Syntactic analysis of clause in Franz Kafka's Novel 'The Metamorphosis'

Clause is not only can be divided into dependent and independent clause, but it also can be classified into three types; noun clause, adjective clause, and adverb clause. It is important to understand the structure and function of clause in order to get better understanding in grammar. Franz Kafka’s novel, The Metamorphosis has unique writing style and his writing style is called Kafkaesque. This study describes the category and the syntactic pattern of clauses in a novel entitled The Metamorphosis (1915) written by Franz Kafka. The problem of this study is based on two questions: what types of clause are found in the novel and what are the syntactic patterns of each clause type in the novel. This study is supported by theory from Kim (2008) and Brinton (2000) to answer the questions. The theory is about syntax, part of speech, grammatical function, and tree diagram. The theory becomes the tool for the writer to classify the type of clause and to analyse the syntactic patterns of clause. The qualitative research and descriptive method are used for this concern. The data are taken from a novel titled The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915). The steps of collecting data are: 1) The writer read The Metamorphosis novel. 2) The writer marked the clause found in the novel. The steps of data analysis included: 1) Organizing the clause. 2) Grouping the clause into each types and analysing one by one. 3) Analysing the pattern of each type of clause and sentence and drawing tree diagram. 4) Making conclusion from the analysis of the data. All type of clauses are found in the novel and they have different functions in the sentence. The writer finds and analyses 31 clauses in the novel which is classified into 12 noun clauses, 8 adjective clauses, 10 adverbial clauses, and 1 sentence with clause combination. It is found that noun clause can fill some positions in the sentence, those are subject, object, direct object after indirect object, subject complement, subject complement, and object complement. Adjective clause acts as post-modifier of noun or noun phrase. Adverb clause has function as adverbial in the sentence