In the following sentences underscore all the connectives--copulative
verbs, prepositions, relative pronouns, co-ordinate and subordinate
conjunctions.
"There was a bird's egg once, picked up by chance upon the ground, and
those who found it bore it home and placed it under a barn-yard fowl.
And in time the chick bred out, and those who had found it chained it by
the leg to a log lest it should stray and be lost. And by and by they
gathered round it, and speculated as to what the bird might be.
One said, "It is surely a waterfowl, a duck, or it may be a goose; if we
took it to the water it would swim and gabble." But another said, "It
has no webs to its feet; it is a barn-yard fowl; if you should let it
loose it will scratch and cackle with the others on the dungheap." But a
third speculated, "Look now at its curved beak; no doubt it is a parrot,
and can crack nuts."
But a fourth said, "No, but look at its wings; perhaps it is a bird of
great flight." But several cried, "Nonsense! No one has ever seen it
fly! Why should it fly? Can you suppose that a thing can do a thing
which no one has ever seen it do?" And the bird, with its leg chained
close to the log, preened its wings.
So they say about it, speculating and discussing it: and one said this,
and another that.
And all the while, as they talked, the bird sat motionless, "Suppose we
let the creature loose to see what it will do?"--and the bird shivered.
But the others cried, "It is too valuable; it might get lost. If it were
to try to fly it might fall down and break its neck." And the bird, with
its foot chained to the log, sat looking upward into the clear sky; the
sky, in which it had never been--for the bird--the bird, knew what it
would do--because it was an eaglet!"
--_Olive Schreiner_.