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Syntactic Analysis On Sentence Patterns in John Denver'S Song Lyrics
Syntactic Analysis On Sentence Patterns in John Denver'S Song Lyrics
By
Danin Christianto
Student Number: 141214001
By
Danin Christianto
Student Number: 141214001
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ABSTRACT
In this world, every living thing has at least one language in order to have
a communication with each other. Humans, for example, are able to show feelings
and emotions and socialize by using languages. In Indonesia, English learners do
not get familiar enough with English sentence patterns. In learning language,
studying sentence patterns in song lyrics becomes more necessary as there are often
misinterpretations of words when they are combined into sentences in song lyrics
in the forms of sentence pattern construction. Considering the issue, the researcher
got interested to analyse syntactically the sentence patterns in John Denver’s song
lyrics.
This research was conducted to answer one research question: What
sentence patterns are used in John Denver’s song lyrics?
In order to answer the research question, the researcher employed
qualitative approach as the nature of this research since it described about certain
phenomena in detail. The method used in this research was content analysis as it
analysed the sentence patterns in the John Denver’s song lyrics. Finally, the
researcher employed the theory of Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) to analyse the
sentence patterns in the lyrics. Additionally, the researcher also employed the
theory of O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Katamba (1996) to represent the tree
diagrams and phrase structure rules of the chosen sentences.
Based on the results, the researcher found out that there were 8 out of 9
patterns which were used in the song lyrics. The sentence pattern which was
frequently used was pattern 3: S + Vt + dO. There were 12 sentences which used
the pattern in John Denver’s song lyrics. However, there was no sentence which
used pattern 6: S + Vt + iO + dO. Finally, the researcher hopes that the results can
help English learners to improve their understanding on sentence patterns and
phrase structure rules.
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ABSTRAK
Di dunia ini, setiap makhluk hidup setidaknya memiliki satu bahasa dengan
tujuan untuk berkomunikasi dengan sesama. Manusia, sebagai contoh, mampu
menunjukkan perasaan dan emosi dan bersosialisasi dengan menggunakan bahasa.
Di Indonesia, para pembelajar bahasa Inggris belum cukup memahami tentang pola
kalimat bahasa Inggris. Dalam belajar bahasa, mempelajari pola kalimat didalam
lirik lagu menjadi penting karena sering terjadi kesalahan penafsiran kata-kata
ketika mereka disatukan menjadi kalimat di lirik lagu dalam bentuk penyusunan
pola kalimat. Dikarenakan permasalahan tersebut, peneliti menjadi tertarik untuk
menganalisa secara sintaksis pola kalimat yang terdapat di lirik lagu John Denver.
Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menjawab satu rumusan masalah: Pola
kalimat apa saja yang terdapat di lirik lagu John Denver?
Untuk menjawab rumusan masalah tersebut, peneliti menggunakan
pendekatan kualitatif sebagai lingkup penelitian karena penelitian ini
mendeskripsikan tentang fenomena tertentu secara terperinci. Metode yang
digunakan di penelitian ini adalah analisis isi karena penelitian ini menganalisa pola
kalimat di lirik lagu John Denver. Pada akhirnya, peneliti menggunakan teori dari
Quirk dan Greenbaum (1973) untuk menganalisa pola kalimat di lirik lagu tersebut.
Sebagai tambahan, peneliti juga menggunakan teori dari O’Grady, Dobrovolsky,
dan Katamba (1996) untuk menggambarkan diagram pohon dan aturan struktur
frasa dari kalimat-kalimat yang telah dipilih.
Berdasarkan dari hasil penelitian tersebut, peneliti menemukan bahwa
terdapat 8 dari 9 pola kalimat yang digunakan di lirik lagu tersebut. Pola kalimat
yang sering digunakan adalah pattern 3: S + Vt + dO. Terdapat 12 kalimat yang
menggunakan pola ini di lirik lagu John Denver. Akan tetapi, tidak ada kalimat
yang menggunakan pattern 6: S + Vt + iO + dO. Akhirnya, peneliti berharap bahwa
hasil dari penelitian ini dapat membantu para pembelajar bahasa Inggris untuk
meningkatkan pemahaman mereka tentang pola kalimat dan aturan struktur frasa
dalam bahasa Inggris.
