What is "parsing" a sentence?

[Strengthen My Hands]

My daughter has used Rod and Staff and has been diagramming for 5 years. We are doing Analytical Grammar, Shakespeare's Plays - High School Grammar Reinforcement... they want her to "parse" and diagram a sentence???? Okay, know how to diagram, but what is parsing??

TIA

[Julieofsardis]

It is when you describe each word in the sentence and give its function.

 

Such as:

 

The dog ran fast

 

"The" is an article adjective that modifies dog. "Dog" is a common noun. It is singular. "Ran" is an action verb in past tense. "Fast" is an adverb that modifies ran.

 

I know there are systems that you can use for this, like Winston Grammar, where there is a specific order to what you do, but that is the basic idea.

Edited July 28, 2009 by Julieofsardis
Grammar errors - oh my! There are probably more!

[WishboneDawn]

In Winston you just put an abreviation or symbol for the part of speech a given word represents over or under that word. I MUCH prefer it to diagramming. It seems much more straightforward.

[kpupg]

In Winston ... I MUCH prefer it to diagramming. It seems much more straightforward.

 

I sympathize and I feel the opposite way. We use Winston and its approach is effective.

 

But for me, being a visual-spatial type, anytime there's a diagram is an improvement.

 

Dif'rent strokes, etc. :D

Karen

[Deidre in GA]

parsing is labeling (above the word) the job the word or phrase is performing in the sentence: article, direct object, verb, gerund, etc. the reinforcement books assume the student is already familar with the coding AG has already suggested for this like do for direct object or pp for preposition.

 

parsing first made diagramming much easier for my son.

[Janet in WA]

parsing first made diagramming much easier for my son.

 

Stewart English uses parsing rather than diagraming. A typical exercise leads the student to compose sentences using blanks labeled with parts of speech/usage. I learned diagraming first, and later parsing was a piece of cake. I always thought that parsing was easier for me because I pictured the sentence diagramed in my head when I parsed.