To Tree or Not to Tree


     Speaking on the subject of grammar, 17th century poet and literary critic John Dryden said: “Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows where noun, and verb, and participle grows” (Dryden). In this statement, Dryden accurately and succinctly established the importance of phrase structure rules and syntactic diagrams. Learning phrase structure rules and how to use syntactic diagrams is crucial to developing a solid understanding of grammar. If you want to do something well, you must understand the process from its inception. To write well, learning the crucial building blocks of grammar will help focus on “the well-formedness of sentences'' (Cruzan and Adams 193).

      Syntactic diagrams, such as the Reed-Kellogg Diagram and the newer and seemingly less cumbersome Tree Diagram allow writers to identify issues in sentences and phrases by breaking them down into smaller chunks or constituents, and also by understanding how those constituents depend and relate to each other. The University of North Georgia’s website reports:,“ tree diagrams offer a clear and more nuanced look at sentence structure without sacrificing traditional word order” (BACAIN2357).

     Today, during a lesson on verbs, I had the opportunity to test out both the Reed-Kellogg Diagram model and the Tree Diagram model. Each students were directed write a sentence of at least 7 words, describing something they would do this weekend. Working together on the board, we identified all the parts of speech, I introduced them to both diagram formats. Unanimously my students agreed that the Tree Diagram was easier to understand, and helped identify the parts of the sentence, as well as how they worked together. 

Works Cited

BACAIN2357. “A Linguist's Tree of Knowledge: Tree Diagrams.” University of North Georgia Press, 14 Oct. 2019, https://blog.ung.edu/press/a-linguists-tree-of-knowledge/.

Curzan, Anne, and Michael Adams. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. Pearson Education, 2006.

Dryden, John. The Poetical Works of John Dryden Containing Original Poems, Tales, and Translations. Rivington, 1811.

 

 



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