How To Draw A Syntax Tree

How to Draw a Syntax Tree, Part 8: A step-by-stride tree-drawing guide, with gifs

I've talked previously about all the different possibilities for what constitutes a syntax tree, but non near how you become from "hither's how you're supposed to represent things" to actually cartoon a tree yourself. And that's a pity, because I've actually got a really nice series of steps that I've developed from instruction, TAing, and tutoring.

Hither are the steps in a nutshell: I'm going to go through them 1 at a time.

1. Label parts of speech
2. Label main constituents
3. Draw tree

Notation: I recommend doing all of these steps by hand if at all possible. You'll see from the photos and gifs below that it was easier for me to pause out the paper and markers than to try to represent this electronically. If you lot want to type up your tree later, here are some tools for doing so, but it'll exist much easier to type up from an existing handwritten draft rather than attempt to exercise the thinking and the typesetting as function of the same pace. Pencil or even a chalkboard/whiteboard is often a practiced idea for tree-drafting, and you'll get ameliorate at figuring out spacing equally yous practice more.

So what do these steps look like in exercise? Note that rather like learning to ride a bike, the extended description looks long and complicated, but with do many of the steps go automatic with time.

Step 1: Label parts of speech communication

You lot're going to get-go with your sentence just written out normally – experience free to apply the version that yous get printed on your test or consignment, or write it out for yourself on scrap paper. If yous're writing it out yourself, it's a good idea to get out actress space betwixt the words, for the sake of the adjacent step.

At present characterization each word with its part of speech (also called lexical or grammatical category). Beginning with the easy, obvious ones: characterization the nouns as N, label the verbs as V, label the adjectives (A or Adj), prepositions (P), and adverbs (Adv). Now move on to the less obvious ones, determiners (D or Det), auxiliaries (Aux), caste words (Deg), and complementizers (C ). (I've likewise seen caste words referred to as Mod for modifier, although I find this confusing considering entire phrases can also be used to modify things.)

Possible catchy bits in this step: Some words can vest to multiple categories! For example, play tin can exist a substantive (going to a play), a verb (play tennis), or fifty-fifty an adjective (a play banana, every bit opposed to a real one). Fortunately, while play in isolation is ambiguous, it should be clear from context what category it belongs to in a particular sentence. Your grade materials should include some tests for part of speech, or yous can refer to these notes, these lists (but notation that there are adverbs that don't end in -ly, such as often), or this set of examples.

One piece of cake style to continue runway of parts of speech is to acquire a keyword or two that unambiguously belongs in each category, and then when you're trying to figure out whether another word belongs to that category, yous can say "could I supersede it with this other discussion that I know the part of speech of?" Here'southward a sample listing:

Noun - cat, happiness
Verb - see, express joy
Describing word - blue, happy
Adverb - quickly
Preposition - in
Determiner - the
Complementizer - if, whether
Auxiliary - could
Degree give-and-take - very, nearly

(Note: do not utilise "that" as a keyword, because it tin can be a determiner, as in "that true cat", or a complementizer, equally in "I saw that the cat was purring". Compare what happens when you substitute them: "the true cat" but not "*if cat", "*whether true cat", and "I saw whether the true cat was purring" but non "*I saw the the cat was purring". "Be" and "take" are sometimes verbs as in "I am/have a cat", sometimes auxiliaries, as in "I was laughing/have laughed" and your course may have particular conventions distinguishing them from modal auxiliaries similar can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would.)

In full general, this step is going to cease upward with substantially the same results regardless of what theory your class is using. Apart from the auxiliaries and degree words/modifiers things, the only other part where I'd await variation is depending on how your course treats pronouns and peradventure proper names, and so but cheque whether you're using NP, Northward, D, etc for them.

Why are we doing this step? Rather than rushing into drawing a tree right abroad, this step will make sure you get all the labels for each node right and don't forget anything. Move on to step two one time all words are labelled.

Here'south a prototype of footstep 1: I labeled the words starting with the more than obvious content words and so adding in the less obvious function words, but you lot tin do it in any gild that makes sense.

Pace 2: Characterization primary constituents

Once you lot've gotten everything labelled, you lot want to figure out the constituents and the chief relationships between various parts of the judgement. Your goal for this step is to go every head within its own phrase: for every N, you need to figure out what its NP is, for every V, you figure out its VP, etc. If you're doing bar levels, you lot might label a couple of those at this pace if yous've got ambiguity or a whole lot of stuff inside a particular phrase, but for the routine bar levels you can just put them in at the next step.

