Syntactic Theory


Step 5

Determine the Grammatical Functions of the Constituents

In our example sentence:

  • history teacher is the head of the NP my history teacher.
  • the is the specifier of the noun history teacher.
  • to is the head of the PP to my history teacher
  • my history teacher is the complement of the preposition to
  • write is the head of the VP write to my history teacher.
  • the PP is the complement of the verb write. It is its oblique complement.
  • the VP write to my history teacher is the head of the VP ''write to my history teacher tomorrow]]
  • the adverb tomorrow is a modifier of the VP write to my history teacher tomorrow.
  • the auxiliary will is the Head of the VP (or AuxP) will write to my history teacher tomorrow.
  • the VP write to my history teacher tomorrow is the complement of the auxiliary will.
  • the VP will write to my history teacher tomorrow is the head of the sentence.
  • the noun Pat is the specifier of the auxiliary ''will'. It is the subject of the sentence.

In general:

Result of Step 5:

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