Download 7 Diagramming Sentences and more Lecture notes English in PDF only on Docsity!
7 Diagramming Sentences
I
n the late nineteenth century, Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg de veloped a method for diagramming sentences in the belief that students would understand sentence structure better if they could picture it. Many students do indeed find the diagrams helpful in seeing the rela tionships among sentence elements. (Linguists today, though, prefer another type of diagram that looks like a pyramid.) Here are some sug gestions for using the Reed-Kellogg diagrams in your classes:
- Use diagrams as you go along teaching grammar so that they become your regular method for illustrating the basic parts of a sentence. If you try to teach diagramming as an added gram mar lesson after students have already worked at becoming familiar with the concepts, many of them may find it tedious.
- Sentence diagramming will test your sense of your students' different learning styles. For students who are visual organiz ers, the diagrams can be very satisfying, an exercise in problem analysis that they enjoy enormously. For others, the spatial ar rangement just doesn't help. You will need to find out which students react in which ways and adjust your assignments and exercises accordingly.
- Remember that sentence diagramming (like grammar study in general) is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Teach what will help students make sense of how actual sentences are or ganized. Sometimes the diagram of just the sentence core- the head of the subject phrase and the head of the main verb phrase-will help students see more clearly.
- Sentence diagrams can make good collaborative projects. Stu dents can argue about them, make posters of the patterns, or try their hand (if they like diagrams) at diagramming famous sentences from the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and so forth,
- The horizontal line of the diagram has been compared to a spine, with the verb and the whole predicate as the backbone and the subject as the head, Not a perfect metaphor, but one your stu dents might like to work with,
- The main line of the diagram shows the head noun of the subject di vided from the predicate by a vertical line running through the hori zontal. After the verb, a shorter vertical line divides the verb from the head noun of the direct object.
76 Chapter 7
John I ..~ Ellen^ I^ needs^ I help_ I
- A diagonal line, leaning toward the noun it refers to, precedes the subject or object complement.
I : grew ~ sleepy (^) They I made I it ~ easy I
- Modifiers appear on diagonal lines below the appropriate words on the main line. Qualifiers are placed on diagonal1ines attached to the modifiers.
~~ard
worked
~y"
- A preposition is placed on a diagonal line beneath the word it modi fies. The object of the preposition appears on a horizontal line attached to the line of the preposition.
on El Paso schedule
- An indirect object is set up like a prepositional phrase because its
meaning can be expressed by the prepositions to or for, although the
preposition is not written in unless it appears in the sentence. The indi rect object is placed below the verb.
78 Chapter 7
8. An infinitive phrase-with to followed by a verb with its modifiers
and complements-looks similar to a prepositional phrase.
Jennifer paper to
~
- Phrases and clauses that occupy the subject or complement slot are written on pedestals above the main clause.
out of To to
shape him
when
Diagramming Sentences^79
- The two clauses of a compound sentence are connected with a dashed line from verb to verb, with the conjunction on a solid line be tween the two.
tidy
'butc.=..:..,
yard • IS^ II^ \ mess \ the
This description of diagramming, from KaHn and Funk's Under
standing English Grammar, includes slight variations from the original
Reed and Kellogg diagrams. KaHn and Funk's text also includes dia grams of many other, and more complex, grammatical structures.
An Overview of Linguistic Grammar^81
Twas brillig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All of the nonsense words are form-class words; their form and their position, of course, help give them meaning. But without the structure words, "Jabberwocky" would have no meaning at all:
brillig slithy toves gyre gimble wabe
Notice, too, that when you read these words without the clues of the structure words, the sentences (if you can call them that) lose their rhythm. Most structure words are unstressed: they have the lowest vol ume and pitch, providing valleys between the peaks of loudness that fall on the stressed syllables of form-class words. As native speakers, or experienced second language speakers, we don't have to pay much attention to the structure classes, but we certainly miss them when they're gone. And they are no doubt the most difficult for non-native speakers to master.
The Form Classes
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs get the label "form classes" be cause they have inflectional forms (such as verbs with tense endings) and derivational forms (those with prefixes and some suffixes) that dif ferentiate them from one another as well as from the other classes. These prefixes and suffixes illustrate the internal "rules" of grammar that na tive speakers begin learning in their earliest stages of speech, rules they follow automatically. (Young children who say "goed" and "sheeps" are demonstrating their knowledge of the inflectional rules.) Bringing these rules into the classroom will help students develop a conscious under standing of the parts of speech. What follows is a brief description of the inflectional and derivational affixes.
