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In the following sentence:

Our method cannot achieve 100 percent accuracy compared to the DART method due to the imprecise modeling.

This sentence appears to have the format of [subject][verb][object]compared to[subject][verb][object].

Is "compared to" a verb in this sentence?

Jasper
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william007
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3 Answers3

6

Compared is the past participle of compare and "compared to the DART method" is a participial phrase. Participial phrases function as adjectives; in your sentence, it modifies our method.

apaderno
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  • Thank you kiamlaluno for your precise answer. I thought "compared" looked like an adjective but I consulted two dictionaries and read that compare is a noun. I have to study grammar more! – Mari-Lou A Jun 14 '13 at 07:11
  • Compare is both noun and verb; as verb, its past participle is used as adjective. – apaderno Jun 14 '13 at 07:14
  • Yes, I meant to say: noun and verb, but I did not see any references to its use as an adjective. I now understand the mechanism behind the OP's sentence, so many thanks for explaining it so well. – Mari-Lou A Jun 14 '13 at 07:17
  • I'm not sure how helpful all this "naming of the parts" actually is. Unless he's disabused, OP will still assume the DART method due to the imprecise modelling is "[subject][verb][object]". At this level of analysis I'd just say everything after the main verb (achieve) is the "object". – FumbleFingers Jun 14 '13 at 21:58
  • +1 for recognizing the participial phrase, but it ends on DART method. The prepositional phrase on due to is something else: it is not the the comparison, much less the DART method, but the failure to achieve 100% accuracy which is attributable to the imprecise modeling. – StoneyB on hiatus Jun 16 '13 at 22:13
  • @StoneyB Right: I have been too much enthusiastic. "Compared to the DART method" is the participial phrase, which could be moved at the begin of the sentence: "Compared to the DART method, our method cannot achieve 100 percent accuracy due to the imprecise modeling." – apaderno Jun 17 '13 at 01:04
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How you analyze this depends on which grammatical sect you adhere to, but adopting your very traditional terms the core sentence is

[Subject Our method] [Verb cannot achieve] [Direct Object 100% accuracy]

The 'Verb' can be further analyzed as
[Finite modal can] [Negator not] [Infinitive complement achieve]

What's left are two adjuncts, pieces which modify or qualify the core meaning:

[Participial phrase compared to the DART method]
This doesn't really belong anywhere in this sentence—you're not performing a comparison but stating an absolute (albeit vague) value—but you may understand it as a Sentence Adjunct modifier on the entire sentence, something which puts the sentence in context.

[Prepositional phrase due to the imprecise modeling]
Due to is best understood as a compound preposition taking the imprecise modeling as its object. This, too, may be understood as a Sentence Adjunct; it explains why your method cannot achieve 100% accuracy.

Because they are sentence adjuncts, these two phrases can fall at lots of ▼ places in the sentence, though the fact that there are two of them imposes some constraints.

▼ [Subject] ▼ [Finite modal can] [Negator not] ▼ [Infinitive complement achieve] [Direct Object 100% accuracy] ▼

Compared to the DART method, our method cannot achieve 100 percent accuracy due to the imprecise modeling.
Due to the imprecise modeling, our method cannot achieve 100 percent accuracy, compared to the DART method.
Our method, compared to the DART method, cannot, due to the imprecise modeling, achieve 100 percent accuracy.
Compared to the DART method, our method, due to the imprecise modeling, cannot achieve 100 percent accuracy.

They're all pretty awful, frankly.

StoneyB on hiatus
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  • why is it better to consider "due to" as a compound preposition? I consider "due" as another so-called past participle, making "due to the imprecise modeling" a participial phrase with the same structure as "compared to the DART model" -- participles modified by adjunct prepositional phrases. – Gary Botnovcan Nov 19 '15 at 19:56
  • @GaryBotnovcan due is derived from a French participle, but it is not a participle of any English verb. Perhaps you mean "adjective"? I'd accept that as an alternative analysis. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 19 '15 at 20:06
  • No, I meant participle. I simply see it as a defective verb that only has this participle form. From the same origin, we also have the verb "to debit", but the participle "debited" doesn't carry quite the same meaning. In a structure like "the deference that is due his status", I see something that resembles a direct object and something that resembles the passive voice construction. – Gary Botnovcan Nov 19 '15 at 20:17
  • @GaryBotnovcan Frankly, that looks like the etymological fallacy to me. What I see is at most an historical deverbal; where you see a passive I see a copular predication. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 19 '15 at 20:37
  • Well, @StoneyB, rather than extending the discussion of this tangent here, I invite you to respond to my question on ELU. I've posted my own answer, in more detail than a comment would allow. Hopefully I can encourage you to do the same. – Gary Botnovcan Nov 21 '15 at 01:17
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A cleaner example would be "Our method looks bad compared to the DART method." I would model this as an adverbial clause having an omitted "when". That is "Our method looks bad when compared to the DART method."

The example sentence is terrible because comparing their method to the DART method can't possibly affect the accuracy. They really mean "Unlike the DART method, our method doesn't achieve 100% accuracy."

Greg Hullender
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