There are 2 chief ways to tackle this trouble, bottom-upward and peak-downward. They're not mutually sectional though: only alternating between them, doing whichever is easiest until you lot've got all your heads inside their corresponding phrases.

BOTTOM-Upwards: Start by identifying the easy phrases that only have a word or two in them: AdjPs, AdvPs, and NPs are often fairly small. So move on to slightly larger constituents, including PPs and more elaborate NPs (and DPs if you lot're using them), then VPs and finally IPs and CPs, if necessary.

Meridian-DOWN: Start past identifying the verb(s): if you're drawing a sentence, there should be at least 1 of them.

At present, every verb has a subject, and they often have an object as well, maybe even two. You can identify these by asking questions nigh the judgement: the answer to "who is verbing?" is the subject area, and the reply to "who is existence verbed?" is the object. (The answer to "who is the object being verbed to?" is the indirect object.) And there might be other stuff that relates to the verb as well, such as an adverb or prepositional phrase.

So your subject field, including associated words like determiners, adjectives, PPs, etc, needs to form an NP (or perchance a CP or DP) all by itself, while your object, too including associated words, is an NP, CP, or DP that's inside the VP. Likewise inside the VP (but non within the object) might be some actress stuff, adverbs and PPs. You can betoken this with brackets around the VP, or some other matter you might want to do for maximum clarity is underline the discipline and object, and use arrows to bespeak them to their verbs.

This is also the signal where, if there's whatever motion that'southward going on, you'll desire to "restore" the affected word(s) dorsum to their original position(southward). You may be able to do this with the same questions that you used to figure out field of study and object, or if you're dealing with a question, try answering it ("What did the cat play?" → "The true cat (did) play the piano", and so your restored sentence is "The cat did play what?").

How exercise we know what's inside each of our phrases, as well the head? There are certain not-caput words that typically go with certain types of heads: degree words with adjectives, prepositions, or adverbs, determiners with nouns (information technology's a bit more complicated if you're using DPs), auxiliaries with verbs (unless your form is putting them at I). Just for phrases inside other phrases, yous'll take to figure it out, and that's the tricky bit.

Fortunately, in that location are a series of questions yous tin ask in order to figure out which phrases comprise other phrases, and they're known equally constituency tests. Your class may requite you a list of constituency tests – if not, hither are two non-very-overlapping lists. Two very common types are questions and substitution. I'll demonstrate them both below for various constituents in the sentence "YouTube showed that the true cat played the pianoforte."

Questions:

What did YouTube do? [show that the cat played the piano] - VP
What did YouTube show? [that the cat played the pianoforte] - CP
What did the true cat do? [play the piano] - VP
What did YouTube testify the cat played? [the pianoforte] - NP
What was played? [the piano] - NP
Where did the cat play the piano? [YouTube] - NP
Where did the cat play the piano? *[YouTube showed] -not a elective
Who played the piano? [the cat] - NP

Substitution:

YouTube showed that the cat played the piano, and Vimeo did __ too. ( __ = bear witness that the cat played the piano - VP)
YouTube showed information technology (it=that the cat played the pianoforte - CP)
The cat played the piano, and the domestic dog did __ too. ( __ = play the piano - VP)
YouTube showed that the cat played it. (it = the pianoforte - NP)
Information technology showed that the cat played the piano. (information technology = YouTube - NP)
YouTube showed that south/he played the pianoforte (s/he = the cat - NP)

When you effigy out that some string of words is a constituent, put square brackets around it and characterization what kind of constituent it is (NP, PP, VP, etc). I like to do this past mitt because I tin can brand the foursquare brackets of dissimilar sizes or colours to go along rails of them all. If you find information technology helpful, you can also utilize underlining, highlighting, or circles to group other elements. (Here'southward an case of particularly enthusiastic color usage.)

If we have an extra modifier of some sort, we can employ the same tests to figure out what it modifies. For case, we can add together several unlike prepositional phrases beginning with "in" to the judgement above:

YouTube showed that the true cat played the piano in a blue shirt.
YouTube showed that the cat played the piano in high definition.
YouTube showed that the cat played the pianoforte in the living room.

But [in something] doesn't necessarily modify the same affair each fourth dimension, then we need to ask questions well-nigh information technology:

What was in a blue shirt? The cat (playing), non YouTube or the piano.
What was in high definition? YouTube's showing, not the cat or the piano.
What was in the living room? The piano (or possibly the cat playing) but not YouTube.

And based on the answers to these questions, we can marking up the judgement as follows:

YouTube showed that the true cat [ played the piano in a blue shirt ]VP
YouTube [ showed [ that the cat played the pianoforte ]CP in high definition ]VP
YouTube showed that the cat played [ the piano in the living room ]NP

Why are we doing this step? This footstep is where about of the thinking happens: the goal is to know exactly what you're putting in your tree before any of the tree-drawing actually happens. Otherwise information technology's tempting to just depict a general shape that looks kind of like the trees you've seen before without fully examining what each role is contributing, which will cease up as a mess. No really. It volition.

Proceed onto the adjacent pace when: all heads (N, V, P, Adj, Adv, C, and, if you're using information technology, D) are inside their corresponding phrases (NP, VP, PP, AdjP, AdvP, CP and perchance DP). Make sure you know what the subject(s) and object(s) is/are. Also make certain that for any AdjP, AdvP, or PP that y'all know what it modifies and how to indicate this in the structure.

As you get more than practised at drawing copse, this step will accept less time and y'all can skip over the like shooting fish in a barrel parts if you want. For example, if parts of speech communication are 100% intuitive to you, you may exist able to become correct to labeling the constituents. Or you may not need to draw brackets around all the AdjPs and NPs, you can only figure out the subject and object and whatsoever ambiguities. Simply even once you're fairly good at tree-drawing, if you lot're always faced with an unexpectedly daunting sentence to draw, yous can always fall back on step 1: label the words and step two: label the constituents. Or, if you're drawing a really high-stakes tree, for a examination or an assignment, you may nonetheless want to go along as methodically equally possible to reduce your chances of making a silly mistake.

Note that I have not gotten into sentence-level projections (i.e. Southward or IP or TP, whichever yous're using). There's a reason for that: starting time of all, that's where there's the most variance betwixt course conventions. Secondly, this is the type of project that may not take an obvious head (unless you lot take an Aux and your course is treating Aux as an I head). And thirdly, you automatically demand an S/IP/TP to contain your entire sentence, so it's not a particularly informative elective to add since it will literally just incorporate the whole sentence. Only, and this is important, yous also need another S/IP/TP for every additional verb that y'all accept in your sentence, considering whatsoever verb and associated words (subject, object, etc) could as well be a sentence by itself.

For example:

YouTube showed that the true cat played the piano.

Contains two verbs, "showed" and "played" and thus two clauses, each of which could exist a sentence with pocket-size modifications:

The principal (or matrix) clause: "YouTube showed…"

The subordinate (or embedded) clause: "That the cat played the piano"

So we also need to divide these up. We know that "that" is a complementizer ©, so information technology creates a CP (or S' if y'all're using information technology), but inside the CP is an S/IP/TP (directly inside every CP, in the position of sister to the C, is an S/IP/TP).

[S/IP/TP YouTube showed [CP that [S/IP/TP the cat played the pianoforte ] ] ]

However, if you lot simply take one verb in your sentence, and so you lot besides simply have i clause, the chief clause, and then you can skip this part.

Here'southward a gif of step 1+two: I start past labelling the words every bit in stride 1, and so add labels for various constituents (here I am using a strict X-bar theory with IPs). I worked lesser-up from smaller to bigger groups, but you could also do a top-down approach, whatever works for you. Notice the brackets getting bigger and bigger, which is an advantage of handwriting. Leaving lots of space around the words volition help fit in all the brackets, only you definitely don't need to be equally pretty every bit I'm beingness hither.

And here's a static image of the final result (notation that I've labelled both sides of the brackets for extra clarity, but yous don't have to):

Step 3: Draw tree

Now, finally, we get to depict the tree!

A lot of people think that this is the step that you lot start at, but unless you lot're dealing with a really, really easy judgement and you already have practise drawing copse, jumping right into drawing a tree will just leave you confused and not sure what to put where. It's a lot improve to exist confused at the previous step, where you can pause and try a couple things and figure information technology out, rather than at this step, where you'll exist tempted to simply draw something that looks basically similar a tree and think "eh, good enough". Trust me, despite the fact that the rules may await confusing and arbitrary to yous when y'all're starting out, they brand good sense to your prof or TA, and it will exist very obvious to them if y'all practise that.

I'chiliad going to indicate out at this phase that syntax copse are not something you can bs. However, this is in fact a dandy and wonderful thing, because information technology ways that you can, with enough effort, check your own piece of work and prove that your tree is correct (or gear up information technology if it'southward non), and you are not at the mercy of dubious judgement calls and whether or not the prof likes y'all. A right syntax tree is correct, a wrong (portion of a) syntax tree is wrong, and although there are a few fudgey $.25 in the realm of "how much do we intendance that this matter is wrong?", it is entirely possible to get a score of 100% in a syntax course or unit of measurement.

Syntax (and in fact linguistics in general, actually) is not one of those subjects where the prof artificially caps the maximum score at 80 or 85: if y'all draw a completely correct tree, or in full general demonstrate a very thorough understanding of the topic, you lot will get full marks, and for every mark yous lose, there is something very specific that y'all should accept done differently, and most profs and TAs volition tell you exactly what respond they were looking for. It'due south very satisfying. (I mean, until y'all get to loftier-level courses where you realize that what a syntax tree should even look like is all the same a matter of theoretical debate, merely in an intro course at that place is definitely yet a right respond.)

Simply enough with the pep talk: how do you take your now-thoroughly-marked-up judgement and make information technology into a tree?

You're going to first at the top. As tempting every bit information technology may be to describe your judgement along the bottom of the page and draw up from at that place, this is not how syntax trees are conventionally drawn. Why? Well, starting from the acme gives you more symmetrically-sized branches rather than long branches on one side and cramped, tiny, hard-to-read ones on the other, as well as more infinite for movement arrows. It'southward as well how the vast majority of syntax copse are drawn, and it's easier for everyone to interpret each other's trees if nosotros follow a few bones formatting conventions.

If you're worried nigh spacing, notation that English trees will branch more on the right than on the left, so starting your S/IP/TP nigh a third of the way over on the left side of the page at the very top is generally better than starting it in the centre. Or just detect an empty classroom and practise on a large whiteboard/chalkboard where you don't demand to worry about wasting newspaper. Thank you to the miracles of modern technology, yous can even take a photo of your whiteboard tree when yous're finished, which was definitely not a thing when I was an undergraduate.

(Related: practise not, for the dearest of Chomsky, draw your syntax trees upside-down. That is, do not write the sentence forth the top of the page and draw branches downward from it. I've gotten one or two of these in every stack of syntax assignments I've marked, and while I practice always try to mark it as much equally possible, it takes me about iii times as long to figure out what'due south going on and hence makes me grumpy. And you don't desire a grumpy person marking your assignment. If you lot want to instead make your marking specially happy, I accept gotten some delightfully entertaining drawings from students on tests and assignments over the years, so you know, feel free.)

And so you're going to start at the peak of the page with your maximal sentence project, Due south or IP or TP (that's S' or CP if you lot've got a question), and proceed down from there.

If you're using S, S will co-operative into an NP (subject) and a VP (containing V, the object NP, and perhaps more than) plus possibly other things.

If you're using IP or TP, IP or TP will co-operative into NP (subject area) and I' or T', which will branch into I or T and VP (containing V, the object NP, and perhaps other things). (Or these NPs might all be DPs, if y'all're using the DP hypothesis. If you've never seen a DP, just ignore everything I'chiliad saying well-nigh them.)

Anyway, this first role is pretty much always the same for any sentence, which is why nosotros didn't really bother map out this pinnacle projection in the previous step.

At present y'all're going to take the constituents that you lot figured out in the previous step and get them into the tree:

What's in your subject? Put it all under that subject position.
Make sure to include bar levels if your course is using them.
Exercise you have anything modifying your verb? Put it under the VP (V' if y'all're using them).
What's in your object? Put information technology all directly sis to your 5.
Include bar levels once again if relevant.
Do yous accept any embedded clauses? You've figured out what they're embedded under in the previous stride, now put them there. Exist sure to include a CP (Southward') and S/IP/TP earlier going into the subject, verb, etc of the embedded clause.
Is anything ambiguous? If you figured out an ambiguity in the previous footstep, there are a couple means to proceed. If your course or assignment has mentioned ambiguity as an option, yous should probably draw both trees and betoken which pregnant each ane corresponds to. If there's a technical ambiguity but ane interpretation is fashion more plausible than the other, and yous oasis't been told to find ambiguities, you may be able to get abroad with but cartoon the most plausible estimation (although in that case, feel free to include a note to the marker). Draw ambiguities on separate copse though, not the same one.
If you need to draw move, make sure y'all correspond the original position and the moved position using whatever conventions your grade is using (arrows, traces, etc).

