2

I am not sure where to put the AdvP in this sentence when drawing a phrase structure tree.

This is the sentence I would like to create the tree for: "The car Sam bought last week won the big race."

This sentence has two possible meanings.The meaning I am concentrating on is: 'The car won last week' (not 'Sam bought the car last week'). Big thanks.

Improve this question
7
  • [[[The] [[car] [Sam bought last week]]] [[won] [[the] [[big] [race]]]].]
    – DyingIsFun
    Commented May 26, 2016 at 21:37
  • 1
    He has said he is considering the sense where "last week" refers to the time of the race, not to the time of Sam's buying the car. Your parsing gives the other sense.
    – Judy N.
    Commented May 27, 2016 at 14:43
  • Hi Jude. I thought that tree might be correct because it has "last week" modifying the verb "won" which is what we want, I think. When did it win? Last week. How would you structure it? Thanks.
    – seinfeldesque
    Commented May 28, 2016 at 0:22
  • @JudeN. If that was the intended meaning you would express it as "The car sam bought won the big race last week". "Last week won the big race" is not an idiomatic way to say it.
    – Max Williams
    Commented Jul 27, 2016 at 7:39
  • He literally says in the question "The meaning I am concentrating on is: 'The car won last week' (not 'Sam bought the car last week')". I agree this is not the most natural phrase-structure to express that thought; but this is a linguistics question, not a usage question
    – Judy N.
    Commented Jul 27, 2016 at 16:35

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
1

For me, the premise of your question is untrue. "The car Sam bought last week won the big race," is not ambiguous. If I understand you, you think "last week" can either modify the preceding "bought" or the following "won". I think it can only modify "bought".

However, there is an adverb that works better for the example: "quickly". "Sam bought the car quickly" and "The car quickly won" are both acceptable, so "The car Sam bought quickly won the big race" should be ambiguous between

"The car Sam [VP bought quickly] won the big race."  
"The car Sam bought [VP quickly won the big race]."

Although the written sentence is ambiguous, the two senses are different in intonation.

Improve this answer
0

I think it will be something like this, putting the "last week" inside the verb phrase spanning "last week won the big race" to indicate the time.

Noun phrases indicating time (e.g., "yesterday", "next month") are usually kept as noun phrase, and are just put next to the verb they modify.

Parse tree of "The car Sam bought last week won the big race"

(image generated from http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/ with the input [ROOT [S [NP [NP [DT The] [NN car]] [SBAR [S [NP [NNP Sam]] [VP [VBD bought]]]]] [VP [NP [JJ last] [NN week]] [VBD won] [NP [DT the] [JJ big] [NN race]]]] [. .]])

Improve this answer
2
  • Thanks justhalf. When I drew up my tree, it was quite similar but I had "The car Sam bought" all under one NP. Would you mind explaining why "Sam bought" needs to go under a separate S? Big thanks, Jo
    – seinfeldesque
    Commented May 28, 2016 at 0:24
  • Oops, yeah, you are right. "The car Sam bought" should be a noun phrase and the subject of the verb phrase "last week won the big race". The "Sam bought" should be under SBAR in the subject since it is a subordinating clause (a shortened form of "The car which Sam bought"). I was using Stanford Parser to generate the original tree and modified from there, but I didn't realize that the whole sentence is parsed as noun phrase. I fixed the tree.
    – justhalf
    Commented May 28, 2016 at 4:15
0

[The car Sam Bought] is a NP functioning as a Subject. The remaining part is the predicate.

"won" is the head of the verb phrase.

"the big race" is a NP functioning as a DO and complementing the verb.

"last week" is an Adjunct to the Verb Phrase and is positioned to the left.

Using a comma will help to distinguish the meaning you are after. For example:

The car, Sam bought, last week won the big race.

sentence tree

Improve this answer
-1

Under the meaning you have chosen, it is part of the verb phrase "last week won the big race". So it goes beneath this; to the left of the verb "won" and the noun phrase "the big race"

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .