books/websites that dissect a sentence

BradCarsten · Sep 12, 2011

I'm looking for a book or website that lists dozens of sentences and then dissects each one grammatically.

So for example: Jack hit the ball.

Jack is the subject
hit is the verb
ball object/noun etc

but obviously dealing with more complicated sentences.

Anyone know of anything like this?

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 12, 2011

I have a book like that. English 2600. "A Programmed Course in Grammar and Usage." It starts with the simple sentence "Birds fly." Birds is the subject. Fly is the predicate. And they progressively get more indepth.

bonitakale · Sep 12, 2011

You could try searching for "parsing sentences" or "diagramming sentences."

Maryn · Sep 12, 2011

I haven't got a book or site to recommend, but an intense curiosity. Why do you need lots of examples of sentences broken into component parts? Self-education? Instruction for someone else? Masochism?

Maryn, nosy

BradCarsten · Sep 12, 2011

Maryn said:
I haven't got a book or site to recommend, but an intense curiosity. Why do you need lots of examples of sentences broken into component parts? Self-education? Instruction for someone else? Masochism?

Maryn, nosy

masochism sounds about right

I am busy working through 'English Grammar for dummies', and while it is easy to identify the parts of a sentence in the simple examples, as soon as the sentence gets a little more complicated, I tend to loose my way. I'm hoping that if I can work through a few dozen complicated sentences, I will eventually be able to wrap my head around it.

Shadow_Ferret said:
I have a book like that. English 2600. "A Programmed Course in Grammar and Usage." It starts with the simple sentence "Birds fly." Birds is the subject. Fly is the predicate. And they progressively get more indepth.

Thanks, that sounds exactly like the kind of book I am looking for. I haven't been able to find a preview on the internet, so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind providing a few more details about it. If you take a look at the above response to Maryn, I spoke about what I wanted the book for. Would the book still be helpful, in your opinion, after understanding my intentions?

bonitakale said:
You could try searching for "parsing sentences" or "diagramming sentences."

Thanks. It definitely helps to know the correct terminology when googling.

muse · Sep 12, 2011

I have two sites bookmarked that I've found very helpful. Can't remember where I found them, may have been this site when I first joined.

Might be worth checking out.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm
Has lots of interactive quizzes to practice.

And English Maven - on line English Lessons.
http://englishmaven.org/

Fallen · Sep 12, 2011

Maryn said:
Masochism?

Ave, The Longman student Grammar of Spoken and Written English is another good.

Whatever book you choose, if it gets to heavy going don't be afraid to ask on here for an explanation. There be many a ~~masochist~~ grammarian here.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 13, 2011

ave said:
Thanks, that sounds exactly like the kind of book I am looking for. I haven't been able to find a preview on the internet, so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind providing a few more details about it. If you take a look at the above response to Maryn, I spoke about what I wanted the book for. Would the book still be helpful, in your opinion, after understanding my intentions?

Oops, sorry. Missed this. I'll have to take a good look at the book to see if it meets that criteria.

BradCarsten · Sep 15, 2011

Fallen said:
Ave, The Longman student Grammar of Spoken and Written English is another good.

Whatever book you choose, if it gets to heavy going don't be afraid to ask on here for an explanation. There be many a ~~masochist~~ grammarian here.

looks like an interesting book.
Thanks, I'm sure I'll be wearing out my keyboard on these forums over the next little while.

Shadow_Ferret said:
Oops, sorry. Missed this. I'll have to take a good look at the book to see if it meets that criteria.

thanks I would appreciate it.

Dani · Sep 20, 2011

If you want a great, funny way of reading what you're looking for, I recommend http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/page/74 (I started you at the top of the blog). She takes Twilight apart sentence by sentence, correcting the grammar, spelling, sentence structure - everything.

It's hilarious, too, which is just an awesome bonus to learning, right? =D

Susan Coffin · Sep 20, 2011

Dani said:
If you want a great, funny way of reading what you're looking for, I recommend http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/page/74 (I started you at the top of the blog). She takes Twilight apart sentence by sentence, correcting the grammar, spelling, sentence structure - everything.

It's hilarious, too, which is just an awesome bonus to learning, right? =D

I'm sorry, I didn't think it was hilarious. I mean, why would someone want to spend all that time tearing apart other writer's work and post snippets of the pages on a blog? Seems kind of weird to me. You can't learn form it either. Who is this person anyway?

And, no, I'm not a Twilight fan, as I've never read the books.

