General Writing and Grammar Help/parsing


Dear Ted,

Would you please help me parse the following sentence:
"It seems to me that I know you."

What does the prepositional phrase "to me" modify?

Thank you very much.



Dear Rich:

There are rare occurrences in which a word or phrase in a sentence does not modify anything in the sentence OR it modifies the entire sentence.  They can be treated like parenthetical expressions that are not necessary to the sentence at all. Your example of "to me" is such an expression.  Some others that are in this category are the following:  

I think or I believe -- parenthetically interjected into a sentence
As to my belief
As to my thinking
From my point of view

And many others . . . . They are useless.  They detract from the sentence itself.  Most of the time they make reference to the first person [I or we or my or me  . . . .] and make the sentence sound egocentric.  They are "outside" the sentence and have no grammatical relationship to anything IN the sentence.

In your example, the actual sentence should be "I think that I know you."

Here is a website for more extensive information:

What does the prepositional phrase "to me" modify?


General Writing and Grammar Help

All Answers

Answers by Expert:

Ask Experts


Ted Nesbitt






©2016 All rights reserved.