Chapter 6
THE PARSING MODEL
Grammar as Design
Now the fun starts. We are going to be applying our revised key to a set of basic sentence types in order to discover how it works. Since much of our method is still intuitive and we are limited by space considerations, you must take these examples very, very seriously. For watching how we apply the key to these sample sentences as well as to those in Appendix 5 will hopefully teach you how the rules work in sufficient detail so that you can internalize them and then go on to apply them to new sentences on your own.
This approach is one derived from analyzing how young people learn new video games. They seldom read the rules and instructions. They simply start playing and learn the rules through trial and error. (The printed stuff that comes in the box is basically for parents, who require real instructions because they want to believe they are getting their money's worth.)
The analogy with games is important because grammatical analysis requires a lot of the same techniques used in playing games successfully. Most important, perhaps, is the element of play. Langendoen talked about grammatical analysis being an art because it requires so many moves that lie outside the guidance of rules, moving into the areas of intuition and creative guessing. But I think the analogy with games is even more appropriate because the ‘players’ do have to follow a specific set of rules and guidelines and there is also a sense in which you win and lose, not solely based on whether you are right or wrong but on how well you've applied the model you're working with.
There are a number of different strategies and techniques that good grammar players must master. One of the most important is the ability to abstract and generalize from specific elements in a sentence. Another essential mental skill is what I call visualization, the ability to look at a linear sequence of words
A + B + C + D + E
as having a structure. One model or design that linguists use to help them in the process is the tree diagram.
This is one of the models linguists use to show that the words in a sentence are embedded in a hierarchical or multi-leveled structure. In this case, A is the Subject, B is the Main Verb, C is the Direct Object of the Main Verb and D and E belong to a Prepositional Phrase which complements the main verb (it is also called the Indirect Object). If we look at the tree, it tells us that elements C, D and E belong to B as opposed to A, and C and D belong together.
In our model, all we do is label the part of speech over each word and underline the major functions according to the key. Although this may seem rather primitive, it actually conveys much of the same information:
N V N P N
N V N P N
Since we know that the Direct Object and the Prepositional Phrase belong to the Main Verb, we come up with about the same structural analysis as the tree diagram. Of course, our design looks much more linear so the relationship between the parts is not visually represented. However, this method of parsing is much quicker and gets the job done with a minimum of technical jargon and procedures.
Again, it is important to understand that our analysis is still logically nonlinear, i.e., it models a hierarchical structure. This can be seen in the representation of the sentence adverb not in the following example:
N Aux Adv V N P N
Jill did not bake pies for Jack
S Adv(MC) DO Adv(MV)
In this analysis, ‘not’ does not modify the verb as traditional grammarians would have us believe. There is no such action as not-baking the same way that there is slow baking, baking in an oven, and baking with a old pan. What the not does is negate the truth of the entire sentence or main clause. It is an adverbial of assertion. We might roughly paraphrase the sentence as:
[Not]Jill baked pies for Jack.Compare this analysis to:
[Yes] Jill baked pies for Jack.
[Maybe] Jill baked pies for Jack.
[Seldom] Jill baked pies for Jack.
So when our parsing model isolates the not in the middle of the verb phrase and calls it an adverbial modifying the Main Clause [Adv(MC)], it is stating that sentences have a logical structure that is nonlinear. Hence, even though it looks like we are doing nothing more than attaching labels to a series of words, we are really showing how the sentence is designed or structured. In fact, we are creating a two-dimensional visual model of the sentence.
Limitations of Linear Parsing
Since we are about using our rules to visualize structure, it is important to pause here for a moment and look at some of the things our model can't do. The most important is that we can't use our key to show certain types of processes. Our model may suggest hierarchy but it is static. It can't show that some sentences have undergone radical changes in grammatical shape. A good example would be the passive. We've noted that traditional grammarians have said that the active and passive are two different ways of saying the same thing. Given a transitive verb construction, the active emphasizes the Agent or subject, the passive emphasizes the Patient or direct object. We agree, more or less. But this leaves us with the question of how our model will parse passives.N Aux V P N P N
Pies were baked for Jack by Jill.
