Modern Grammar - Assignment 16 James Madison University

Instructions: This is an introduction to several new English phrase practice with some basic phrase structure rules for single clause sentences. It will be graded only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.

1. First, there's one more syntactic rule in English that, like the verb-particle rule, produces a lexical category (a process normally associated with morphological processs rather than syntactic ones...). This new rule is det --> NP 's (i.e, take a noun phrase that ends with a possessive affix and use that whole noun phrase as a DETERMINER to introduce the NP of another noun that follows). Try diagramming the sentence below, which contains an example of this rule's application:
   
   1. My dear friend's brother moved to Alaska.
2. Next, we've had plenty of simple little adjective phrases in our examples so far, but we of course know that adjectives can be modified. So here is a new AP rule: AP --> int AP (where "int" is an intensifier adverb.) Use this rule as part of your tree structure for the sentence below:
   
   1. The most difficult part of the puzzle was the very monochromatic part.
3. And now that we're talking about adverbs, let's add a rule for adverbs that modify VPs: VP--> VP AdvP. The basic rule for the Adverb Phrase itself parallels the basic rule for Adjective Phrases, i.e, AdvP --> Adv. If the adverb is modified by an intensifier, the parallel rule is AdvP --> int AdvP. Try these rules out as you diagram the two sentences below:
   1. She handed the bomb to the police carefully.
   2. Your new piano arrives very soon.
4. Finally, now that we're considering adverbial modification, we should consider the fact that prepositional phrases also can have adverbial functions in a sentence. Here are two rules : AP --> AP PP (where the PP modifies an adjective that come before it) and VP --> VP PP (where a PP that is NOT inside the original VP contains adverbial information that modifies that VP. Try diagramming the two sentences below, each of which requires the use of one of these rules:
   
   1. The popular singer became overly confident about his career.
   2. Doris sent you many messages on your birthday!