Grammar Question

Factual Questions
1

Consider the following sentence:

She is making an effort to help him.

How would this sentence be broken down?

She - subject
is making - verb
an effort - object?
to help - ?
him - ?

Specifically, I’m looking to identify what “him” would be labelled as. For example:

X is making an effort to help Y.

X- subject
Y- ??

Thanks in advance.

2

I might be wrong, but I think “to help him” is a prepositional phrase and “him” is a prepositional object.

3

Hm. I thought “to help him” was an infinitive phrase.

4

She - subject
is making - verb
an effort to help him - subordinate clause with a function of direct object (she is making something; what is she making? an effort to help him)

In turn, this subordinate clause contains

an effort - nominal group (may be nominative group, me learn grammar in spanish)
to help him - infinitive phrase, subordinate clause with an adjectival function (it’s a modifier of effort)

and in “to help him”, “to help” is the verb and “him” is the direct object

Subordinates of subordinates, how fun.

5

Here is how I would parse it. I learned these “coathanger diagrams” in
HS, although this is considerably more elaborate than those and I
omitted some detail. Explanation of symbols below

              S
             / \
            /   \
           /     \
          /       \
         /         \
        /           \
       NP           VP
       |             /|\
       |            / | \
       |           /  |  \
      Pron      /   |   \
       /         Vt   |    \
      /          |     |     \
     /           |     |      \
    /            |     |       \
   /             |     |        \
she is making  NP       IP
                      /|        /|\
                     / |       / | \
                    /  |      /  |  \
                   /   |     /   |   \
                Art  N   to   Vt   NP
                 |    |          /     |
                 |    |         /      |
                 |    |        /       |
                an effort  help  Pron
                                         |
                                         |
                                       him

S = sentence, NP = noun phrase, VP = verb phrase, Pron = pronoun, Vt is
a transitive verb (I have omitted the detail of generating the phrase
“is making” from “is”+ present paticiple, and also the detail of
actually requiring the infinive of “help”), Art = article (and I have
omitted the more encompassing term “determiner” that includes articles,
quantifiers, and possessive pronouns, and perhaps more), IP = infinitive
phrase. The verb “make” is one of many examples of a verb that may take
two complements, here a direct object and an infinitive phrase. There
are also a small number of three complement verbs. There are other
omitted details, such as that “she” is in the subject case and “him”
in the object case, pronouns like this the only remnant of a case system
in English.

6

She: Subject
is making: verb
an: article (diagrammed as an adjective)
effort: direct object
to help him: infinitive phrase used as an adjective modifying “effort” telling what kind.

7

I’ve fixed Hari Seldon’s diagram using the


 tag and doing some manual re-spacing to account for the fact that it was originally composed in a non-monospaced font.
8

Thanks everyone. It was for a grammar lesson - I just marked “him” as the object of the infinitive phrase.

Thanks again! :slight_smile: