Identifying the sentence structure
Another important aspect in understanding free-flow text is the structure of the sentence: we might know the parts of speech but if we do not understand their relationship, we will not understand the greater context of the text.
In this recipe, you will learn how to identify three fundamental parts of any sentence: noun phrases (NP), verb phrases (VP), and prepositional phrases (PP).
The noun phrases always include a noun and its modifiers (or adjectives). An NP can be used to identify a subject of a sentence, although noun phrases can also describe other objects in the sentence. For example, the sentence, My dog is lying on the carpet, has two NPs: my dog and on the carpet; the first is the subject and the latter NP is the object.
The verb phrases always include at least one verb and objects, complements, and its modifiers. It normally describes an action that the subject exerts on the object. Considering the previous sentence, the VP would be is lying on...
