| One of the methods of analyzing sentences is given by Nelson Francis in his book American Structures. He divides the constructions into structure of predication, structure of modification, structure of complementation, and structure of coordination. Pike also gives one method of analyzing sentences what he calls tagmemics. He divides and explains each construction by giving the function of the elements, the class of the elements, the role of the elements, and if any the cohesion (agreement between the elements). This is the procedure of Analysis by Thomas (1988: 39). In order to discover the structure of a certain phrase, chart the data. Just as you do when charting the morphemes of a word, so you will find it helpful to look at one of the longer utterances, before setting up your columns. When you have all the words entered in columns, then choose suitable labels for each column. In charting, do not be too hasty in labeling columns. You may need to wait until you have charted a number of utterances, before you see which class of words occurs there. Also bear in mind that you will often need to add more columns to your chart or modify a label, as you get more data. In analyzing the sentence, first describe the elements by charting as mentioned above. Secondly, describe the relationships of the elements by stating the Syntagmatic Features: Order of elements. Are they in fixed order or free? Describe their Status of Elements: Obligatory or Optional. Next the occurrence of restriction, what is the longest and the shortest? maximun and the minimum? By charting we can discover the structure of the clause. In setting up a chart for data, first divide one of the clauses into phrases. As at word and phrase rank, it is best to choose the longest utterance as your starting point. Then look at the noun phrases functioning as subject and those functioning as object. In deciding whether phrases are the same, we need to note: a. whether they have the same internal structure and b. whether the lists of phrases and words are identical or largely identical. In discovering the structure of a unit, we have to 1) identify the elements and, 2) identify the relationships between the elements. In describing the structure of a unit, a good deal of information can be conveyed concisely and clearly by means of a formula: the left?hand side shows what unit is being described; the right?hand side shows, in summary form, what the elements are and what their relative order is. In between the unit and the elements we use an arrow to indicate that it is a description of the structure of the unit (Thomas, 1988:41). Example: NP ???> +H : N +M : N/Adj/Num It means the noun phrase consists of obligatory head filled by noun and modifier filled by obligatory noun or adjective or numeral. Agreement In English such as in these books, the relationship between the elements is marked by agreement, we cannot say this books or these book. There is an agreement between the two elements. Agreement means the relationship between the two elements that is marked by morphemes. There are three kinds of agreement, concord and government and cross?reference. It is called concord when two or more words each carry some marker, not necessarily of the same form, which signals the same grammatical category. In these books there is a concord between the noun (books) and the demonstrative (these) (Thomas, 1988). Concord (often called agreement) is found in endocentric constructions, and in a tie that cuts across hierarchical structure to link predicate attributes to subjects. In Spanish both nouns and adjectives are inflected for number. When an adjective is used as attribute to a noun, the noun and the adjective agree, or are in concord, as to number: muchacho bueno 'good boy'; muchachos buenos 'good boys'. In Latin puer bonus 'good boy' for singular, and pueri boni for plural. In other words concord means that certain words are required to take forms which correspond in specified ways with certain other words (Gleason, 1961:164). The clear examples are 'this book' and 'those books'. eg in Latin: filius bonus 'the good son' (sing, masc, nominative) filii boni 'of the good son'(sing, masc, genitive) puella bona 'the good girl' (sing, fem, nominative) puellarum bonarum 'of the good girls'(plu, fem,genitive) puer bonus 'good boy' (nominative singular) pueri boni 'good boys' (nominative plural) puerorum bonorum 'of the good boys' (genitive plural) (Hockett:215) in Spanish: muchacho bueno 'good boy' muchachos buenos 'good boys' la casa blanca 'white house' las casas blancas 'white houses' la mujer buena 'the good woman' el hombre bueno 'the good man' las mujeres bueanas 'the good women' los hombres buenos 'the good men' in Portuguese: esse menino gordo 'that fat boy' essa menina bonita 'that pretty girl' esses meninos gordos 'those fat boys' esas eninas bonitas 'those pretty girls' esse vertido bonito 'that pretty dress' esses vertidos boniots 'those pretty dresses' ess- 'that' menin- 'child' bonit- 'pretty' gord- 'fat' vertid- 'dress' masculine feminine plural -e -a -s -o -a -s |