How to do grammatical analysis?

How to do grammatical analysis? The guide that explains what it is and what the parts of speech are. All about noun, verb, adjective and more.

Grammatical analysis

Sooner or later, every student will have to deal with grammatical analysis during their school career . The term grammatical analysis refers to the operation of associating each word in a sentence with the corresponding part of speech . To correctly carry out the grammatical analysis exercises (also present in the Invalsi Italian tests in third grade!), each part of speech must be defined precisely by distinguishing its morphological, gender and number properties and connecting it to the other elements of the sentence. Here is what must be established for each part of speech.

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS: THE VARIABLE PARTS OF SPEECH

The noun, the article, the adjective, the pronoun and the verb are considered variable parts of speech , as they can undergo an inflection within the sentence according to gender and number for the first four; and according to mood, tense, person and number for the last one.The adverb , the preposition , the conjunction and the interjection are invariable parts of speech , as they never undergo changes within the sentence but have a single form.

THE NOUN

Any noun can be classified according to different aspects:

• form : primitive (does not derive from any other word: for example: milk) or derivative (milkman), altered (shoe), compound (safe);
• meaning : concrete (table) or abstract (idea), common (apple) or proper (Andrea), individual (teacher) or collective (people);
• gender: masculine (watch), feminine (pear);
• number : singular (ring), plural (rings).

THE ARTICLE

Any item can be classified based on different aspects:

• type : determinative (the, the, the, the, the, the), indefinite (a, one, an), partitive (of the, of the, of the, of the, of the);
• gender : masculine (the, the, the, the, a, one, of, of the, of the), feminine (the, the, a, of, of the);
• number : singular (the, the, the, a, one, an, of the, of the).

THE ADJECTIVE

Any adjective can be classified according to different aspects ( go to description, properties and classification ):

• category : qualifying (positive, comparative or superlative. The comparative is in turn subdivided into the comparative of majority, minority or equality. The superlative is subdivided into the absolute or relative superlative), determinative (possessive, demonstrative, indefinite, interrogative, exclamatory or numeral);
• structure : primitive, derived, altered, compound;
• gender : male, female;
• number : singular, plural.

THE PRONOUN

Any pronoun can be classified according to different aspects: ( go to the summary sheet on the pronoun )

• category : personal, possessive, demonstrative, indefinite, interrogative, relative or exclamatory;
• gender : male, female;
• person (referring to personal pronouns);
• number : singular, plural.

THE VERB

Any verb can be classified according to different aspects:

• gender : transitive (active, passive or reflexive diathesis. The reflexive diathesis is divided into proper, apparent and reciprocal diathesis), intransitive (active or pronominal diathesis);
• function : auxiliary, predicative, copulative, supporting (servile, aspectual, causative, phraseological);
• conjugation : regular (in Italian there are 3 different types of conjugation: -are, -ere, -ire), impersonal, irregular;
• mood : simple indicative (present, imperfect, past perfect, future), compound indicative (past perfect, past perfect, past perfect, future perfect), simple subjunctive (present, imperfect), compound subjunctive (past, past perfect), simple conditional (present), compound conditional (past), imperative (present), simple infinitive (present), compound infinitive (past), simple gerund (present), compound gerund (past), simple participle (present), compound participle (past);
• person (first, second, third);
• number (singular, plural).

THE ADVERB

Any adverb can be classified according to different aspects:

• type : adverb, adverbial phrase;
• qualifying : in a manner;
• determinative : of time, of place, of quality, interrogative, of evaluation (affirmation, negation, doubt, addition);
• degree : positive, comparative, superlative.

THE PREPOSITION

Any preposition can be classified according to different aspects:

• proper preposition (of, to, from, in, with, on, for, between, among): simple, articulated;
• improper preposition;
• prepositional phrase.

THE CONJUNCTION

Any conjunction can be classified according to different aspects:

• simple conjunction ;
• compound conjunction ;
• conjunctive phrase ;
• function : coordinating (copulative, additive, disjunctive, adversative, declarative, conclusive, correlative), subordinating (declarative, temporal, causal, final, conditional , consecutive, comparative, exceptional, concessive, modal, adversative, interrogative or dubitative, limitative, exclusive).