Diagramming German

[Frank Antonson]

In den alten Zeiten, wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat, lebte ein König, dessen Töchter waren alle schön...

In the old times, where the wishing still helped has, lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful...

The first sentence in the Grimm Brothers' "Frog Prince".

Who goes first?

 

[Kondorosi]

Who goes first?

I do. Vänta!

In den alten zeiten provides general background information. It is a subject-related sentence adjunct.

 

[Frank Antonson]

You make it look so easy!
I would have put "in den alten Zeiten..." under "lebte" because I think of it as answering "when?" which I consider to normally fall within the realm of adverbs.
"How, when, where and why" I use as the tests for adverbs.
"What kind of, how many, whose, and which one" I use as tests for adjectives.
These tests do no always work, but I use them as a starting point.

 

[Kondorosi]

You make it look so easy!
I would have put "in den alten Zeiten..." under "lebte" because I think of it as answering "when?" which I consider to normally fall within the realm of adverbs.

Adverbs can modify nouns too. Sentence adjuncts provide background information and are subject-related. I expressed this subject-related attribute by branching the adjunct from the subject. ;-)

 

[Frank Antonson]

Yes, it works. Here I think we arrive at interpretation of what is being said.
On Elizabeth O'brien's website under "Diagramming Longfellow 3" I posted the following quote (which you might have fun with):
"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded in moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like Druids of Eld with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms. "

Now, is "pines" only modified by "The" and "murmuring" or does it share all that modification with "hemlocks". It comes down to interpretation. I even have thought about the botany envolved. Would moss grow on white pines and would hemlocks murmur? The ecosystem envolved is Nova Scotia.

 

[Kondorosi]

It comes down to interpretation.

Agreed. Ambiguous. Can be dispelled by transposing the order of the noun phrases in the compound subject.