When yous remember you've finished your tree, here are a few common errors that you can bank check:

Basic errors:

Did y'all include all the words from the target sentence in your tree?
Does the tree, left to right, read in the same society every bit your target sentence? (After whatsoever motility has happened.) If this is non the case, you demand to gear up something.
Do all the words have their part of speech labels that yous established at the starting time? (Double-bank check the tests yous used at the labelling footstep if you desire to be really careful.)
Is each head inside its corresponding maximal projection? (North inside NP, 5 inside VP, etc.)
If y'all're doing strict X' theory, do you have at least 1 bar level betwixt each head and its maximal projection? (Northward' between North and NP, V' between V and VP, etc.)
Do you have any triangles? (Your instructor may utilize triangles. This is why yous should non.)

More specific errors:

If y'all take more one verb, is each verb inside its own VP which is inside its own Southward/IP/TP? Is each non-matrix verb's South/IP/TP inside its ain S'/CP?
Is there any motility? If it's a question, what would the statement version audio like? If there are multiple verbs, what would each mini clause sound like separately? If in that location is passive, what would the active version audio like?
What complements do you have, if any? Specially complements of PPs (generally NPs/DPs), or NPs and AdjPs (often PPs beginning with "of"). Are they in the right positions? (In X' theory, a complement is sister to the head, so complement of a noun → sister to North, complement of an adjective → sister to Adj, etc. In a theory without bar levels, a complement is simply inside the phrasal level, so complement of a noun → within its NP, complement of a verb → within its VP, etc.)
What modifiers do you have, if any? AdjPs, AdvPs, PPs…what does each modifier alter? Is it in the right position to practice so? (In Ten' theory, a modifier is sister to the bar level of the modified chemical element, so modifying a noun → sister to its N', modifying a verb → sister to its 5', etc. In a theory without bar levels, a modifier is simply inside the phrasal level of the modified chemical element, then modifying a noun → inside its NP, modifying a verb → inside its VP, etc. Note that if y'all don't accept bar levels, there is no difference between a complement and a modifier.)
If you're in Ten' theory, another way of phrasing the previous two questions is: for every PP, is information technology a complement or a modifier? Is it in the advisable position for which i it is? (AdjPs are almost ever modifiers, unless they're after a verb: "the blue shirt" = modifier; "the shirt is blueish" = complement. I tin can't think of any examples where an AdvP would be a complement and not a modifier, but you may desire to double bank check just in case. And an AdvP might alter several different things, so especially check that part.)
What's the subject (including modifiers & complements) of each verb? Is information technology in the appropriate discipline position that your form is using? (Under S or sister to I' are the about probable.)
What's the object (including modifiers & complements) of each verb? Is information technology sis to the verb?
Do you lot have any ambiguity? If so, accept yous represented information technology clearly?

Hither's a gif of drawing the tree, again bold you're using a strict 10-bar theory with IPs (note that the colours correspond to the colours of the brackets I used at the previous step – this is for your ease in following, it'south non a matter you demand to exercise in drawing your own trees, every bit switching ink colours this often will probably go far harder).

And here'south the terminal tree equally a still prototype:

Lastly, hither are the brackets and the tree side-by-side, simply for fun.

Notice that subjects are in spec, IP (sister to I') of their respective IPs, and objects are in complement position of their respective verbs (sister to V). These trees assume you lot're doing a strict X' theory structure: if y'all're using TPs or DPs, experience free to substitute them instead, and if you're doing basic phrase structure rules, substitute S for IP and delete all the bar levels (just motion everything up to adhere straight to the phrase).

This is part 8 of a series on how to draw syntax trees. If you're dislocated nearly why I keep referring to different course conventions rather than giving a specific answer, check out the residual of the series below.

So, you asked the internet how to draw syntax trees. Here'southward why yous're confused.
What exercise we even mean by a syntax tree?
Blazon 1: A sentence is an South
Type 2: A sentence is an IP
Type 3: A sentence is a TP
Reconciling theories and last notes
Other resources and topics
A step-past-step guide to drawing copse, with gifs