A student who has mastered the secondary school program should be able to analyze the structure of a sentence in his native language. Competent parsing is a very useful skill, which is the key to knowledge of punctuation and the ability to quickly master the grammatical structure of a foreign language, as well as make sentences in it. That is why it should be treated not as some kind of formal requirement, but as one of the key skills.
According to the program of the course "Russian language", syntactic analysis involves, first of all, the characteristics of the sentence in terms of such parameters as the purpose of the statement, the emotional component and the number of bases. And if the first two problems, as a rule, do not arise, then already at the stage of characterizing the basics, the child may have difficulties. Next, it is required to identify and characterize the secondary members of the sentence, and here very often students make many mistakes, resulting in both punctuation errors and bad grades for analysis. A sample of parsing in these cases does not help much, it is necessary to learn a clear sequence of actions and understand the essence of the task.
The most common mistakes
One of the most common mistakes is trying to parse a sentence by parsing the words one by one, from first to last. As a rule, if a student proceeds to analyze a sentence in this way, then this is the path he follows when translating a foreign text into Russian, which is obviously wrong. This indicates that the student does not see the structure of the sentence, does not understand its structure and connections between the members of the sentence, the role of each of them in the statement. Hence the errors in their identification and characteristics.
The second mistake is missing one of the sentence stems. You can find the subject and predicate and stop in search of the basics, linking all other words in the sentence to the found one.
The third common mistake is not being able to see the non-standard grammatical basis. For example, in the sentence “I didn’t understand yesterday who you really are”, you can not find the subject and predicate in the subordinate clause, or skip this stem altogether.
Finally, one-part sentences, especially in complex ones, often become another difficulty leading to failure. "We've all noticed how fast it's getting dark now." If, when analyzing the sentence “It is getting evening”, schoolchildren are often ready to see the predicate, then the same sentence, distributed by secondary members andacting as a subordinate clause is either confusing or simply not noticed.
Standardly, in this type of sentences, the subject is mistakenly found "now" or even "quickly". The same error occurs, for example, in a sentence like "We were told what this place looked like five years ago and how quickly a house was built here." The absence of a comma between the stems due to the subordination of subordinate clauses provokes an error and the omission of the third - one-part - stem.
Finally, the fifth large group of errors is in not recognizing complicated sentences and attributing, say, isolated definitions and circumstances, as well as introductory words, the role of grammatical stems, or in building the wrong way to spread the sentence.
Causes of errors
The reason for the first error is not knowing the parsing algorithm, not knowing how to parse. The reason for the second is the lack of sufficient experience, the reason for the third, fourth and fifth is the lack of awareness and a weak base of the considered and analyzed structures.
In this article, we will focus on the first mistake and focus on the essence of parsing, the ability to analyze the structure, the sentence mechanism.
Teaching and self-learning of the structural approach
So, parsing is, first of all, actions according to a clear algorithm and the ability to clearly see the structure of a sentence.
It is better not to start with the analysis of sentences, the more complex and confusing - in this case, the student will alwaysact somewhat blindly and will not be sure of the correctness of the parsing. One of the safest and fastest ways to learn to analyze structure, feel it, and confidently outline a sentence is to write sentences with the gradual addition of secondary members and a clear pronunciation of what exactly changes at each stage, as well as drawing arrows showing the dependence of words and searches distribution channels. This task is suitable for both teaching a child and self-study.
With this gradual "dressing" of the basis and its distribution, it will be obvious how the proposal works. This practice, by the way, usually has a good effect on the ability not only to translate from a foreign language, but also to speak it.
A simple suggestion. Subject Spread
"The puppy came running." This is the grammatical basis.
Spreading the subject. Whose puppy? "My puppy came running." What puppy? "My red puppy came running." What other puppy? "My red cheerful puppy came running." What else? "My red-haired cheerful and crafty puppy came running." What else can be said about what he is? “My red-haired cheerful and crafty puppy in curls came running.”
Now we have extended the subject with five definitions.
Predicate Spread
Spreading the predicate. Ran from where? From the street. Where? Home. “My red-haired, cheerful and sly puppy in curls ran home from the street.”
Distribution of minor members of the subject group
Distribute the minor members of the sentence of the subject group. How cheerful? Incredible. In what curls? In large.
Of course, this is a simple example. The more heterogeneous and diverse the connections of the members of the sentence, the more experience the student will gain and the higher the percentage of probability that he will then easily “unravel” the most difficult at first glance sentences, since parsing is primarily the ability to “straighten”, schematize any statement, regardless of word order.
Distribution of minor members of the predicate group
Distribute the secondary members of the sentence of the predicate group. How spanking? Funny. How do you stomp? Loud.
"My red-haired incredibly cheerful and sly puppy in large curls, funny spanking and loudly stomping, came running from the street."
When self-composing sentences using this algorithm, word connections, sentence structure, and, consequently, its punctuation are obvious.
As you can see, this task is extremely easy. Usually it is performed by students of all ages with great willingness, and there are no difficulties in constructing a sentence scheme, since the connections between words are obvious, but meanwhile this is the basis for learning how to parse correctly and consciously.
Inversions and transformations
After the final sentence has been parsed, all members have been identified and all links have been established, it is very useful to transform it by rearranging the words, andreanalyze it. “Funny spanking and loudly stomping, my red puppy in large curls ran home from the street, incredibly cheerful and crafty.” The analysis of such inversions, as well as the exercise in transformation, form the habit of seeing their structure in the most intricate sentences and understanding how statements are arranged.
Switch to complex sentences
The way of learning the ability to see the structure of a simple sentence was considered above. However, parsing is the analysis of not only simple, but also complex sentences. At the same time, it is important to understand the connections of sentences with each other, to distinguish equal sentences and their coordinative connection from hierarchical relations and subordination. Especially often there are difficulties in establishing the nature and specifics of the subordinating relationship.
Understanding the basics of complex sentence analysis will help the same exercise. The surest way to understand the features of the structure and operation of the mechanism is to independently manufacture this mechanism. This also applies to offers.
Let's continue our example, for the sake of simplicity and brevity, taking minor terms out of brackets for now.
The puppy came running. What for? play. "The puppy came running to play." The sentence contains a circumstance of purpose. Let's try to spread it. Play with whom? With kids. Emphasize the goal with the word "to". "The puppy came running to play with the children." The statement still lacks a second subject and a predicate. "With children" is an addition. Let's make sure that the complement, that is, by meaning, the second subject,became the second subject - became the basis of a new subordinate clause: “The puppy came running so that the children would play with him.”
Such transformations are valuable because they show what role the subordinate clause plays, how predicativity can unfold and collapse. Such a game will teach you to place accents, and any sentence will become transparent in its structure, the analysis of which, as already mentioned, is the essence of parsing.
The school program of the discipline "Russian language" basically presents the syntactic analysis of a sentence as a kind of theoretical superstructure, but this is primarily the development of speech skills and the ability to consciously approach the construction of a sentence. Such an operational approach, we repeat, has a very good effect on the study of foreign languages, and on punctuation literacy, and on the ability to write texts in their native language.
