Background of the Study

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BAB I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Nowadays, there are many novels written variously such as horror, drama, comedy and mystery. The novels are also written in difference styles of writing which are adjusted to the readers’ interest. The differences of writing styles can be seen through the way of pouring out the author’s mind and feeling. In addition, the style can be seen through the dictions that used in every sentence in the novels. These styles are purposed by made to attract the readers and to help them easily to figure out the ideas contained in every sentence. Sidney Sheldon is very popular for his best selling novels. One of his interesting and thriller novels is ‘If Tomorrow Comes. If Tomorrow Comes is the fourth novel of Sheldon which was published in 1985. This novel could grasp the top best seller in America. The setting of the novel is in 1980s which discusses about the story of a perfect woman, Tracy Whitney. She is beautiful and undergoing a good career in popular bank. She also has a very handsome and rich fiancé. Simply, she has a perfect life. Yet the condition immediately changes as her mother dies. She is betrayed and accused for doing crime, which she actually never commits. She has no defender to set her free from the accusation. She is put into jail and finally left by her fiancé, whom she really loves very much. Furthermore, when she leaves the prison for freedom, she plans to revenge and succeeds with the help of her friend. The story flows smoothly and nicely. Sheldon really helps the readers to figure out what Sheldon expects the readers to. She uses every sentence well and attractively. Sheldon also arranges a very detail of setting and place along the plot Universitas Sumatera Utara 2 which takes place in several countries. This technique makes the readers fell as if they are involved in the place too. In a novel, there are many sentences which can be discussed or used to be the object of a research. The research can be done on the structure of sentences and the meaning as well. One of them is by discussing about the intransitive sentences in the novel. The kinds of sentence can be easily found in a novel as they are intended to explain several situations and action which are done by the subjects in the novel. Intransitive sentence cannot be changed into passive sentence as it has no object. Based on the theory Downing and Locke, the transitive sentence classifies in to four intransitive patterns, namely: Subject – Predicate, Subject – Predicate – Locative Complement, Subject – Predicate – Adjunct, And Subject – Predicate – Complement of the Subject . But the simplest pattern is Subject and Predicate, Veit 1986:26 in his book Discovering English Grammar gives some example of intransitive sentences as: the monkey wheezed. This intransitive sentence contains subject the monkey and predicate wheezed. Another example of intransitive sentence can be seen in the sentence: she runs. Beside Veit. Downing and Locke 1992:85 give some examples which consist of more complete patterns as follows: - We walked home Subject-Predicate-Locative Complement - Her latest novel has become a best-seller. Subject-Predicate-Complement of the subject Based on the explanation above, the writer finally comes to conclusion that intransitive sentence have several patterns. So, many things can explain in the intransitive sentence, and that is why the writer is interested in analyzing the intransitive sentence found in Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes. So, the writer Universitas Sumatera Utara 3 determines to do further research about this case in order to enrich both the writer and readers knowledge.

1.2 Problem of the Study