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Here is the sentence:

Total bed rest is not necessary, just rest for the injured part of the body.

I am trying to diagram this sentence but I don't know how "just rest for the injured part of the body" fits into the sentence. Does it modify a word somewhere in the sentence? What is the functionality of that part of the sentence?

2 Answers 2

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It looks like a parallel structure whose second clause is lacking a piece. Try to add a possibly omitted [what's required is] after the comma and the sentence will sound less rickety.

Total bed rest is not necessary, [what's required is] just rest for the injured part of the body.

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    Close. Actually it's two sentences: Total bed rest is not required, and Rest for the injured part of the body is required. Conjunction reduction deletes the verb phrase in the second one, leaving only the subject, which is linked with the subject of the first negative sentence as a comparison. The just is the comparison -- one is less than the other. Commented Feb 9, 2017 at 0:34
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The sentence breaks down as below. Note that rest is a noun in both parts of sentence:

Total bed rest (the subject for this clause) is not necessary, just rest (the subject for this clause) for the injured part of the body = One kind of rest is not needed, but another kind of rest is needed.

As two sentences, we would have: Total bed rest is not necessary. However, partial rest (for the injured part alone) is necessary.

Since rest is not used as a verb, the sentence is not suggesting that you just rest, to relax the injury.

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