We may miss the meaning for a number of reasons. We may not know the meaning of certain words or the concepts to which they refer. Even when we understand the words, we may come away with little understanding because the writing itself is particularly complex. In this latter instance, it is often helpful to apply grammatical analysis, to consciously attempt to break the sentence into meaningful units.

A Model Of English Sentence Structure

The discussion of noun phrases demonstrated the need to recognize grammatical constructions as complete units. There we were concerned with a single grammatical construction irrespective of where it appeared within a sentence.

This section looks more broadly at the sentence as a whole. It identifies various positions or slots within the sentence and discusses how constructions appearing within these slots shape the meaning of the sentence as a whole. In so doing, the discussion shows you how to make sense of complex sentences when you come across them in your reading, and how to construct them in your own writing.

• Sentence Modifiers
• Predicate Modifiers
• Inserts

1. The boy ate the apple in the pie.
2. The boy ate the apple in the summer.
3. The boy ate the apple in a hurry.

We can now see how we analyze these sentences differently to find meaning.    Using the notation above, we now see the following structures:

                                                        1. The boy              ate        the apple in the pie.

    *      

2. The boy ate the apple            [ in the summer.

3. The boy                           ate the apple { in a hurry }

To understand each sentence, we must analyze the relationship of its parts. That process is made easier with a knowledge of and a feeling for the various possible relationships: here noun modifiers, sentence modifiers, and predicate modifiers.

Remember the sentence

He did not marry her because he loved her.

The two meanings stem from two equally legitimate analyses. In the analysis

He did not marry her                [ because he loved her

they are not married. The phrase

  because he loved her

is in the end sentence modifier slot that modifies the remainder of the sentence. We can test this by shifting the final construction from the end to the front slot.

  He did not marry her              because he loved her

Because he loved her ,          he did not marry her                   

Note the addition here of the comma when the front slot is filled.

In the analysis

  He did not marry her              because he loved her

they still might be married for other reasons. The phrase

because he loved her

is determined to be in the predicate modifier slot, indicating a reason for marrying.

  He did not marry her              { because he loved her }

Other instances of grammatical ambiguity typically appear in headlines, as the following.

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

We can now read this as a reference to a certain disease

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

     *      

Female mushrooms have cancer!    Or as an event

Lung Cancer in Women      Mushrooms

     *     

Cancer in women is increasing—obviously the intended meaning!.

Analyze the following yourself.

·          Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead

·          Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

·          Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter

·          Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim

·          Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

·          Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years

Other examples can be found in "The Lower case" section of the Columbia Journalism Review : (5) :

  Thai Hospital Admits Starving Refugee Babies      

The Cambodia Daily , 2/26/98

  Salad still good after 50 years                           

Tribune-Star (Terra Haute, Ind.) 3/11/98

Transportation department to hold public meetings on I-49

The Times (Shreveport, La.) 3/19/98

  MEDIA: Some Fear Coverage Reflects Judgment                   

Los Angeles Times 1/29/98      

Can you distinguish between ambiguity of word meaning and grammatical ambiguity?

What does the above analysis do for us?    To find meaning in a sentence, we must break it into meaningful parts, and we must understand how those parts are related to each other.

When we group words into larger constructions, we accomplish two goals. First. we reduce the complexity of the sentence as a whole into smaller, more manageable parts. In so doing, we group words to identify complete references. The meaning we come away with depends on how we break up (analyze) a sentence.

The best strategy is to initially break the sentence into a few parts. Locate a basic simple sentence and identify how any remaining constructions are related to that basic simple sentence. The slot model offers a template for that effort.

Earlier we recognized King's full dream.    Within the construction defining that dream we can now recognize a time, a location, and an event:

one day

on the red hills of Georgia

the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together   at a table of brotherhood.

We find a complex sentence consisting of two front sentence modifiers followed by a simple sentence with a predicate modifier at the end

Finally, consider the following sentence:

When Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of a modest house at Appomattox Court House, Virginia to work out the terms for the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, a great chapter in American life came to a close and a greater chapter began.

At first, this appears to be a long and complex sentence.    When we draw on the notions reviewed above, however, we see that its structure is really simple. We have a front sentence modifier

When Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of a modest house at Appomattox Court House, Virginia to work out the terms for the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ]

a great chapter in American life came to a close and a greater chapter began.

followed by a series of simple sentences

a great chapter in American life came to a close and

a great new chapter began

To test this analysis, try shifting the modifier:

A great chapter in American life came to a close, and

a great new chapter began.

[ when Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of a modest house at Appomattox Court House, Virginia to work out the terms for the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

The large construction passes the test for a sentence modifier.    While that large construction may be the most interesting piece of the sentence, it is not the most crucial to the meaning.    The main idea of the sentence is about great chapter(s) beginning and ending. The large construction does not identify or describe those chapters; it only says when the shift came.

The "slot" model of sentences developed above offers a template into which to fit constructions in the effort to make sense of sentences.    The same model offers writers opportunities to qualifying references and ideas in terms of place, quality, time, purpose, type, extent, or conditions.    Writing that does not make use of the sentence modifier, predicate modifier, and insert slots can be decidedly childlike in expression and simplistic in thought.

(5) The examples from March/April and May/June 1998 issues.