Grammar question

[swarmie]

My dd and I would like to diagram a sentence that contains a compound prepositional phrase, but I don't know how to do so. Help?

 

The sentence in question is the following: The red fish swam through, around, and over the coral.

 

I do know how to diagram a sentence like this: The red fish swam through the coral and over the over the reef. And a sentence like this: The cat ran past the dog, the boy, and the house. But how do you diagram a sentence with compound prepositions within a prepositional phrase?...I understand what I am asking may be difficult to explain in words only, but I thought I'd try anyway. (It really bugs me that I don't know!)

 

Thanks.

[Mallory]

I think through and around are adverbs and over the coral is a prepostional phrase. They'd all go under swam, and be connected with a dashed line with and on it.

[Bocky]

My guess is that the coral is the object of all three prepositions, so I would have three slanted lines beneath the verb swam for "through", "around" and "over," and the prepostional object noun "coral" on a horizontal line starting from through and crossing all three preposition lines; and "the" would be on another slanted line beneath coral.

[Mallory]

Does anyone have a link to "compound prepositions" like that? Where several preposions can have the same object? I understand ones like "according to" but they aren't the same as this and I can't find anything that shows more then one preposition to an object.

 

I think this sentance and it's confusing diagram show why diagramming can help.

What you have is a series of three things- 1- through, 2- around, 3- over the coral. Because your series isn't parallel and is made of two adverbs and one prepositional phrase, the diagram is confusing.

[swarmie]

This sentence comes from "Practice Island" from MCT (found on page 74 for those of you who own this book). According to MCT, the words through, around, and over are all prepositions. There are no adverbs in this sentence, according to MCT.

 

Bocky, how would you diagram the conjunction "and" in that sentence? Any thoughts? I've looked online and can find examples of how to diagram compound objects of a preposition, but cannot find any examples online (or in "Analytical Grammar") of how to diagram a prepositional phrase that contains multiple prepositions. (Urgh!)

 

Thank you, BTW, for everyone's thoughts:). Given that I cannot find any example diagrams by grammarians online or in "Analytical Grammar," my conjecture is that it is rare to find such a sentence structure as the one MCT used in "Practice Island." Given that MCT does not teach how to diagram sentences, I don't feel comfortable asking MCT how to diagram their sentence:).

[Bocky]

I guess I'd use a dotted horizontal line between "around" and "over" for "and". I'm using Rod and Staff 5 Following the Plan, and it doesn't have any examples using multiple prepositions with the same object either. I like to get these things right too :-) Wish I could be of more help.