Questions tagged [syntactic-analysis]
Parsing or syntactic analysis is the process of analysing a string of symbols, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar.
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Square Feet versus Square Foot [duplicate]
The sentence is
The project would construct a 2000 square (foot/feet) kitchen.'
I put 'The project would construct a 2000 square feet kitchen.'
My senior reviewer changed feet to foot. Why?
If I ...
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'as he had lived'
In the clause 'He died as he had lived', what is the grammatical function of 'as he had lived'? I know it modifies 'died', and I know 'as' can be used.
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What is the technical grammatical difference between these two sentences?
. . . and is one preferred over the other?
I believe he sent these contacts an email earlier this week.
I believe he sent an email to these contacts earlier this week.
I feel the second is ...
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Parsing "…including a problem…, in a characteristically diffident aside, he noted his own 'fleeting vain attempts' to resolve it"
Prologue to a book which I was reading ends with this verbatim copy-pasted text:
A book should be dedicated to someone living, so that the dedication can give pleasure. I have dedicated this book to ...
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The bicycle is a vehicle but the bicycle in this room is just a decoration
Can the definite article have two different meanings in front of identical words in one sentence? As in
The bicycle is a vehicle but the bicycle in this room is just a decoration.
Or perhaps this ...
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- He is going to plan to move to London to avoid paying high taxes to pay for his medical bills. / - Oh yes, he has to [closed]
Which verb does the responder refer to in this dialogue?
He is going to plan to move to London to avoid paying high taxes to pay for his medical bills.
Oh yes, he has to.
he has to plan
he has to ...
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John goes to the cinema with Kate and (with) Ann
What's the difference between general public's interpretations of these:
John goes to the cinema with Kate and Ann.
John goes to the cinema with Kate and with Ann.
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Is Wikipedia's example of parallelism incorrect?
As of this writing, Wikipedia's article about parallelism in grammar includes these examples:
Lacking parallelism:
The dog ran across the yard, jumped over the fence, and sprinted away.
Parallel:
...
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At weekends they prefer to stay home and visit some friends [migrated]
I am wondering how this sentence is to be paraphrased:
At weekends they prefer to stay home and visit some friends.
I am not sure which ones are close to the original:
They like to remain in their ...
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What is the term for this? [duplicate]
I keep coming across "quotes" on the internet that say things like "psychology says, if a person blah blah"
I'm wondering what the term would be when someone 'mislabels' a field of ...
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What is the grammatical name for “the countless flashes of red from swords and spears”? [closed]
What is the grammatical name and function for this string?
the countless flashes of red from swords and spears
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What is the grammatical role of the last line of Gray's 'Elegy'?
The last line of Thomas Gray's poem 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' is 'The bosom of his Father and his God."
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame ...
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This sentence confuses me with its grammar
Meditations, Aurelius wrote about ways to live a Stoic life , asserting that humans should aim to live a virtuous life to be happy.
I’m trying to learn from the text above. The bold part is the single,...
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"when would be..." autocorrection
I have just been autocorrected as follows:
I wrote: "Please let me know when would be a good time to..."
Correction: "Please let me know when a good time would be to..."
I suppose ...
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benefitting patients with X/ benefits patients with X [duplicate]
I am struggling with analysing the sentence 'Y happens, benefitting patients with X'.
I can see that 'Y benefits patients with X' uses the present tense simple form of the verb.
But in the first ...
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Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
I received a copy from a client with the following phrase: "Our current team boasts of a combined 90 man years worth of experience in the field of XYZ".
While on its own it sounds ...
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Can you tell me the difference between the bare infinitive and the base form of a verb?
I heard my teacher stating that the base form of a verb is not an infinitive itself, but it is used to construct one of the two forms of infinitives.
Edit note
This question has been linked to a ...
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Do I need to add "in" before "an English-speaking country" in this sentence?
1 All my life, I have dreamed of living somewhere overseas, potentially an English-speaking country.
2 All my life, I have dreamed of living somewhere overseas, potentially in an English-speaking ...
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What is the grammatical structure of “making such an endeavour unjustified”? [duplicate]
The focus on the exterior of a building alone will lead to the increase in construction cost, making such an endeavour unjustified.
I want to know about the grammatical structure of this part: making ...
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"He fought in World War II as an infantryman" - does 'as' change 'fought' into a linking verb?
Can an as-headed prepositional phrase turn an action verb into a linking verb?
Consider the following examples:
With the fall of the Roman Empire, cities were abandoned as centers of administration. [...
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Can a single adjective be an appositive for the clause?
He made no comment and there was a long and unhappy pause during which
the cab leapt forward a foot or so, only to pause and pant again,
frustrated.
I thought 'frustrated' explained the atmosphere of ...
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How should this English sentence be parsed linguistically?
On p173 of Section "Subjective Truth and the Problem of Relativism" of The Big Questions by Solomon:
Rationality is tying our knowledge and our lives together in the most coherent and ...
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Is "went off in search of her hedgehog" a VP, and can it be broken down further?
I am new to linguistics and am currently learning how to figure out phrase markers for sentences.
I am unsure about this sentence:
She went off in search for her hedgehog.
I know that "she" ...
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Why is the infinitive marker banned in this active voice but required in its passive voice?
More precisely, "to" is banned in the active form:
The headmaster makes us honor our teachers
but required in the passive (with no agent stated):
We are made to honor our teachers
I can just ...
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We know how expensive we are
We know how expensive we are.
I cannot for the life of me decide if this is supposed to be interpreted as a complement clause or an embedded question or what.
My thought process so far is that it ...
