sentence parsing

donnach · Post by **donnach** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:37 pm

In the following sentence:

The professor is the expert, so he gave the class his views on the importance of learning to write papers clearly.

Regarding _on the importance of learning to write papers clearly_, can we call this one prepositional phrase with papers as the object and leave it at that? Or, if we are able to call it a singular prep. phrase, do we need to go on and define the phrases within the phrase? I.e., on the importance adj. modifier for views, of learning would be an adv. modifier of the prep phrase on the importance or an adj. modifier of importance? And so on.

Thanks,

Donna

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:05 pm

It's a prepositional phrase string (also called a prepositional string) because it has a nested prepositional phrase. It differs from consecutive prepositional phrases that modify a single verb (in the office on Monday).

"papers" is the object of the gerund phrase contained in the nested phrase. The object of the main prep. phrase is "importance".

Both phrases are probably complements, one of "views" and the other of "importance". That is, they complete the meaning of these nouns rather than modify them.

donnach · Post by **donnach** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:45 pm

Thank you.

I am a little confused as to which phrase is nested and what it's nested in.

Is this the main phrase? "on the importance of learning to write papers" with papers being the object of on?

I thought papers was the object of "to write", and "to write" the object of "learning", and "learning to write papers" a present participial phrase, and "clearly" the adverbial modifier of the infinitive "to write".

Oy!

Thanks,

Donna

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:20 pm

yes, I meant to write "papers" is the object of the infinitive phrase, so "to write papers" would be the object of the gerund, and the gerund is the object of the preposition "of", which begins the nested phrase inside of the main phrase, which begins with "on".

donnach · Post by **donnach** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:25 am

Thank you. I am thinking of buying a book on sentence tree diagramming to help me understand what words mean together and separately within a sentence.

Donna

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:16 am

Do tell us if you find what seems a good one, Donna!