Inflectional Suffixes
Nouns: the plural -s and the possessive -so Not every noun has a plural
form (e.g., chaos, tennis, happiness) and many nouns are rarely, if ever,
used with the possessive -s; however, any word that can be made plu
ral and/ or possessive is, by definition, a noun.
Verbs: -s, -ed, -en, and -ing. With perhaps two exceptions (rumor
and beware come to mind), all verbs have these four inflections. The -ed
inflection forms the past tense; the -s form is the present-tense form used
with a third-person singular subject. As main verbs, the -ing and -en
82 Chapter 8
endings require particular auxiliaries: a form of have takes the -en form
of the verb (has eaten); a form of be takes the -ing (am eating). A "regu
lar" verb is one in which both the -ed and -en inflections are -ed (I walked
to the store; I have walked to the store). We also have about 150 verbs with
"irregular" -en and -ed endings, most of which are among our most com
mon verbs, including be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, get, put,
and beat. To figure out the -ed (past) ending, simply use the form that
would work with Yesterday: Yesterday we made cookies; Yesterday Joe took
me to the movies. To figure out the -en form, simply use a form of have as
an auxiliary: We have made cookies already; Joe has taken me to the movies
many times. Other than the irregular verbs, however, all verbs have these
five forms: walk, walks, walked, walked, walking. In terms of form, the verb
is the most systematic word class in English.
Adjectives: the comparative degree, -er, and the superlative, -est.
In the case of adjectives of more than one syllable, the words more and
most generally substitute for -er and -est. When Lewis Carroll has Alice
saying "curio user and curiouser," he does so for comic effect. The ad jective inflections, however, are not nearly as systematic as those for verbs; that is, many adjectives do not have degrees. We do not, for ex ample, say "more main" or "mainest." Others in this category that do
not take inflections include principal, former, mere, potential, atomic, and
such technical adjectives as sulfuric.
Adverbs: As with adjectives, some adverbs have inflections for the
comparative -er (or more) and the superlative -est (most) degrees. Among
those that can be inflected are adverbs that are identical to adjectives:
hard, fast, early, late, high, low, and deep. Another group commonly in
flected are the adverbs of manner, produced when -ly is added to the
adjective: quickly, slowly, correctly, helpfully, beautifully, badly. There are
also a great many common adverbs denoting time, location, direction,
and such that have no inflections: now, then, here, there, everywhere, in
side, seldom, never, etc.
Derivational Affixes
All of the other suffixes (other than the eight inflectional ones just dis cussed) and all of the prefixes are called "derivational"-that is, they enable us to derive a new part of speech or a new meaning. (The inflec tional suffixes do not change the word class.) Even in the absence of
semantic meaning, it's safe to assume that the -yon sIithy in
"Jabberwocky" turned a noun (slith) into an adjective (compare healthy
and greasy and funny). Following are some of the most common deriva
tional affixes that help us recognize and use the form classes:
84 Chapter 8
sciously. In many instances, we use the indefinite article at the first mention of a noun and the definite article in subsequent mentions: There's i1 big black dog on the porch. I wonder who the dog belongs to. The determiner can certainly contribute to the cohesion of a text. For example, as the first word in the noun phrase, and thus frequently the first word of the sentence and even of the paragraph, the determiner can bridge ideas in a variety of ways, making subtle but important dis tinctions and helping readers move from one idea to the next: This attempt to solve the problem proved futile. attempt to solve the problem ... Their attempt ... One such attempt ... All their attempts ... Those attempts ... Helping students recognize determiners as a special kind of noun sig naler-that is, in a class apart from the traditional "adjective" label will help them understand not only the structure of the noun phrase but the structure of the sentence patterns as well.
Auxiliaries. Verbs are so systematic that they can almost be de
fined on the basis of form alone. But another criterion we can use in dis cussing and understanding verbs is their affinity with auxiliaries: a verb is a word that can be Signaled by auxiliaries, such as can and must and should. Our two most common auxiliaries, be and have, also meet the criteria for verbs; in fact, they are among our most common verbs. In other words, they belong to both classes: verb and auxiliary. The auxil iary do (which we use for negative sentences and questions when there is no other auxiliary) also fits into both classes. Do is a verb in the sen tence He does that very well; it is an auxiliary (and swim is the verb) in the negative sentence He does not swim well and the question Does he swim well? In traditional grammar, all of the auxiliaries are considered verbs. But when you consider the criterion of form, it's obvious that modal auxiliaries such as can and must and should do not belong to the verb class: they have no -s and -ing forms, and they do not take other auxil iaries.