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"Greenland may not be as "green" as the name suggests". Is the second "as" a comparative conjunction although there is no object after "suggest"?
In the sentence below,
Greenland may not be as "green" as the name suggests.
The verb "suggest" should preceed an object as it is a transitive verb, but in the sentence, there is ...
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How did grammarians determine that the Present Continuous is an aspect?
The three variants of the present tense are:
[X] sits (Simple)
[X] does sit (Emphatic)
[X] is sitting (Continuous [also called Progressive])
This is something that I was taught in school at such an ...
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lo + adjective/adverb + que + clause in Spanish VS the adjective (superlative) + (that) + clause in English
Recently I learned a Spanish grammar "lo+adjective/adverb+que+clause" to translate"how ..." (indicative) of English.
But I found the structure unusual because "lo+adjective&...
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Has the conception of prepositions broadened?
When I studied linguistics 40-some years ago, it was understood that
PP → Prep NP
But I’ve discovered sources that suggest that the class of prepositions is (now?) understood much more broadly.
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Meaning and structure of "The vision to do today what is needed for tomorrow." [closed]
I would like to know the structure of the sentence and also meaning.
Is the vision subject? What in the sentence is what?
The vision to do today what is needed for tomorrow.
Can I understand.. like ...
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I was trying to describe a recipe to my friend that I'd had a go of
Is this dialectal use:
And I thought I've got a nice kitchen now maybe I should learn to cook. And I'm learning, it's going quite well. I don't always know the right words for things. I couldn't ...
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Can I do these kind of questions? “Who is your brother and where is he?” [duplicate]
Can we join two questions in one using and? Or do we need to separate both questions ?
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Is referencing a real instance of a noun the primary function of determiners as a word class?
In almost every case where a determiner/article is used, the noun phrase references an instance of the noun, either imagined or existing. Generally, the opposite is true; noun phrases without ...
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Does seating sit or stand?
A new Wikipedia page (Theatre of Nero, July 2023) includes
The first structure . . can thus be identified with the cavea of the theatre, where the tiers of seats for the audience stood . . .
...
Donald Phillipson
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How do you understand the sentence's structure?
Chinese athletes had a disappointing 2018-19 season, with the country's only gold medal coming courtesy Sui Wenjing and Han Cong in the pairs competition at the World Figure Skating Championships.
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What is the real-time elimination of improbable meanings called in the linguistic literature?
He brought some food to eat on the road.
He found some beer to drink in the fridge.
Is it only reality and sanity that keep us from taking the beer example to mean he would be squashed in the fridge ...
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"and has as one of its Healthy People 2020 goals to “create social and physical environments that promote good health for all.”"
I would like to ask you about the bold-faced part in the following sentence:
(1) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines social determinants of health as “conditions in the places ...
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What is the syntactic role of "to do something" in these sentences?
Take these sentences:
I felt he was mean to do that.
We'd be stupid to do something like that.
I feel like the "to do that" part in them functions differently syntactically than in ...
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What is the sentence structure for this verse in John Keats' "The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!"?
He writes:
When the dusk holiday—or holinight [—][some versions put another em dash here]
Of fragrant-curtain’d love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight,
Should I read a ...
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Correct Grammar in School Tagline [closed]
Which of the following school taglines is grammatically correct? Or, could both be correct? If both, which is clearer?
Option 1: Enter to learn, empower to serve
Option 2: Enter to learn, empowered to ...
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Simple or compound sentences? [closed]
John ate and drank to his satisfaction.
John ate the yam and drank the juice.
My question: Are these sentences simple or compound sentences?
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In 19th century, why was it grammatical to place "such" after its referent? But UNgrammatical in 2023, when "such" must antecede its referent?
Please analyze why these examples of "such as" were grammatical — using Syntactic Theory, but in layman's terms? But why are they UNgrammatical to the Anglophones I polled in 2023?
I lighted ...
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Controlling the quality "of x process" vs "of the x process"
I'm working on a project for which I originally put the title as:
Methods for controlling the quality of PET bottle manufacturing process.
However, now that I re-read it, I feel like its way more ...
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Who is being fed in "Did hourly feed him by" from Walden, or, Life in the Woods? [duplicate]
There was a shepherd that did live,
And held his thoughts as high
As were the mounts whereon his flocks
Did hourly feed him by
From Walden, or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
I'm confused ...
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What is the grammatical function of "to help you"? [duplicate]
I am going to help you.
What is the grammatical function of to help you here?
Reopen note
Please note that I did not ask about going to (and that the to belongs with the following verb as shown ...
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only pay for or pay for only [duplicate]
I’m puzzled by a couple of advertising jingles heard recently, by different companies.
Is it me, or does:
Only pay for what you need.
mean something rather different than:
Pay for only what you ...
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Is this clause a subjective complement or just a modifier?
When we win, libraries will belong to all. Through them, Baby V will grow up bound to a collective that thinks freely and makes empowered choices for themselves, their community and their country, ...
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"whoever would like to attend" seeking confirmation [duplicate]
This is my first question so I'm asking for leniency if it is a bit off.
So, here's my question.
I was writing an email to a student of mine to tell him, in answer to a request of his that it was OK ...
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Which of these possible multi-choice answers is correct and why? [duplicate]
A Chinese teacher of English asked me about the following, taken from an English test for Chinese people. It's quite tricky I think.
I would like to know three things:
Which answer or answers do you ...
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Why is the comma added? [closed]
Why is the comma added in the following?
[The] Hyena crept slowly round, making the most of his spotted brown camouflaged fur against the brownish stems of grass.