S MV Adv(MV) ?
The question here is what we label the prepositional phrase, ‘by Jill.‘ The reason this is a problem is that Jill is the logical subject or agent in the sentence. She is the one who is doing the baking. So it would not be logical to call that phrase an adverbial modifier of either the main clause or the main verb since modifiers are, by definition, not necessary.
In other words, the process of passivization turns the logical direct object of the active into a grammatical subject and the logical subject into something in a prepositional phrase. But given our parsing model, there is no consistent way to indicate what has happened. So we complete the labeling of the functions by simply calling ‘by Jill’ an adverbial of the main verb [Adv(MV)] with the note that this analysis is entirely arbitrary.
Is this the only case where our model breaks down? No. Certainly not. There will be numerous other times when we will simply have to say that a particular sentence can't be adequately analyzed with our model. But hopefully, we will be able to at least offer some explanation as to why it won't work just as we have done here. And it is this ability to point to reasons and explanations that makes our approach useful in spite of its limitations. Again, the purpose of the model is to help us to gain insight into how language works. Ironically, there may be times when this insight is gained just because the model fails us and can't cope with problems such as the passive. And this failure tells us something about language and the modeling process as well.
Parsing Strategies
Like a game, there is no one way to make sure our parsing model works successfully. It all depends on how skillful you are in using it to complement your Erhlich and Murphy. But how we measure success or failure depends upon what kinds of goals we have set for ourselves.The promise I have for you is that if you go through this program carefully you may not remember all the names and labels but:
1) you will never ‘see’ sentences the same way again.
2) you will be able to trust your own instincts and intuitions about language.
3) you will respect your own dialect and those of others.
4) you will be able to read other grammars and references more intelligently, taking what is useful and rejecting what is not.
5) you will be able to apply what you have learned here to other types of problems in other areas of study.
Here are some basic procedures:
Read the Sentence Carefully:
PARAPHRASE FOR MEANING.
(Give the most obvious interpretation.]
FIND THE MAIN VERB.
DETERMINE WHAT KIND OF VERB IT IS.
ANTICIPATE.
GUESS/PREDICT WHAT STRUCTURE
YOU MIGHT EXPECT TO FIND.
Review Again
All right. Let's go over this again before we go into our analyses. Basically, in our parsing model, all you are supposed to do is take a sentence and try to label all the parts of speech and underline the major functions. So every word should have a label on top and a line underneath it. That is all. Yes, it is like diagramming — which some of you may have done if you went to a school with a good, old-fashioned curriculum — but it's much, much simpler.You want to get to a place where you can do all this stuff in your head. With your eyes closed. However, think about this:
•First of all, many of the sentences we are going to be analyzing are not real sentences. They're simply examples. Specimens. They don't have any situational context and most of them are in the standard written dialect of the classroom. So you're at a disadvantage when trying to analyze them.
•Second, imagine when you'll have to do this sort of grammatical analysis — as opposed to look up a problem in usage — in real life. Unless you plan to teach or go into specialized forms of law, probably never.
I know these things already. I know that going though my exercises can be confusing, frightening and even intimidating. But if you need to take 110J, if you have no choice, then you're just going to have to put a lot of your objections, reservations (and excuses) aside and make up your minds to do the best you can. Sure, I could try to comfort you here. But you may not believe or understand any explanation I might have to give anyway. So, you'll simply have to proceed on faith. If you don't, I can promise you that this entire business will really turn out to be a complete waste of time.
Having given you these words of caution, let's just walk through the process one more time.
Step 1) Read the problem sentence carefully. You may even have to read it out loud to yourself. The main thing is that you shouldn't just start labeling before you know what you are dealing with.
