"...way back home" diagram

[TheParser]

"The dog found its way back home."


Would you kindly Reed-Kellogg?


Thank you very much.


James

[Frank Antonson]

I MUST get this computer set up to diagram.

Parser, you come up with such interesting examples!

Frank

[TheParser]

I MUST get this computer set up to diagram.

Parser, you come up with such interesting examples!

Frank

Mr. Antonson,


(1) After checking Professor Quirk and "Professor Google," I have

decided to parse/diagram that sentence thusly:

The dog = subject.

found = verb.

its way = object.

back = being used as an adjective to modify "way."

home = being used as an adjective to modify "way."

(Either "back" or "home" could be deleted without injury to the

grammar of the sentence.)

***

If I understand Professor Quirk, "way back" = "way which leads back";

"way home" = "way toward home."

***

I also found three Google book sources (two of whom were not native-

speaking scholars) who discussed "adjectival attributes expressed by

an adverb."

Oh, Mr. Antonson, if learners realized how helpful Reed-Kellogg is,

they would be flooding this forum with requests for diagrams!!!


James

[Frank Antonson]

James,

I know what you mean about Reed-Kellogg diagrams.

I am working on getting back at that on the computer. I miss it.

Frank

[philo2009]

back = being used as an adjective to modify "way."

I must take issue with this part of your analysis: to my mind, the structure is [the way [back home]], i.e. with 'back' as a modifying adjunct to 'home', making it an adverb rather than an adjective.

[TheParser]

I must take issue with this part of your analysis: to my mind, the structure is [the way [back home]], i.e. with 'back' as a modifying adjunct to 'home', making it an adverb rather than an adjective.

Most interesting!!!

But what about: Mona found her way back. Would "back" then

modify "way"?

[Frank Antonson]

[Rolex_Cellini]

"The dog found its way back home."

My tentative attempt at analysis:

The dog found its way back home. Which way did it find? The dog found that way. Its way back home. The underlined words around "way" identify "way" (i.e. determine its identity) in a similar way that determiners, e.g. "that", do.

Look at this:

The dog found its way back.
The dog found its way home.
The dog found its way back home.

The question arises in me: Can I - or should I - draw any conclusions vis-a-vis the grammatical relationship between "back" and "home", based on my evaluation on the above sentences' grammatical acceptability?
They seem to be on a par; they are equal in syntactic standing. "(To) Home" probably further explains "back". When it comes to further explaining something, apposition comes to mind. "back" means home, and vice versa.

Hence my diagram:

[Rolex_Cellini]

way (which is) back (to) home

Reduced relative? How about this?



I put the apposed prepositional phrase in adverbial (adjunct) function on a pedestal and in round brackets.

back (to) home = predicate adverb

[philo2009]

Most interesting!!!

But what about: Mona found her way back. Would "back" then

modify "way"?

Yes, it would. However, the issue for me here is that, in terms of sense, rather than two pieces of unrelated information pertaining to 'way':

(a) its way back (to somewhere or other)

and (incidentally!)

(b) its way (to) home

, we have actually one major item

(I) its way home

in relation to the modifier of which the minor additional detail is provided that it was

(Ia) (to) home for at least the second time

, in fairly clear contrast to e.g. a big, black dog, wherein the two adjectives are genuinely coordinate equals, each relating quite independently to the head noun, specifying

(a) a dog that is big

and

(b) a dog that is (also) black.