Parsing sentences-Which part of speech to identify first?

[Melinda S in TX]

When parsing sentences, which part of speech needs to be identified first? Some identify nouns first and some prepositional phrases. Why the difference? Which makes it easier to finish parsing the rest of the sentence?

 

Melinda

[Crimson Wife]

I have my DD do phrases first even though the Michael Clay Thompson materials have that as the third step. I think it makes it easier to distinguish the subject from the object of the preposition that way.

[Violet Crown]

When parsing sentences, which part of speech needs to be identified first? Some identify nouns first and some prepositional phrases. Why the difference? Which makes it easier to finish parsing the rest of the sentence?

 

Melinda

 

I teach my kids to do it this way. (This is assuming a sentence that isn't complex.)

 

1. Find the subject and predicate (usually the first and last parts of the sentence). If the sentence isn't in standard English grammatical order (as in questions, or some poetic phrases), I ask the child to arrange it normally.

 

2. a. Find the simple subject and simple predicate (usually the last and first parts of the subject and predicate, respectively).

 

2. b. Determine if subject and/or predicate are compound. Identify connectors.

 

3. Using the simple predicate, find the object, if any.

 

4. Bracket off any prepositional phrases.

 

5. Remaining units should be modifiers of subject, object, or verb.

 

I'm sure others have other methods. This seems to work best for my kids.

[Matryoshka]

I have my DD do phrases first even though the Michael Clay Thompson materials have that as the third step. I think it makes it easier to distinguish the subject from the object of the preposition that way.

 

:iagree: This works very well for us. Prep. phrases, then verb/subject (I often find it's easier to find the verb first, then identify who/what's doing or being than the other way around).

 

We're not militant about this order, but in more complicated sentences, it seems to be the easiest way to get to the heart of things.

[siloam]

When parsing sentences, which part of speech needs to be identified first? Some identify nouns first and some prepositional phrases. Why the difference? Which makes it easier to finish parsing the rest of the sentence?

 

Melinda

I do:

 

Articles

Nouns

Adjectives

Pronouns (because you should have already identified any pronouns being used as adjectives this way)

Prepositions and their phrases (eliminate more nouns before finding the subject)

Verb

Subject

Adverbs

 

The old find the subject and predicate first doesn't work for me at all.

 

Heather

[Melinda S in TX]

I do:

 

Articles

Nouns

Adjectives

Pronouns (because you should have already identified any pronouns being used as adjectives this way)

Prepositions and their phrases (eliminate more nouns before finding the subject)

Verb

Subject

Adverbs

 

The old find the subject and predicate first doesn't work for me at all.

 

Heather

 

 

In your sig, it says you use use Analytical Grammar and Junior Analytical Grammar. How do you teach your children a different order of marking, when the curriculum teaches it another way? Do you teach the lessons out of order? What?

 

DD is having trouble with identifying parts of speech. She can tell me what a certain part of speech does, but is in tears when trying to sort it out in a sentence.

 

I have AG and JAG (and some others) here, but I'm trying to figure out how to make it work.

 

Melinda

[siloam]

In your sig, it says you use use Analytical Grammar and Junior Analytical Grammar. How do you teach your children a different order of marking, when the curriculum teaches it another way? Do you teach the lessons out of order? What?

 

DD is having trouble with identifying parts of speech. She can tell me what a certain part of speech does, but is in tears when trying to sort it out in a sentence.

 

I have AG and JAG (and some others) here, but I'm trying to figure out how to make it work.

 

Melinda

 

Melinda,

 

Actually that is the order that AG/JAG teaches, and it was the first time that grammar ever made sense to me.

 

If you dd is having problems you don't want to do AG. I found the first unit of AG to be difficult after completing all of JAG. Those sentences are long and complicated. :001_huh: The rest of AG is easier, IMO, till you get to season 2. My problem there is I got it at the time I did it (6 months ago), but now I don't remember the fine differences. In order to use it I would have to pull out my flash card cheats. Oh! I do make all my kids little 3x5 cards cheats that I put in order, so if they forget all they have to do is grab their grammar ring and start at the beginning. It will walk them through all the steps, if they can't remember it on their own. Though I find I have to use it much more often than the kids do. :glare:

 

Heather

[Lori D.]

We ALWAYS start with what we call "the simple sentence": the "who or what" of a sentence (simple subject -- usually a noun or a pronoun) and the "what happened" of a sentence (simple predicate -- usually a verb, or a verb+helping verb). Once you have found the subject (a noun or pronoun) and the simple predicate (a verb) -- EVERYTHING else is simply adding on and modifying those two words in some way.

To help narrow down the subject, one way to think of it is: what are the two words that you HAVE to have in order to have a complete sentence (a "who or what" and a "what happened to that who or what"). Example: "John threw the ball to his dog Spot." Here you have "John", "ball" "dog" and "Spot" as your nouns and all are candidates for being your subject. What can you get rid of and still have a sentence? "To his dog Spot" doesn't work as a complete sentence. "Threw to his dog" doesn't work as a complete sentence. But you could narrow it down to "John threw the ball." Now you just have "John" and "ball" as possible subjects. To figure out the subject, look at the predicate (the verb): "threw"; who or what is most connected to that verb? Who or what did the throwing? That will be your subject.

Next, we look for pronouns; they are among the easiest parts of speech to find. After that, we look for nouns. Once you have all the nouns and pronouns identified, we look for adjectives, which are often right next to, or pretty near to, the noun/pronoun they are modifying.

Before we start trying to find prepositional phrases (prepositions and adverbs seem to be tricky to students), we skip over and eliminate conjunctions, interjections, and adjectives, since they are all easier to find.

Next, we usually try to eliminate adverbs, by asking if any words add on the verb and tell you HOW the action occured. Example:

sentence: The dog ran quickly through the mud puddle.
me: You've already told me "run" is the action, the verb of this sentence. How did the dog run?
child: Quickly.
me: So, if run is the verb, what part of speech "adds on" to verbs?
child: Adverb.
me: So if "quickly" adds on and tells us how the dog ran, then quickly must be...
child: An adverb.

At this point, the only thing left will be prepositions. However, if the student was confused with other words, you may still need to narrow down the prepositions. If so, remember that preposition has the word "position" in it -- it's telling you about the position of things (nouns): across the table; under the sink; over the hill; through the woods...

At this point, if the student is STILL struggling to figure out the prepositions and prepositional phrases, I have them go back and look at all the nouns and pronouns they have already located. I remind them that every noun and pronoun *has* to have a "job" (a noun function); one "job" (function) will always be the subject. Are there any more nouns or pronouns in the sentence? Then let's figure out what the job is that each is doing:

Naming Jobs
1. Subject (the "who or what" the sentence is about)
2. Appositive (renames the subject immediately following the subject)
3. Predicate Nominative (renames the subject in the predicate (after the verb))
4. Noun of Direct Address (directly names a person)

Object Jobs
1. Object of the preposition (prepositional phrase = first word = preposition, last word = noun or pronoun)

2. Direct Object (The subject directly acts on the noun/pronoun that is the direct object: Tom threw the ball. -- What did the subject Tom throw?)

3. Indirect Obect (The noun/pronoun which indirectly gets involved in the action: Tom threw Mary the ball -- what did the subject Tom throw? The ball (direct object); The ball was thrown to whom? Mary (indirect object)

 

Again, start with identifying the simple sentence, and work out from there. This works very well with both my visual spatial learner AND my auditory-sequential learner. Hope something there is of help! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Lori D.
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