Tutorial syntax

A phrase is a small group of words that form a meaningful unit within a clause.

Example: The brown hat.

A group of words containing a subject and predicate and functioning as a member of a complex or compound sentence.

Example: He is a wise man.

A sentence is one or more clauses. It expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.

Example: Robert was a good king.

A simple sentence must have a single clause (a single verb) which is independent, and it cannot take another clause.

Example: I wrote a song.

A compound sentence must have more than one independent clause with no dependent clauses. Some specific conjunctions, punctuation, or both are used to join together these clauses.

Example: He ran out of money, so he had to stop playing poker.

A complex sentence also has more than one clause but of one them must be an independent clause and the other/others must be (a) dependent clause(es). There are also some particular connectors for the clauses of a complex sentence to be connected.

Example: While I am a passionate basketball fan, I prefer football.

S: Sentence

N: Noun

V: Verb

Art: Article

NP: Noun Phrase

VP: Verb Phrase

Adj: Adjective

Pro: Pronoun

PN: Proper Noun

Adv: Adverb

Prep: Preposition

PP: Prepositional Phrase

How to do a tree diagram of a simple sentence.

You have to separate the Noun Phrase from the Verb Phrase.

You have to find subdivisions.

Fill in individual parts of speech.