constituent structure of a sentence

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sitler
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:30 am

constituent structure of a sentence

Post by sitler » Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:49 am

dear teachers,

hi! could someone help me with the constituent structure ( or even a tree diagram ) of the sentence:
i saw an old woman with a child with ginger hair.


thank you,
david e. sitler

joon
Posts: 52
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2003 10:27 am
Location: Daejun, South Korea

a reply

Post by joon » Wed Apr 16, 2003 12:40 pm

(quote)I saw an old woman with a child with ginger hair.


I = subject

saw = verb

an old woman = object

with a child = prepositional phrase modifying the object head word" woman"

with ginger hair:

I think there are two possibilities:

it modifies "child" or "woman".

Does the child have ginger hair?
or
Does the woman have ginger hair?

I am not sure.
I hope any native speaker of English tells about this.

I want to check which is correct between these two possibilities.

sitler
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:30 am

Post by sitler » Wed Apr 16, 2003 1:53 pm

joon,
thank you for your prompt reply and answer.
sitler

jly_eslcafe
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 3:47 am
Location: Oz

Post by jly_eslcafe » Tue Apr 22, 2003 10:46 am

Guys,

I think it means the child has ginger (coloured) hair. If I was the writer and wanted to state that the old woman had ginger hair then I would possibly write the sentence as:
* I saw an old woman with a child and with ginger hair.
OR * I saw an old ginger-haired woman with a child.

~ Jennifer

sita
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Location: Germany
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Post by sita » Tue Apr 22, 2003 7:27 pm

I also would assume the kid has ginger hair.

Siân

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