Advanced Grammar

Sentence Structure

It didn't take very long for me to get bored with just lining up all the glyphs in a word-for-word translation of English. I decided instead that I would try something different and visually break every sentence up into its components and then rearrange them somehow.

Let's have two parts of speech: Things and Relationships.

Let's decree that all sentences will describe two Things connected by a Relationship. The first thing we need to do when translating a sentence is to decide what two Things, and what Relationship. We'll isolate the Things inside (parentheses) and place the Relationship between them.

All happy families are alike. = (families all happy) are (alike)
Giant rats ate New York. = (rats giant) ate (New York)
I don't know, and I don't care. = (I don't know) and (I don't care)
If you don't shut up, I will shoot you. = (you don't shut up) then (I will shoot you)

As you can see, a Thing is not always a noun (New York). It can also be an adjective (alike) or a full sentence (You don't shut up.). A Relationship can be a verb (ate), a conjuction (and) or a logical expression (if/then).

Obviously, this won't work with intransitive verbs because there is no direct object: The big white dog ran.
It won't work when the subject is a pronoun either, because subject pronouns are incorporated into the verb: He chased the girl's cat.
In these cases, we will leave the sentence unbalanced and open-ended: (dog big white) ran. chased (cat girl's).

If an element applies to the sentence as a whole rather than to an individual component, we'll either place it alone before the first parenthesis, or isolate it with [brackets] in an unbalanced sentence.

Yes, we have no bananas. = [yes] we have (no bananas)
Yesterday, Steve's mom drank a whole bottle of elderberry wine. = yesterday (mom Steve's) drank (bottle whole of wine elderberry)
I think Lurlene's baby is the ugliest thing I've ever seen. = I think (baby Lurlene's) is (thing ugliest I've seen ever)
Put the gun down, Earl. = [Earl] put down (gun)
I said, "Put the gun down, Earl." = I said (Earl put down gun)
Obviously you've mistaken me for someone who gives a damn. = [obviously] you've mistaken ((me) as (someone who gives a damn))

As you see in the last example, when we build complex clauses, we also break those down into two Things connected by a Relationship as well. In that last case the Things are "me" and "someone who gives a damn", and the Relationship is "as".

She said she thought Lurlene's baby is the ugliest thing she'd ever seen. = she said (she thought ((Lurlene's baby) is (the ugliest thing she'd ever seen)))
You're dreaming if you think I'm going to put the gun down. = (you dream) if (you think (I will put down gun))

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Last updated December 2005