MacAllister · Sep 20, 2011

One of my own favorites, and a really practical, funny, conversational and easy-to-follow look at lots of different sentences (and what makes them work or not) is June Casagrande's It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences

benbradley · Sep 20, 2011

I can only hope to be so successful that someone does that to one of my books...

But to the OP's question, I might as well throw these two sentence at you, I think originally attributed to Groucho Marx:

Time flies like an arrow.

Fruit flies like a banana.

Parsing them actually involves semantics as well as grammar, and you can see how each can be parsed in more than one way (for the first one, there might be a species of flies named time flies, and they might be attracted to arrows. A banana doesn't fly very well, nor do other types of fruit). These and similar sentences are famous (or infamous) for testing computer parsing and understanding of English, as attempted in Artificial Intelligence many decades ago. Things have come along pretty well since then, as demonstrated by IBM's Watson computer winning Jeopardy.

bonitakale · Sep 21, 2011

Susan Littlefield said:
I'm sorry, I didn't think it was hilarious. I mean, why would someone want to spend all that time tearing apart other writer's work and post snippets of the pages on a blog? Seems kind of weird to me. You can't learn form it either. Who is this person anyway?

I think you can learn from this site. What-not-to-do is always more fun and usually more memorable than what to do.

Dani · Sep 21, 2011

Susan Littlefield said:
I'm sorry, I didn't think it was hilarious. I mean, why would someone want to spend all that time tearing apart other writer's work and post snippets of the pages on a blog? Seems kind of weird to me. You can't learn form it either. Who is this person anyway?

And, no, I'm not a Twilight fan, as I've never read the books.

I'm sorry you don't find it funny. =( I like her humor and if you read the site, she makes some really valid points. I'm not sure the writer would care much - I wouldn't if my bank account looked like hers.

But I think you're wrong about not learning from it. I learned a lot about grammar, sentence structure and continuity from her. And to be quite honest, she points out mistakes in that writer's works that I have made myself. It's funny to read and has me taking a closer look at my own words.

Pepperman · Sep 21, 2011

No. But my eight year old grand-daughter is studying sentence structure and can parse a sentence like an expert. She accepts commissions.

Fallen · Sep 21, 2011

Pepperman said:
No. But my eight year old grand-daughter is studying sentence structure and can parse a sentence like an expert. She accepts commissions.

Which expert? Halliday (functional grammar)? Whorf (linguistic relativity)? Chomsky (transformative grammar)? See even the experts can't agree on how a sentence should be broken down. All have their own theories. And to make matters worse, there are a thousand and one different style books out there that don't help the issue. Now tie that into how language varies from country to country, and to how publishers also have their own little language quirks that they like to follow...

I think it's a pretty smart question to ask: do you know of a book that...

Susan Coffin · Sep 21, 2011

Dani said:
I'm sorry you don't find it funny. =( I like her humor and if you read the site, she makes some really valid points. I'm not sure the writer would care much - I wouldn't if my bank account looked like hers.

But I think you're wrong about not learning from it. I learned a lot about grammar, sentence structure and continuity from her. And to be quite honest, she points out mistakes in that writer's works that I have made myself. It's funny to read and has me taking a closer look at my own words.

Oh gosh, no problem, not finding it funny is just me.

What is to learn from it? The blog owner in her FAQ says she's no expert on grammar and is just someone who likes words and sentences. All she does is posts these photocopies of the the pages (wait a minute, is that even legal? Did she get permission from the author to do this?) and makes her own "corrections." I saw parts where I thought she overdid it a bit. I learn from resources that teach how to take a sentence apart and provide quizzes. I saw some good links in this thread.

Anyway, it's just my opinion that the website you posted is not funny nor a great learning resource.

Susan Coffin · Sep 21, 2011

bonitakale said:
I think you can learn from this site. What-not-to-do is always more fun and usually more memorable than what to do.

I guess that depends on what a person is looking for. I just don't see the validity in it, but that's just me.

Edited to add: A good book about basic sentence structure is Clean well-lighted Sentences by Janis Bell.

books/websites that dissect a sentence

BradCarsten

practical experience, FTW

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

bonitakale

Maryn

At Sea

BradCarsten

practical experience, FTW

muse

standing on head, typing one-handed...

Fallen

Stood at the coalface

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

BradCarsten

practical experience, FTW

Dani

Cuddly sweet teddy bear!

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

MacAllister

'Twas but a dream of thee

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world

bonitakale

Dani

Cuddly sweet teddy bear!

Pepperman

Pepperman

Fallen

Stood at the coalface

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is