how do i analyse this sentence ?
"His love of elegance, beauty, and precision is often ridiculed by the local bumbling policemen."
I am supposed to do it by giving a complete syntactic analysis (word level, function level ect)- but it is so hard. can you help me?
scale rank:
word-level:
[det His][N love][prep of][N elegance], [N beauty], [conj and][N precision][V is][adv often][V ridiculed][prep by][det the][adj local][adj bumbling][N policemen].
phrase-level:
[NP [det his][N love][PP[prep of][N elegance]], [N beauty], [conj and][N precision]][VP [V is][adv often][V ridiculed][PP [prep by][NP[det the][adj local][adj bumbling][N policemen]]]].
clause-level:
[MC[NP[det His][N love][PP[prep of][N elegance]], [N beauty], [conj and][N precision]][V is][adv often][V ridiculed][PP[prep by][NP[det the][adj local][adj bumbling][N policemen]]]].]
-- Note the placement of full stop in relation to the brackets
sentence-level:
[S/MC[det His][N love][PP[prep of][N elegance]], [N beauty], [conj and][N precision][V is][adv often][V ridiculed][PP[prep by][NP[det the][adj local][adj bumbling][N policemen]]]].]
Horror! :roll: Now you see, or so I trust, why grammarians felt the need to invent an easier representational method for illustrating sentence structure. This is where tree-diagrams enter the story. :up:
So far I have carried out formal analysis. Now let us turn to functional analysis:
[His love of elegance, beauty, and precision] [is often ridiculed] [by the local bumbling policemen].
[His love of elegance, beauty, and precision] = S
is ridiculed = V
often = adjunct
[by the local bumbling policemen] = adverbial (formally a PP)
SV
thematic roles:
S = patient, theme
[by the local bumbling policemen] = agent, :?:source
