Parsing Exercises | Part 4

Date: 2020-06-30

Part 4 Exercises

Part 4 Exercises

For these practice sentences, first mark clauses and phrases (using curly and angle brackets), then make a short outline, then write and answer a question for each word. You may need to do research to figure them out, especially the last two.

John pet his dog and cat with vigor.
Seeing isn’t believing.
I like philosophy because it involves thinking methods.
Some people don’t love truth or honesty.
John and Olivia enthusiastically sang their favorite song on the stage, but singing well wasn’t enough for the actors pretending to be judges.
While you’re having a discussion, never misquote anyone.
I think that nuclear power is safe.

John pet his dog and cat with vigor.

{John pet <his <dog and cat>>} <with vigor>.

outline: {John pet <[John's] dog and cat>} (note: replacing dog and cat with pets is a bit too ambiguous for my taste)
outline en-gb: {John patted <[John's] pets>}
rearranged: {<John> <patted <with vigour>> <his <dog and cat>>}. - 3 phrases
what action? patting
who did the patting? John
what did john pat? pets
what action did john do to his pets: patted
who owns the pets? john
what are his pets? dog and cat
how did he pat them? with vigour

correction:

{John pet <his <dog and cat>> <with vigor>}.

go for larger clauses

uncertainties

is pet his dog and cat a verb phrase? not really b/c it doesn’t take a subj and obj.
- more obvious when rearranging, patted with vigour is a verb phrase
- everything but the subject can be a verb phrase; verb + modifiers is sometimes called a verb phrase

Seeing isn’t believing.

{<Seeing> <[is not]> <believing>}

outline: {<Seeing> <[is not]> <believing>} – just the same as the sentence w/ [is not]?
- 3 phrases
what is the action? equivalence (or lack thereof)
how is action modified? negation: not
what is the subject? seeing
what is not equivalent to seeing? believing

I like philosophy because it involves thinking methods.

{<I> <like> <philosophy>} because {<it> <involves> <thinking methods>}

outline: {I like philosophy} because {philosophy involves <methods>}
Who’s speaking? I
what are they describing doing? liking something
what do they like? philosophy
how do they expand on liking it? offering a reason (because)
what’s the essence of the reason? involvement of something
how do they refer to philosophy? it
what thing does it involve? methods
what is the specific thing those methods relate to? thinking
subordinating conjunctions can be included in subordinate clause

Some people don’t love truth or honesty.

{<Some people> <[do not] love> <truth or honesty>}

love is the main verb, not an adverb on do, and do a helper verb for love. Feels right to keep them together because we get a verb phrase (???)
outline: [Xs] [not] love truth (Xs being some collective noun; didn’t want to just say ‘people’ because modifier is important, but I can’t think of a generic term for a subset of people)
what action is the sentence about: loving
how is the main verb modified: negation via do not
Who doesn’t love truth or honesty? people
Which people: some people
What do they not love (in the first case)? truth
What else might they not love? honesty
what’s the relationship between the two: or – i.e. not-loving either is enough to include them in the ‘some’

John and Olivia enthusiastically sang their favorite song on the stage, but singing well wasn’t enough for the actors pretending to be judges.

{<John and Olivia> <enthusiastically sang> <their favourite song> <on the stage>}, but {<singing well> <[was not]> <enough> <for the actors pretending to be judges> <[to be impressed]>}.

note: <<their favourite song> <on the stage>> - unsure if I should mark 3 phrases here. If I did, why not do it for all combinations of phrases that result in other phrases?
outline: [John] sang, but singing [was insufficient] [for the judges] [to be impressed]
First clause: <John and Olivia> <enthusiastically sang> <their favourite song> <on the stage>
- what is the action? sing
  - when did it happen? in the past
- how did it happen? enthusiastically
- who did the singing? [John] (john and olivia)
- what did they sing? song
- what was special about the song? favourite
- who’s favourite? their’s
- where did they sing? stage
- which stage? the stage
- what was their relationship to the stage? on it
Second clause: <singing well> <[was not] enough> <for the actors pretending to be judges> <[to be impressed]>
- what’s the action? was (be)
- what was doing the “being”? singing
- a particular type of singing? well (i.e. good singing)
- how was the action modified? not (negated)
- what was it not being? enough (noun)
- TODO: rest of Qs
- implied quality of judges enough refers to? ‘impressed’

While you’re having a discussion, never misquote anyone.

While {[you are] <having a discussion>}, {<never misquote> <anyone>}

outline: never misquote anyone [when] [you do discussions]
how is the condition specified? while (as in while you are doing Y, X, similar to: ‘X during Y’)
what is the condition? [you are] having a discussion
who does the condition apply to? you
what’s the verb applied to you during condition? are
what are you during condition? having something (having a discussion)
what are you having? discussion
which discussion? a (indeterminate; any discussion)
what should you do when satisfying the condition? never misquote anyone
what is the main action concerned in primary clause? misquote
what’s the modification of the main action? never
so the full action in primary clause is? never misquote
who should you never misquote? anyone

I think that nuclear power is safe.

{<I> <think>} that {<nuclear power> <is safe>}

outline: I think that X; X = nuclear power is safe – how to make this more of an outline? is it worth it?
outline 2: X, I think that – note: ‘that’ becomes a determiner in this case, not a conjunction; so it’s technically similar?
Who’s speaking? I
What’s I doing? thinking
what does I think? nuclear power is safe
what is the main noun I thinks about? power
what is power doing? is (being)
what is power being? safe
what type of power? nuclear

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