositional phrase acts as an adverb of time and place, and it also serves as, I think, the subject complement to "it." But who knows.

"that I met them and was able to form an impression of their love and their trouble" is an adjective clause, which, I think modifies "France." But this is tough since it seems to act adverbally.

"that" is the marker of the relative clause. If I were to diagram it, I think it'd be an expletive, too. That is, it would be on one of those pedestals with the dotted line bases.

"I" is the subject of the adjective clause. It is a first-person pronoun. It has no antecedent. We do not know who "I" is.

"met" is the first verb of the compound main verb that's in the adjective clause. It is a transitive verb and requires a direct object, which is "them."

"them" is a third-person plural pronoun that has to be in an object position of the sentence. It is the direct object.  It has an antecedent, which is "The Cullens."

"and" is a conjunction that joins the two verbs in the main verb--the verb phrase--of the relative clause.

"was" is the other verb in the verb phrase. It is the past tense of "to be." Lots of the "to be" verb so far in this first big sentence.

"able" is an adjective. It is the subject complement of "I." What the narrator is saying is that he has some sort of ability.

"to form an impression of their love and their trouble" is an infinitive clause that modifies "able," so that means that it's an infinitive clause that acts as an adverb.

I wish I were your favorite son, but I am not.

"to form" is the infinitive. It looks like a verb, but it's a verbal. It carries no tense. That's why it's part of a phrase and not a clause.

"an impression" is the direct object of the transitive infinitive verb "to form." Something is forming.

"an" is a determiner. It is an article.

"impression" is a noun.

"of their love and their trouble" is a prepositional phrase with a compound object.

"of" is the preposition.

"their love and their trouble" is the object of the preposition.

"their" is a determiner. It has pronoun qualities to it, too, even though it can't take the place of a noun. Instead, it modifies a noun--all the while pointing back to an antecedent. The antecedent is "The Cullens." Everything in this sentence points back to the Cullens.

"love" is a noun. It is the worst noun in the dictionary. It is an abstract noun that causes so much concrete pain, anguish, shame, and embarrassment. The world would be better if it did not exist as a noun.

"and" is a conjunction that joins the two objects of the preposition. It has a bad attitude about it.

"their" is another determiner. It acts as an adjective in that it modifies "trouble."

"trouble" is also a noun--and it's a far better and more honest noun than "love," which is the worst noun--the worst piece of technology ever to come out of the rotten teeth and stinking tongues of humans.