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Topic 4 (session A) - The grammar of simple sentences > Style, meaning & the structure of sentences > Task C

Style, meaning and the structure of sentences

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Style, meaning and the structure of sentences

Task C: Grammatical structure and grammatical function

The two sentences below use exactly the same words, but clearly mean different things. If you click on the sentences below you can see what we mean

John kisses Mary

Mary kisses John

What is it about these two sentences which gives rise to the different meanings? After you have made up your mind, compare your answer with ours.

Our answer

These two sentences have the same grammatical structure. But they mean different things because the two words (or, more accurately, the two one-word phrases) 'John' and 'Mary' have different grammatical functions in the sentences, as we indicate below:

NP	VP	NP
Subject	Predicator	Object
John	kissed	Mary
Mary	kissed	John

Thus we can see that the position of the NP before or after the predicator changes its role (from subject to object and vice versa).


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