Step 2) Paraphrase it. All this means is that you should make its meaning as clear as you can, trying to use the same words that in the original sentence if possible, adding words if you can't. There is no right or wrong way to paraphrase. Do whatever works. But your paraphrase has to be clearer than your original, even though it may be grammatically or stylistically awkward, as long as the paraphrase means the same as your original. I often advise my students to use ‘Tarzan-talk,’ which is a kind of pidgin that the comic book character might use. They are surprised at how often Tarzan's
logic is so much clearer than the standard form. A prime example are the paraphrases we did with the sentence adverbials, not, surely, etc. The following are some hints for doing paraphrases:
•A paraphrases has to do some work. It is a model of your original, so it should not simply repeat the original and it should not be as or more confusing. But not all sentences need to be paraphrased. For example, the following is quite clear enough:
Jill baked a cake for John.
However, the next sentence could be paraphrased to make its structure clearer.
Jill baked John a cake –>
Jill baked a cake for John
•All verbals (verb forms not part of the main verb) are complete sentences. Your paraphrase should expand them. For example,
John wanted that Jill bake the cake. [No paraphrase]
John wanted Jill TO BAKE the cake –>
John wanted [Jill bake the cake]
That Jill baked the cake angered John. [No paraphrase]
Jill's BAKING the cake angered John –>
[Jill bake the cake] angered John.
Jill HAVING BAKED THE CAKE, John became angry –>
[Because Jill baked the cake], John became angry –>
John became angry because Jill baked the cake.
Step 3) Look for the main verb and let it guide you. There are only five types of main verbs. (We discuss them in Appendix 4.) Each type has a structure identified with it. That structure will tell you what to look for in a sentence. Sometimes you may have ambiguous sentences, but all you have to do is try to keep you interpretations separate.
John baked all week.
Baked can be either intransitive,
John [tanned ‘intensely’] for all week.
Or it can be transitive:
John baked [something] for all week.
In this case, the transitive verb does not have a specific direct object so we have to supply it in our paraphrase. To make the intransitive meaning clearer, we need to substitute the verb to tan but we can't tell if the ‘baking’ was intentional or not so we can't make the intent more specific in the paraphrase.
Consider the following ambiguous sentence where we have two different interpretations based upon two different transitive verbs. Note that Ehrlich and Murphy can not be used to distinguish between the two readings because they don't include the concept of particle.
a) Myung-ja decided on the bus.
[a] can be paraphrased in at least two ways:
b) Myung-ja [selected] the bus
c) Myung-ja decided [something] [while she was riding on the bus]
Hence, our parsing model would assign the following two analyses to [a].
N V Par Det N
d) Myung-ja decided on the bus.
S MV DO
N V P Det N
e) Myung-ja decided on the bus.
S MV Adv(MC)
Again, since we have two different verbs, decide on and decide, we have two different parsings. Ehrlich and Murphy would give the following:
N V P Det N
f) Myung-ja decided on the bus.
S MV Adv(MV)
Not only would they say that the verb is intransitive because there is no direct object in the sentence (they don't acknowledge understood or implied elements). They would also claim that the prepositional phrase modifies the verb, decide.
4. You might have noticed. Each time we deal with a new sentence, there seems to be a new concept or rule involved. This may be confusing, but as I stated above, we want the model to emerge from the problem-solving process itself. What you need to do is be able to abstract and generalize from these examples.
Basic Sentence Types
Now we're going to begin by analyzing the five basic sentence types which are determined by the logical nature of the verb. In order to explain what I mean by this, I'm going to have to explain two of the most important concepts in grammar, complementation and modification. Unfortunately, our concepts have to be more sophisticated than the parsing model. So we are going define certain elements as complements but, when using our model, we're going to simply label them as modifiers. But this is the sort of trade-off models always entail. To correct this problem, our analysis would have to become much too complicated.
1) Complementation
A complement is an element of a word or phrase that logically completes the meaning of another word or phrase. Verbs take complements but so do adjectives and nouns. However, in traditional school grammars, the term complement is usually restricted to the predicate complement that completes linking verbs.
However, the concept of complementation is much more general than verb complements and is extremely important in our explaining how sentences are put together. In fact, it would not be entirely wrong to say that direct objects and even subjects of verbs are types of complements.
When it comes to verbs, we classify them in terms of how many elements it takes to complete them.
•Simple Intransitive: these take only one element, a noun subject. They do not need to be completed by anything else.
•Transitive: these need to be completed by two elements, a subject and a direct object.
