Amy Benjamin writes with a query about sentence diagrams a la Reed/Kellogg
(I guess).
 
There are many ways of graphically indicating sentence structure. The
best-known method after Reed-Kellogg is the use of tree diagrams in
generative linguistics (Chomsky and the shool of thought that has followed
him). But there are other ways: brackets, nested boxes, and almost
anything you can imagine. Many writers of grammar books have come up with
their own schemes. I imagine that with computer graphics there could be
some neat ways of moving things around and using graphics to represent
sentence structure.
 
My own students have often told me that, while it was hard for them to
learn how to draw trees of the generative-syntax type, they did find them
very helpful in understanding sentence structure once they 'got it'. But I
think these trees do have some disadvantages: they get very cumbersome
with large phrases and sentences, and of course you have problems as soon
as you try to deal with 'transformed' sentences such as questions,
relative clauses, and the like.
 
Diagramming should probably only be used as a visual aid, and should not
become the exclusive way to teach parsing. Parsing is the skill that
underlies being able to diagram a sentence. For students who respond well
to visual aids, diagrams can be a help. But they should't become a
hindrance for students who have trouble learning how to make them.
 
I think the most useful way to approach parsing might be to first teach
syntactic tests that identify the constituent phrases of a sentence. For
instance, having students paraphrase a sentence, substituting pronouns in
various places, then looking back and seeing which word-strings the
pronouns replaced. Then they can look at the internal structure of these
constituent phrases. Then they can return to the sentence level and see
how each one fits into the sentence.
 
Movement is also a test that can be useful, since prepositional phrases
and noun phrases can often move around, and when they do, they move as a
whole. This is another good way to teach that sentences are made of
phrases, not words, and that part of the advantage of knowing grammar
explicitly is the ability to move phrases around until you get the effect
you want.
 
Interestingly, this touches on the related topic in this discussion of
form vs. function. phrases are formal units, and finding them in the
sentence is one aspect of parsing; identifying their function by seeing
how they relate to other words/phrases in the sentence is the other part
of parsing. I have only taught this kind of parsing once so far, but it
seems to help to separate the two: (a) use syntactic tests like pronoun
subsitution and movement to find out how many phrases there are in a
sentence; (b) figure out what role each phrase plays within the sentence
or within phrases in the sentence.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184  E-mail: [log in to unmask]      ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~