Breaking Down Sentence Syntax

 

1.  “You don’t know about me unless you have read a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
This is a complex sentence.

                                                                S
      
                         NP                                                                      VP      

                          V

Pro    V        V       Pro  SC Pro (Present)   V       N        V      det      N            P   N           N

You don’t know me unless you   have       read a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.



     This is the very first sentence in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  The tree diagram is written in the noun phrase (NP) and the verb phrase (VP) method.  Every word is put in its word class (e.g. whether it’s a noun, pronoun, verb, subordinating conjunction etc.)  In this sentence, a non-standard construction would be the phrasing at the beginning when it says, “You don’t know about me…” Alternative phrasing could be “You do not know me…” or “You would not know me…”  Twain made his language grammatically-incorrect or with some contradictions in the language to fit the time period and to match the character’s dialect in the story.   

2.  “I’m going to sit down here and listen until I hear it again.”

This could be a compound sentence.

                              S
         NP                                     VP

Pro  V      P   V  Adv  Adv   CC     SC    Pro  V   Pro  Adv

I’m going to sit down here and listen until I hear it again.

     In this sentence, again it follows the NP + VP method and identifies each word class.  In the non-standard form of the sentence, the word “gwyne” is meant to be “going to.”  Again, Twain uses these words to show the dialect of the characters in the story.  A lot of the people in the story was poor and uneducated, not knowing the pronunciation of words, let alone the spelling of the words.   

3.  He caught me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school anyway, and out ran him most of the time.

This is a compound-complex sentence.


                                                          S


                        VP                                                                          NP 

Pro   V     Pro  P   N      P  N      P        V        Pro  CC  Pro  V    P      N        SC        P        V       Pro   N    P  det  N

He caught me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I       went to school anyway, and  outran him most of the time. 


     The grammar in this sentence does not contain misspelled words or jargon as in the previous sentences.  However, in its phrasing, it does not begin with noun but a verb.  Because of that, it is a verb phrase.  Also, where it may not have the “country jargon,” it has improper phrasing.  The sentence could actually be two separate sentences.     

4.  But by-and-by, Pap whipped me too much, and I couldn’t stand it.

This is a compound sentence.


                         S                                                S
                       
                        NP                                                   VP

  P        N           N       V        P     Adv   Adj    CC   Pro     V        V      P

But by-and-by, Pap whipped me too    much, and     I     couldn’t stand it.

This sentence is a little different from the other sentences as it has an adjective in it.  However, it has already been revised in standard-English.

5.  The old man made me go to the boat and get the things he had brought.

This could be a simple sentence.

                                             S

          NP                                                          VP

Det   Adj  N  V      Pro V   P  det  N     CC  V   det  N    Pro  V     V   

The old man made me go to the   boat and get the things he had brought.

 

     The type of syntax that Twain uses is  simple and informal and he often broke the laws of grammar to do so. Huck's narration is like normal speech so it is sometimes in fragments and incomplete sentences, but always is very simple.  The dialogue throughout the book is similar.  However, being more like a speech than Huck's narration, it gets sometimes difficult to understand.  Occasionally, the characters ramble and string various phrases together; anything a person would normally do while speaking.  Many of the terms that Huck uses are incorrect but are still understandable; like when he is listing off some of the professions that the duke and king did while on the journey.  Some of the professions are obviously wrongly put, such as 'missionarying', but still it is understandable.  Huck also uses the term, 'right down good sociable time'.  This phrase would not be used in formal writing, but Twain uses it here with good effect.  There are a few characters in the novel that speak fluently and correctly such as the Judge and the Wilks brothers.  While this differs from the rest of the book, their speech fits with their charcters.