[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by Humble

Need I really repeat them? Leaving them in suspense amounts to an insult.

Humble, take a deep breath. There's no conspiracy here. Your statement "We cannot say Mr.P now is working as Mr.N , we can only say Mr.P is working as manager now" has not gone unnoticed, nor has it fallen on deaf ears. The truth of the matter is, I don't know it means. My not addressing your point was to your benefit: I wanted you to save face. You see, it's more than apparent to me that your understaning of the issue is not yet fully developed.

Humble, diagramming a sentence involves an understanding of form (what a word looks like – its category) and function (what a word does in a sentence). Take Dawnstorm’s example “The The”. I'll provide the context: The The in The book is well read is a determiner in form (note, some call it an article) and a noun in function. More clearly, The looks like a determiner (that’s its form) but it acts as a noun (that’s its function). A word can wear two hats, sort to speak.

Now, your attempt at diagramming egirl's sentence did not offer an explanation on constituent form or function.

Originally Posted by Humble

favorite contestant on the show – compound predicative
On the phrase level
favourite, on the show - attributes

Favorite contestant on the show might be, to adopt your terminology, a ‘compound predicate’ but what exactly does that mean? What are the constituents within that phrase and how do they function on their own and as a whole? (By the way, the syntactic unit there is my favorite contestant on the show. You omitted the head of the phrase, which tells me you don't fully understand what's involved in diagramming a sentence.) Moreover, labeling favorite and on the show as ‘attributes’ does not show an understanding of how those words function in the sentence. First, what does the label ‘attribute’ tell us about a word’s form or function? You need to explain that more clearly. (It isn’t clear at all as evidenced by the response you received from fiona on your use of terminology.) What exactly are favorite and on the show attributes of, that is, what do they modify?

As it stands, your explanation fails to address the inner-workings of the sentence structure, and obviously so, because you are not all that familiar at this point with what diagramming a sentence means and involves. My advice to you is do the research - find out more about what diagramming involves - and start a new thread on that topic. This is not your thread. It belongs to someone else. Labeling and the terminology involved is one thing, an understanding of non-linear structuring is quite another. Your responses don't seem to evidence that kind of understanding, which is why your questions are related to a whole 'nother topic, to use a colloquial phrase.

In short, do take the time to explain your answer and do not edit your posts, as you have done, after a day has gone by, leaving the responses to it out of sync and the posters without opportunity to address the changes you made mid-way through the thread. That's just bad form. Please, start a new post in the thead. That's how discussions work. Failure on your part to follow the rules of this forum makes moderating somewhat of a chore for me. Speaking of which, if you have a problem with a given poster's reply, be it mine or someone else's, please discuss the issue; do not discuss the author or flame the author. As you might not know, flaming is not only the voice of a bruised ego, it also has its consequences here. Start a new thread.