Tree diagramming is the best way to represent the underlying hierarchical structure of sentences.

To be clear and consistent, we use the following abbreviations and acronyms to label the forms and functions of grammatical units in tree diagrams.

In tree diagramming, it is important to distinguish between the form and function of a grammatical unit and label both of them.

Labels for Forms:

• POS: n. v. adj. adv. det. pron. prep. conj. etc.

• Phrasal types: NP, PP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, LVP

• Clausal types: IC, DC, NCC, VCC, ACC, etc.

Labels for Functions:

Subj. Objt. Pred. SP, OP, OofP., DO, IO, PNM, Advl., etc.

SYMBOLS FOR SENTENCE PARSING

[ ] used to indicate a phrase

{ } used to indicate a clause

| used to separate subject and predicate in a clause

1. PARTS-OF-SPEECH (POS)

A. Content Words (aka lexical or open-class words)

• 1. noun n.

  2. adjective adj.

  3. verb v.

3.1 Type

1) lexical verb Vlex.

2) auxiliary verb Vaux.

a) primary auxiliary verb Vaux (prim.) (be, have, do)

b) modal auxiliary verb Vaux (mod.) (can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, etc.)

3.2 TransitiviTy/valency

1) Intransitive IT

2) Monotransitive MT

3) Ditransitive DT

4) Complex transitive CT

5) Copular COP

3. adverb adv.

qualifier qual.

B. Function Words (aka grammatical or closed-class words)

• 1. determiner det.

     • • article art.

       • quantifier quant.

       • numeral num.

  2. pronoun pron.

  3. preposition prep. or P

  4. conjunction conj.

     • • coordinate conjunction conj. (coor.)

       • subordinating conjunction conj. (sub.)

C. Miscellaneous

• • • • interjection inter.

2. PHRASES

A. By Type

• 1. noun phrase NP

  2. verb phrase VP long verb phrase (LVP) = VP + following constituents

  3. adjective phrase AdjP

  4. adverbial phrase AdvP

  5. preposition phrase PP

B. By Function

• 1. subject Subj.

  2. predicate Pred.

  3. direct object DO

  4. indirect object IO

  5. object of preposition OofP

  6. subjective predicative SP or subject complement SC

  7. objective predicative OP or object complement OC

  8. adverbial Advl.

  9. adjectival Adjt.

     • • • pre-modifier pre-mod

         • post noun modifier post-mod/PNM

3. CLAUSES

A. By Finiteness

• 1. • • FC = finite clause

       • nFC = nonfinite clause

         1. • infinitive clause

            • present participle clause

            • past participle clause

B. By Dependency

• 1. • • IC = independent/main clause

       • DC = dependent/subordinating clause

C. By Function

• 1. • • advl. cls. = adverbial clause (a DC that functions as an adverbial)

       • rel. cls = relative clause (a DC that functions as a post noun modifier)

       • NCC = noun complement clause (a DC that completes the meaning of an antecedent noun)

       • VCC = verb complement clause (a DC that completes the meaning of an antecedent verb)

       • ACC = adjective complement clause (a DC that completes the meaning of an antecedent adjective)

       • nom. = nominal (a DC that functions like an NP)

       • adjt. = adjectival (a DC that functions like an AdjP)

       • advl. = adverbial (a DC that functions like an AdvP)

4. SENTENCES

A. By Type

1. 1. 1. SIM simple

      2. COM compound

      3. CLX complex

      4. COM-CLX compound-complex

B. By Function

1. Decl. declarative

2. Inter. interrogative

3. Imper. imperative

4. Excl. exclamatory

Linguists have successfully trained computer programs to perform grammatical analysis of sentences. Stanford Parser is one of these. You can enter a sentence and the program will analyze it automatically for you. The output includes nested layers of units with POS tags.

You can try it here.