Creating diagrams to represent sentences may seem complicated at first, but you will quickly understand how it works. Once you understand the basics, representing a sentence will be like completing a sudoku or a crossword puzzle. It is a good idea to learn grammar!
Steps
Step 1. Find the verb of the sentence
Verbs are words that describe an action (walking, dancing, singing, running, for example) or describe a state of being (are, are, is, was). Look for the action in the sentence and ask yourself what happened. There you will find the verb.
- Once you find the verb, draw a straight horizontal line, with a vertical line running through its center. On the right side of the vertical line put the verb.
- For example: "Gigi was looking for his dog". The word "sought" is the verb, because it describes an action.
- Another example: "Gigi was looking for his dog". The words "he was looking for" represent the verb, because they are a state of being, also known as a gerund.
Step 2. Find the subject of the sentence
This will be the object or person doing the action. The subject will go to the left of the vertical line (the verb is on the right). A good question to ask when looking for the subject is "who did the action".
From the example above, "Gigi was looking for his dog", Gigi is the subject, because he is the one who was looking for the dog
Step 3. Find the object complement, if there is one
This is the person or object that receives the action. Not all sentences have an object complement. If you have an object complement, draw a vertical line after the verb and put the term in it.
- In the example "Gigi was looking for his dog", the word "dog" is the object complement.
- Now, if I had a sentence like "Gigi was angry", there is no object complement.
- If you have a copulative verb with a complement, draw an oblique line after the verb, and write the complement to it. A copulative verb connects the subject of the sentence to the complement. The complement is the part of the sentence that is after the verb and completes the sentence. For example: "Gigi was sad when his dog disappeared". In this sentence "he was sad" is a copulative verb and "when his dog was missing" is the complement.
Step 4. Find the articles (a, the) or possessive adjectives (mine, yours, his)
You will draw an oblique line from any word that is modified by possessive articles or adjectives. The sentence could have both words of this type, or one or none.
For example: "His dog left the house". In this sentence "his" will be on the line under the subject "dog", because he is possessive. The sentence also has an article "la" which will be found on the oblique line under "home"
Step 5. Identify the adjectives
These are words that describe a noun or pronoun. Put adjectives on an oblique line below the words they modify.
Example: "Gigi was looking for his red dog". The word "red" is the adjective, because it gives a description of the dog. For this reason, it will be placed on the vertical line under "dog" which is the subject of the sentence
Step 6. Find the adverb
Adverbs modify verbs and adjectives, as well as other adverbs. They often end with -mente. Good questions to ask yourself when looking for an adverb: How? When? Where is it? How many? Because? Put the adverb on a vertical line below the word you modify.
Example: "Gigi quickly ran after his dog". The word "quickly" changes "ran" and therefore will be placed on a vertical line under "ran"
Step 7. Look for prepositional phrases
Usually these are groups of words that begin with a preposition and end with a noun or pronoun. Prepositional phrases do not contain verbs, they usually have adjectives, nouns and pronouns. You will connect the prepositional phrase on a horizontal line below the word it modifies.
- Example: "The computer above the chair is yours". The prepositional expression is "over the chair". Once the phrase is removed, you will see that "computer" is the subject and "is" the verb.
- Another example: "Gigi was waiting for Andrea outside the school". The prepositional phrase is "out of school", which contains the prepositions "out of" and the name "school".
Step 8. Check if the sentence is complex
Complex sentences have words like "and" or "but". If parts of the sentence are complex, you will connect the complex parts with a dashed line and the conjunction that connects them. For example, if you have a complex subject, draw two lines for the subject and write each subject on one line. Connect them with a dotted line.
For example: "Gigi and his friends looked for his dog". "e" makes this sentence complex and the dotted line must be drawn between "Gigi" and "friends". "his" will go on the oblique line under "friends"
Step 9. For more complex sentences, connect the main clause with the subordinate clause using a dashed line
Represent them both as usual.
Example: "Gigi and his friends went to the supermarket where they found his dog". The first proposition starts with "Gigi" and ends with "supermarket", while the second proposition goes from "they found" to "dog". Once you have separated the two sentences, you can represent them normally. The word "where" connects the two sentences together
Advice
- If you are just starting out, choose simple sentences to start with. (The dogs barked. The black cat meowed.)
- Remember that these are only the basic principles of sentence representation. Grammar is not an exact science!
