Which sentence below is a compound-complex sentence?
a. my friend and i went to the beach today.
c. my friend and i went to the beach today,
so we went surfing in the ocean
b. my friend and i went to the beach today,
but we were not able to go surfing
because it started to rain.
d. although my friend and i went to the
beach today, we were not able to go
surfing.

breathe, think and analyze the situation, pull them aside and talk to them about it

the sentence does not violate the phrase structure second rule (introduced by noam chomsky) because noun phrases consist of a determiner such as a, the or every, and a noun. in the sentence, the noun phrase the cake includes a determiner (the) and a noun (cake).

on the other hand, the first rule indicates that a sentence encloses a noun phrase, followed by a verb phrase. the example sentence can be analysed as follows:

john (n) + ate (v) + the (det) + cake (n).