•Be-Complement: these constructions also need to be completed by two elements, a noun subject and a complement which can be a noun, adjective or adverbial of time or place.
•Intransitive with Prepositional Phrase: these constructions need to be completed by two elements, a noun subject and a prepositional phrase which completes the meaning of the verb.
•Transitive with Indirect Object: these constructions need to be completed by three elements, a noun subject, a noun direct object and a prepositional phrase. The indirect object is always represented by a prepositional phrase. The preposition is deleted when the indirect object is moved next to the verb.
Modifiers
If complements are necessary to a sentence, modifiers supply additional information which helps shape the meaning of a sentence in many different ways. There are two types of modifiers, adjectival and adverbial. The most important from a grammatical point of view are adverbials since they provide a wide variety of critical information which directs our interpretation of a sentence. We will discuss modifiers throughout the examples to follow, so here I would just like to examine a few cases where there may be some confusion over whether a specific element is a modifier or a complement.First of all, let me just point out the obvious again: that the entire notion of what is necessary or not necessary to complete the meaning of, say, a verb is subject to interpretation. There are no hard and fast rules, no dictionaries, that will supply all the information you need. So what you are going to have to do is trust your intuitions.
One good practical method I use for determining whether an element is essential or not is to note the first question that pops into my head when I question the verb. For example, when I say:
John ran (meaning to go to a place by running)
the first question that comes to mind is WHERE? The answer to that would be the complement to the verb, e.g., to Jill's house. Now if I were to add, quickly, on Monday, with a coat on, these would all be modifiers.
ON MONDAY, John ran QUICKLY to Jill's house WITH A COAT ON.
Now this does not mean that adverbials of place are always complements. In general, you can modify any transitive verb with an adverbial of place. It is just that the meaning of intransitive directional verbs, such as, go, fly, travel, walk, return, always need to be completed by a place adverb, usually a propositional phrase. Compare then following:
1) Jack ate the cake AT JILL'S HOUSE.
2) Shi-hwa flew TO JILL'S HOUSE.In [1], the first question I think of when I question the verb is WHAT, Jack ate WHAT? The prepositional phrase telling me where Jack ate the cake simply provides additional information. In [2], the first question I think of when I question the verb is WHERE? Hence, here the preposition is a complement.
We have said, however, that our model can't make all the distinctions we would like it to. For example, our parsing model won't let us distinguish between complements and modifiers of the verb.
P N N V P Det N P Det N
On Monday, Jack went to Jill's house in a hurry.
Adv(MC) S MV Adv(MV) Adv(MV)
Here, on Monday is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying the entire sentence;
it tells when the entire event indicated by the sentence took place. To Jill's house completes the meaning of the verb and in a hurry modifies the verb because it tells the manner in which Jack went to Jill's house. However, they are both labeled, Adv(MV), adverbial of the main verb.
One of the points I have been making all along is that our parsing model must do some work. It must allow us to explain constructions that could not be explained using other models. So let's consider two problematical sentences:
1) Milton returned home.
2) Coleridge wrote Mondays.
These sentences may appear to be very simple but they present major problems for most traditional grammars. On the one hand, most books would say that N + V + N constructions are transitive. But although ‘to return’ can be transitive and ‘to write’ is always transitive, in neither case is the noun which follows them the direct object. Let's paraphrase each;
3) Milton returned [to home]
4) Coleridge wrote [something] [on Mondays]
So in both cases, the nouns are objects of prepositions; they are parts of prepositional phrases. In [3], the prepositional phrase is the complement of the directional intransitive ‘to return’ (where?); and in [4], the prepositional phrase modifies the entire main clause telling when Coleridge wrote his books or whatever.
Ehrlich and Murphy try to cover these cases by saying that nouns can sometimes function as adverbs. But then, we would have to change the definition of noun in the glossary. In our analysis, they are simply doing what nouns can do, i.e., functioning as objects of prepositions. It is just that in these cases, the prepositions themselves have been deleted or are understood. Hence, our model would allow us to give the following description of [1] and [2]:
N V N
5) Milton returned home.
