ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Phrase structure grammar

Phrase structure grammar is a way of figuring out how to put words together in a sentence. It's like a recipe for building sentences.

Just like with a recipe where you need certain ingredients to make a dish, in phrase structure grammar, there are specific types of words that we need to build a sentence. These words are called "parts of speech," and they include things like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

To build a sentence using phrase structure grammar, we first start with the main part of the sentence, which is called the "subject." The subject is usually a noun or a pronoun, which is just a fancy word for a word that can take the place of a noun (like "he" or "she").

Next, we need a "predicate," which is basically the part of the sentence that tells us something about the subject. The predicate usually includes a verb, which is a word that shows action or a state of being, like "run," "jump" or "is."

Now we can start adding other words to our sentence to make it more interesting and add detail. These words are called "modifiers," and they come in different types. For example, adjectives are modifiers that describe nouns, like "big" or "red." Adverbs, on the other hand, describe verbs, adjectives, or even other adverbs, like "quickly" or "very."

Finally, we put all these words together in a specific order to make a complete sentence. For example, "The dog ran quickly" is a complete sentence made up of a subject ("dog"), a verb ("ran"), and an adverb ("quickly").

In summary, phrase structure grammar is a way of building sentences by using specific types of words in a specific order, starting with a subject and predicate and adding modifiers to create a complete sentence.
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