A Chinese Box representation of grammatical structure: clauses and groups

clause A small gnome in the garden wiped his hands. A small gnome in the garden in the garden the garden wiped his hands

Tree diagram: constituency structure

A small gnome in the garden wiped his hands.

A small gnome in the garden in the garden the garden

wiped

his hands

small

gnome

wiped

his

hands

in

wipe

-ed

he

hand

-s

Tree diagram representation of grammatical structure

A small gnome in the garden wiped his hands. clause group group A small gnome in the wiped his hands garden group group the wiped A small gnome in his hands garden word word word word word
in word the garden group wipe -ed he morphemes hand -s

The Rank Scale

Clauses Groups & Phrases Words Morphemes

Names of parts: Rank Units

A small gnome in the garden wiped his hands. clause group group A small gnome in the wiped his hands garden group group the wiped A small gnome in his hands garden word word word word word
in word the garden wipe -ed he hand -s

group

morphemes

Tree diagram representation of grammatical structure: down to groups

A small gnome in the garden wiped his hands. clause
A small gnome in the wiped garden verbal nominal group group in the garden prepositional phrase in preposition the garden nominal group his hands nominal group

Rank Units: down to groups

A small gnome in the garden wiped his hands. clause
A small gnome in the wiped garden verbal nominal group group in the garden prepositional phrase in preposition the garden nominal group his hands nominal group

The Rank Scale

clauses groups and phrases
nominal groups
verbal groups adjectival groups adverbial groups prepositional phrases

are made up of

words

morphemes

A map of linguistic structure

Thomas T. Tatimus has been tying his tubs tentatively to two tall trees

(minimal bracketting)

Functional structure: clauses

consist of prepositional phrases adverbial groups nominal groups

Circumstances

Participants

Process
function

verbal group

FORM

A map of linguistic structure

Thomas T. Tatimus has been tying his tubs tentatively to two tall trees

Useful as a way of decomposing a sentence into parts that can be quickly related to functional elements

(minimal bracketting)