S MV Adv(MV)
N V N6) Coleridge wrote Mondays.
S MV Adv(MV)
Needless to say, our paraphrases show more than our parsings do, but again, this is one of the problems with trying to work with a simplified model. However, what is important is that you understand what is going on in the sentences and don't mistake their simple surfaces for their underlying structure.
Sample Sentences
Now we are ready to turn to an examination of a set of basic sentence types. We are going to make a few general comments about each, but we don't wish to imply that there isn't more that can be said about each one. It's just that we are already close to an information overload situation here and we need to just get on with the rest of our examples. Some of the more difficult constructions will be discussed again in the appendices.1. This construction does not need to be paraphrased. It also does not require anything additional to complete it.
N VMelanie laughed.
S MV
2. This is the Transitive construction we have already discussed.
N V NJill baked cakes.
S MV DO
3. This is the Be-Complement construction. The major problem people have is with identifying Be-Verbs. Consult your text for further examples.
N BE N
Santana is president.
S MV Comp
4. This is an example of an Intransitive Verb that needs to be completed by a prepositional phrase or other adverbial. These are often confused with Transitive constructions which also take a complement.
N V P N
Shi-hwa went to school.
S MV Adv(MV)
5. These are usually called Indirect Object constructions. They are examples of verbs that take a subject and two complements, one of which is always a prepositional phrase.
N V Det N P Det N
Pascal gave her dinner to the dog
S MV DO I0/Adv(MV)
. This is a simple Intransitive sentence modified by an adverbial clause of time. Note that the adverb, ‘down,’ functions like a prepositional phrase complement.
N V Adv Pn V Adv
Melanie laughed after she fell down.
S MV Adv(MC)
7. This is a basic Transitive construction modified by an adverbial prepositional phrase denoting purpose which has been moved from the end of the sentence to the front. This movement is indicated by the [,].
P N N V N
For Thanksgiving, Jill baked cakes.
Adv(MC) S MV DO
8. Here is a sentence which should probably be paraphrased first. I would expand the Participle and turn it into an adverbial clause denoting cause or reason. Look at Chap. 3 in Ehrlich and Murphy for a listing of the forms of all participles and infinitives. See Chap. 6 for a listing of adverbs which introduce adverbial clauses and their meanings.
Santana became president [because Santana worked hard]
Part Adv N BE N
Working hard, Santana became president.
Adv(MC) S MV Comp
9. This is another sentence which needs to be paraphrased. Note that the Adverbial clause includes two Infinitives, each of which is a sentence.
Shi-hwa went to school [in order Shi-hwa learn [Shi-hwa read something]]
N V P N Inf Inf
Shi-hwa went to school to learn to read
S MV Adv(MV) Adv(MC)
10. Here is an example of what Ehrlich and Murphy call a ‘restrictive relative clause.’ It is an Adjective clause which does whatever the subject noun does. It has no separate sentence function.
The man [the man gave the letter to you] is Bill.
Det N Pn V Pn Det N BE N
The man who gave you the letter is Bill
S MV Comp
11. Here is an example of the Expletive which holds the subject position much like a pronoun but unlike a pronoun it doesn't refer to anything. The sentence adverb, ‘not,’ goes in front of the sentence. Even given our model, a paraphrase is hard to develop for this type of sentence.
[not] a single problem [I can do the problem] is.
Exp BE Adv Det Det N Pn Pn Mod V
There is n't a single problem that I can do.
S MV Adv(MC) Comp
12. In this example, we have a number of new features. There is a Modal and an Auxiliary in the Main Verb, a Complementizer pointing out the Direct Object clause and a Gerund as the subject of that clause.
John must have known [[John lie about something] would hurt Jill]
N Mod Aux V Cmp Det Ger Mod V N
John must have known that his lying would hurt Jill.
S MV DO
Conclusion
We are going to close now and let you go ahead and do the examples in Appendix 5 on your own. There is an answer key which should be fairly self-explanatory. Through the process of abstraction and generalization, you should be able to handle any sentence type found in the exercises. This knowledge, then, should allow you to come up with reasonable interpretations of new and different examples.
appendices