Modern Grammar - Assignment 17 James Madison University

Instructions: Draw the correct tree structures for the following noun phrases and sentences and list the phrase structure rules needed to build each tree. There is now another, slightly bigger handout dedicated to noun phrase rules available on CANVAS. Remember to consider the type of verb when building the VP in each sentence, including the new ones in the phrase structure rules handout now available on CANVAS. Also watch for two-word verbs (aka phrasal verbs), which will require you to use the somewhat odd rule on that same handout for building a bigger verb from a verb and a particle. This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.

· First, here's some more practice with parsing/diagramming noun phrases:

1. this moment
2. a special friend
3. that irritating little habit
4. my house by the shore
5. nobody
6. angry birds
7. each small problem
8. several of the wonderful musicians
9. all the pretty little horses
10. the damaged corner on that portrait of their family

· And now some more sentences:

1. No man is an island.
2. The talented instructor offered the awkward dancer free lessons. (Hint: Notice that this is your first sentence that builds a VP out a V followed by TWO separate NPs -- an indirect object and a direct object respetively...)
3. Gertrude loves her unusual name.
4. The confused flock of sheep wandered from the pasture to the dangerous mountains on the edge of the ranch. (Hint: note that the sheep go from somewhere (pp) to somewhere else (PP))
5. Those shy young lovers passed small, romantic messages to each other. (note that the "recipient" here is expressed with a PP that follows the directo object instead of with an indirect object NP)
6. The boobytrapped safe blew up. (Your first use of the phrasal verb rule. Note that this two-word verb is intransitive...)
7. Few of the items on the agenda were of any importance.
8. I traded in my old car.
9. We drove our friends from their old home in Atlanta to their new home in Baltimore. (See if you can figure out which new VP rule to use.)
10. And finally, here are several more sentences that you should just attempt to label with the word class of each word.
1. Happily, Terry has been a good friend of mine for a long time.
2. We should have been working faster.
3. If you save money, you will feel more confident about your retirement.
4. Few people know that an extremely old, slightly eccentric, faded, gray ghost rattles its chains noisily in my attic.
5. What time does the movie start?

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