Qualifiers: Qualifiers are those words that qualify or intensify ad
jectives and adverbs, such as very, our most common qualifier. Others
An Overview of Linguistic Grammar^85
are too, quite, rather, fairly, and auifully. (Note: In traditional grammar,
the qualifiers are included in the definition of an adverb.) Because some
adverbs of manner, the -ly adverbs, are themselves used to qualify ad
jectives (especially difficult, absolutely true, dangerously close), the quali
fier class, like that of the determiners, is not a closed class. It can be thought of as both a word class and a sentence function.
Definitions of the Form Classes Here, then, are definitions of the four form classes based on form, as well as on the structure words that signal them and their function in the sentence: Noun: A word that may be made plural and! or possessive; it may have a derivational suffix, such as -tion, -ment, or -ness; it fills the headword position in the noun phrase; it is generally signaled by a determiner. Verb: A word that can have both an -s and an -ing ending; it can be signaled by auxiliaries and modified by adverbials. Adjective: A word that may take -er and -est (or more and most). It may have a derivational suffix, such as -OilS, -ful, -ish, and -ive. It can be marked by a qualifier, such as very. It functions as a modi fier of nouns; it can fill the role of subject complement and object complement... Adverb: Like the adjective, it may also take an -er and -est ending (or more and most); it often ends in -ly. It adds such information as time, place, and manner. It can be signaled by qualifiers, such as very. It can occupy many different positions in the sentence.
Sentence Constituents
We can use form to help identify sentence constituents, just as we did with words. We begin by considering the two basic units of the sentence,
the noun phrase and the verb phrase. Here is the formula for the two main
sentence constituents, as modern linguists generally describe them: S=NP + VP The boy slept in the tent = The boy + slept in the tent. These terms, of course, refer to forms. Using terms referring to func
tions, we would say that the two basic units of the sentence are the sub
ject and the predicate. We begin our discussion with the noun phrase
(NP), which has an easy-to-spot characteristic form. Then we look at the other basic sentence constituent, the verb phrase (VP).
An Overview of Linguistic Grammar^87
the students in our school participating in the 10K race Det NOUN prep phr participial phrase who were excused from class relative clause Most noun phrases will not have all of these modifiers, but all are certainly possible. And all of them can be compounded, or multiplied. In the case of the prenoun, or single-word modifiers, compounding is
especially common: the little old man; the beaut~ful, fluffy white cat. Those
modifiers can themselves have modifiers: the absolutely perfect birthday
present. And we've all seen the problem of proliferating nouns as modi
fiers: the faculty committee conference report-and, if there are errors in that
report, the faculty committee conference report errors!
All of these various forms of modifiers in the NP are functioning
as adject iva Is; in other words, they are functioning as adjectives func
tion. The NP formula clearly illustrates that many different forms can
function as noun modifiers, not just adjectives. In a phrase such as the
baseball player, rather than label baseball an adjective, as the traditional
grammarian might, we would look at both its form and its function:
baseball is a noun in form, an adjectival in function. The traditional defi
nition of adjective-a word that modifies a noun-is essentially a defi
nition of adjectival.
