whereas in sentence 7, the subjectRunningis a gerund (a verb functioning
as a noun) functioning as a subject—but the diagrams are significantly dif-
ferent. We should expect subjects to have a similar diagrammatic structure
in every situation, but that isn’t the case with Reed-Kellogg diagrams. Sen-
tence 8 is seriously complex but grammatically it is very similar to sentence
6, which is really not evident from the diagrams.
A more revealing and instructional method of analysis is thetree diagram,in
which all the components are labeled and in which all the grammatical relations
are easily recognizable. Compare the tree diagrams on pages 110 and 111 with
their corresponding Reed-Kellogg diagrams. Notice how the labels and consis-
tent structure allow us to recognize the constituents easily. The rest of this chapter
contains quite a few diagrams and even more phrase structure rules. The aim is
not to introduce analyses simply for the sake of analysis but to aid in the under-
standing of some of the more significant grammatical structures in English. The
diagrams and the rules allow deeper insight into the structure of language.
Direct and Indirect Objects
We examined direct and indirect objects in chapter 3 as part of the discus-
sion of transitive and ditransitive verbs. Because the basic sentence pattern
in English is SVO, it is important to consider early on how phrase-structure
grammar treats objects. We already have a phrase-structure rule that de-
scribes objects:
108 CHAPTER 4
Sentence 4.7: Running is good exercise. (Reed-Kellogg diagram)