I am seeking one (or more) programs that will analyze selected literary text and display each word’s part of speech, plus how they interrelate in a sentence. It might also have a sentence/paragraph analysis feature, which displays sentence type, clauses, etc.
When I was at school we were taught all this as part of English Language. We had to be able to parse sentences, first into subject and predicate and then into the various parts of speech. We were also taught to identify clauses and their type, whether or not a clause qualified something, if so what did it qualify and so on.
This doesn't seem to be taught any more. I wonder how many teachers these days could do it. Are children any the poorer for not having a general understanding of the subject?
I think they are. Many school leavers these days seem incapable of writing a properly constructed application for a job.
I'm not holding a brief for 19th century grammarian pedants. I will cheerfully end a sentence with a preposition or start one with a conjunction if doing so makes the sentence less clumsy, adds emphasis or removes ambiguity. But I believe you have to have at least a basic grasp of the rules before you can break them with impunity.
PeteW