The NP itself fills many roles in the sentence, functions known as
nominals: subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, ob
ject complement, object of preposition, and appositive. Subject: The bird is singing. Direct object: He bought the bird in Florida. Indirect object: He gave the bird a bell to play with. Subject complement: She is a bird when it comes to eating. Object complement: She called her pet "Bird." Object of preposition: The cat is actually scared of the bird. Appositive: Janice, his bird, cheers up the whole apartment. Writers who understand the form and function of NPs will have a great deal of the sentence under controL We examine these roles in the de scription of sentence patterns. There are a number of ways to encourage students to use and un derstand their own linguistic expertise in the study of noun phrases. Determining where the subject NP ends and the predicate begins, for example, will not be a problem, even when the subject NP includes post headword modifiers:
88 Chapter 8
The students from our school participating in the race made us all proud. Students can easily find the line between NP and VP, between subject and predicate, by substituting a pronoun for the subject: They made us all proud. Even those non-native speakers who may have had only moderate ex perience with English will recognize that the personal pronoun stands in for the entire NP, not just the noun headword. Pointing out this gram mar rule will certainly be of value to the ESL speaker. The following pronoun test can be used to identify any nominal that fills an NP slot, not just noun phrases: verb phrases and clauses can also function as nominals: What you do with your money is none of my business. That is none of my business. I really enjoy running around the track every morning. I really enjoy it. There are many ways in which NP lessons can be used to help students with their writing. The students can be asked, for example, to find and evaluate the expanded NPs in their assigned readings, perhaps even distinguishing different writers on the basis of their NP styles. They can look for NPs in their own writing, or in that of their peers during group work, that could be enhanced with modifiers. Sometimes, of course, the opposite instruction may be more appropriate: Find a more precise noun, one that makes those added modifiers unnecessary. Once students have leamed how to identify noun phrases, they can learn more about the characteristics of some of the components of those phrases:
1. Movable Participles
Participles are the forms of the verb ending in -ing (the present
participle) and -ed or -en (the past participle) and used in verb phrases
(The baby is sleeping), as well as to modify nouns, as discussed here. The
posthead word slot in the Np, immediately after the noun, can be thought of as the home base for the participial phrase. (Single-word participles
will usually be in the preheadword position, before the noun: the sleep
ing baby. Qualified participles, too, will be in preheadword position,
often connected with a hyphen: the well-worn phrase.) When a
postheadword participial phrase in the subject NP is nonrestrictive that is, set off by commas-it can be moved: It can open or close the sentence:
90 Chapter 8
with one postnoun modifier, commonly a participle, following the head word. A tight, controlled modifier, it sends a message to the reader: "Pay attention! I constructed this sentence carefully." The abandoned Victorian house added a note of seedy gentility to the neighborhood, its paint peeling, its gingerbread scrollwork edg ing the eaves like lace. His nose constantly in a book, my brother has no interest in com petitive sports. These two examples of the absolute phrase offer a detail or point of fo cus to the idea stated in the main clause. Another kind of absolute ex plains a cause or condition: The snowstorm showing no signs of abating, school was cancelled for the third day in a row. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be in fringed. (Note that this rendering of the second amendment does not include
two commas that appear in the original: one following militia and one
following arms. Punctuation conventions have changed in the past two
centuries.)
As you can see from this short description, an understanding of the NP can provide the framework for a great deal of sentence grammar.
The Verb Phrase
The VP or verb phrase in the linguist's formula (S == NP + VP) is, of
course, the predicate. The form of the predicate will be determined to a great extent by the class of the verb: linking, intransitive, or transitive.
The one-word predicates in our earlier sample sentences (Dogs bark;
Felipe laughed) are obviously intransitive verbs because the intransitive
class is the only one in which we find verbs that require no complements in order to be grammaticaL The other classes require either adjectivals and/or nomina Is as complements. Like the noun phrase, the verb phrase too can be described as a
formula; for example, V + NP represents the predicate of the basic tran
sitive sentence, such as, Felipe bought a new car. The students have finished their homework.
The VP almost always includes a finite verb that shows whether
the VP is in the past or present tense. The finite verb in a VP can be iden
An Overview of Linguistic Grammar 91
tified in two ways: it is in either the past or present tense, and it appears at the front of the VP (or as the main verb itself if the verb phrase con sists of only one verb). Thus, in the previous examples, the finite verbs
are bought, in the past tense and the only verb, and the auxiliary have,
the present tense of the verb to have, at the front of the VP have finished.
Verb phrases that do not indicate tense are called nonfinite. The
VPs we saw as modifiers in the noun phrase, participles, are among these nonfinite verbs. The other two classes of nonfinite verbs are ger
unds, which end in -ing and function as nominals (as in Buying a car is
exciting), and infinitives, which are usually preceded by to (as in I want
to finish my homework soon). Participles, gerunds, and infinitives are
known as verbals. Verbals, standing by themselves, do not indicate past
or present time, so we call them non finite verbs. All VPs, finite and nonfinite, have in common the ability to be
modified by adverbials, which can take the form of single words, phrases,
or clauses. We should note that the traditional definition of adverb is (in
part) actually the definition of adverbial: a word that modifies a verb.
There are five different forms that function as adverbials, as modifiers of the verb:
- adverb (We walked quickly.)
- noun phrase (We went to the movies last night.)
- prepositional phrase (We went to the movies.)
- verb phrase (We walked to the store to buy a frozen pizza for dinner.)
- clause (We walked to the store because the car wouldn't start.) It is not only their variety of form that makes the adverbials such useful tools for the writer; it is also their movability. Adverbials can open
or close the sentence, depending on the writer's focus (Last night, we went
to the movies; We went to the movies last night). They can also appear in
the middle of the sentence, between the subject and the predicate, or between the verb and the complement, positions in which they are of
ten set off by commas-and call attention to themselves (All three of us,
because we studied hard, got A's for the course). Adverbials are versatile in
purpose as well, adding, as they do, information of time and place and manner, reason, and the like.
Sentence Patterns
The seven sentence patterns described here represent the bare bones of perhaps 95 percent or more of our sentences. We should note also that
a more accurate term would be verb phrase pattern; the seven categories
An Overview of Linguistic Grammar^92
Transitive Verbs
- Npl (^) V-trans Np2 (ADV) The students studied their history lesson. SUB DIRECT OBJECT
(The superscript numbers provide an almost infallible way of determin ing that the NP following the verb is a direct object; unlike the subject complement, the direct object has a referent different from that of the subject, so here the number is different. The traditional definition of the direct object-"receiver of the action"-is not always accurate.)
- Npl V-trans Np2 Np3 (ADV) The teacher gave the students a big assignment this morning. SUB INDIRECT OBI DIR OBI (The subgroup of transitive verbs that take indirect objects have a 1/ give"
like meaning: present, award, deliver, issue, provide, bequeath. The indirect
object is the recipient of the direct object. Note that all three NP slots have different referents.)
- NpI^ V-trans Np2^ ADJ (ADV) The teacher considers the students very capable. SUB DIROBJ OBJECT COMPLEMENT
- NpI (^) V-trans Npz^ Np2^ (ADV) The students elected Felipe class president yesterday. SUB DIROBJ OB}COMP (Other members of this subgroup of transitive verbs that can take an
object complement include find, make, and prefer. The relationship of
direct object to object complement is like the relationship of subject complements to subjects in the linking category: the direct object and object complement have the same referent. Note that in spite of having three NPs, this pattern is easily distinguished from pattern 5, in which all three NPs have different referents.) It's important to recognize that many verbs have variations in meaning that may put them into more than one of these patterns:
We grew tomatoes last summer in the garden. (transitive) I grew fat in the winter. (linking) The kittens grew fast. (intransitive)
Clearly, it's not only the verb that determines the sentence pattern; we must also consider the structures that fill the predicate slots.
94 Chapter 8
The Verb System of African American English
The sentence Mary be happy, which was discussed in Chapter 2, illus
trates one of the most noticeable differences between Standard English and African American English: the construction of verb strings. Both
systems use forms of have and be and do as auxiliaries, but they do so in
different ways. Following is a partial list of common AAE verb strings, along with the Standard English equivalent for each (Green)*:
- He eat. (present) I He is eating.
2. He be eating. (habitual) I He is usually eating.
- He been eating. (remote past) I He has been eating for a long time.
4. He been ate. (remote past) I He ate a long time ago.
5. He done ate. (completive) I He has already eaten.
- He been done ate. (remote past completive) I He finished eat ing a long time ago.
- He had done ate. (completive) I He has already eaten. We can recognize certain regular features of the system from this small sample:
- The auxiliary done appears in all the completive forms. Note that the adverb already or the verb finished is required to ex press the Standard English equivalent.
- The auxiliary been (pronounced "bin" and spoken with strong stress) carries the meaning of remote time. The Standard En glish equivalent requires "a long time" or "a long time ago" to make this remote past distinction.
- The habitual be, shown in the second example, includes the meaning of "usually" or "habitually," whereas in Standard English the adverb must be supplied. It should be obvious from this brief description that the verb forms of AAE, although different from those of Standard English, are produced by a highly systematized set of rules. This recognition should also rein force the important lesson discussed earlier: that all varieties of English are equally grammatical.
*This section on the verb system of African American English is adapted from Martha KoHn and Robert Funk's Understanding English Grammar, 6th ed. (New York: Longman, 2002), which is in turn adapted from Lisa Green's article "Study of Verb Classes in African American English," Linguistics and Education 7 (1995), pp. 65-81.