Kata Kunci: : John Denver’s song lyrics, sentence pattern, syntactic analysis
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DEDICATION PAGE
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This wonderful journey would not be possible without the guidance and
support. First and foremost, I would like to dedicate my best gratitude to Almighty
Lord Jesus Christ for His greatest blessing during my academic life. Because of
His blessing and guidance, I was able to be always strong in facing many difficult
My big gratitude goes to Bapak Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph.D., my thesis
advisor, for his precious suggestions and critics which make me able to accomplish
this study. He has given much of his attention, support, time, and patience for the
Adhi, S.T.P., dan Adik Felix Kurniawan, for their endless love, generosity,
support and affection which are given during my study. Without them, I would not
I would also like to give my gratitude to my best friends from the Ex-
Widiasmoro for their cares, wonderful time, and support given to me in finishing
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like them.
Ivena Karin for her unconditional and endless love and motivation given to me in
particularly when I had so many hard times and problems. Also, I thank her family
members for their kindness and concern so that I always feel well-motivated.
Last but not least, I would also like to thank everybody, especially my
friends from batch 2014, who has come to my life and helped me to develop and
Danin Christianto
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE ........................................................................................................... i
APPROVAL PAGES .............................................................................................. ii
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ...................................................... iv
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI .........................................................v
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... vi
ABSTRAK .............................................................................................................. vii
DEDICATION PAGE .......................................................................................... viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................... ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................... xi
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................... xiii
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................. xiv
LIST OF APPENDICES ........................................................................................xv
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
A. Research Background ....................................................................1
B. Research Questions ........................................................................4
C. Research Significance ....................................................................4
D. Definition of Terms........................................................................5
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REFERENCES.......................................................................................................72
APPENDICES .......................................................................................................76
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LIST OF TABLES
Page
3.1 The Examples of the Sentence Type and Pattern in John Denver’s Song Lyrics ....... 30
4.1 The Numbers of the Sentence Patterns in John Denver’s Song Lyrics....................... 31
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page
2.1 Some Examples of the Tree Diagrams of Noun Phrases .................................12
2.2 Some Examples of the Tree Diagrams of Verb Phrases ..................................13
2.3 The Traditional View of the Structure of S ......................................................17
2.4 The Popular Contemporary View of the Structure of S ...................................18
2.5 An IP with an Auxiliary in the Infl Position ...................................................19
3.1 The Tree Diagram Example of a Sentence in John Denver’s Song Lyrics ......29
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix 1. Wild Montana Skies lyrics ................................................................77
Appendix 2. Darcy Farrow lyrics ...........................................................................79
Appendix 3. Poems, Prayers, and Promises lyrics .................................................80
Appendix 4. Take Me Home Country Road lyrics ................................................82
Appendix 5. Shanghai Breezes lyrics ....................................................................83
Appendix 6. Fly Away lyrics .................................................................................85
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
question, research significance, and definition of terms which are employed in this
study.
A. Research Background
In this world, every living thing has at least one language in order to have a
communication with each other. Humans, for example, are able to show feelings
and emotions and socialize by using languages. Sapir (1921) defines the language
and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols” (p. 8). There
are some systems which create language. O’Grady (2005) states “if a language is
spoken, it must have a phonetic and phonological systems; since it has words and
sentences, it must also have a morphology and syntax systems” (p. 5). Therefore,
1365). It means that in order to create a sentence, there must be at least one subject
and one verb. She cries, for example, is called a sentence because the word She is
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the subject and the word cries is the verb. Such a sentence is included into one of
The linguistic branch which studies how sentences are formed is called
syntax. As stated in O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Katamba (1996) that syntax is the
system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation in human language
(p. 732). Further, Radford (1997) adds that syntax focuses on how words are put
together to form phrases and sentences (p. 1). It means that syntactic patterns,
syntactic constructions, and system of rules and categories which underlie the
theory of sentence formation are discussed in syntax. Thus, it can be simply said
that one of the linguistics branches which studies about the grammatical concepts
social group cooperates (p. 3). This means that people are able to develop their
Music is a form of art which can be used to bring pleasure to listeners and
it can also motivate and accompany us through difficult times, and alleviate our
worries. Nowadays, many kinds of music such as pop, rock, heavy metal, R&B
become very popular. Country music, last but not least, is also one of the famous
music in the world. There are a lot of well-known country music singers such as
are often misinterpretations of words or lexical items when they are combined into
means that they know about the English word-classes or parts of speech, such as
determiners. However, after the words are put together in the correct order, the
learners cannot interpret the meaning of the sentences correctly. In short, they fail
songs. They are Wild Montana Skies, Back Home Again, Poems, Prayers, and
Promises, Take Me Home Country Roads, Shanghai Breezes, and Fly Away. The
researcher chooses John Denver’s song lyrics because they contain a few patterns
which can be analysed syntactically. On the other hand, the songs are chosen
because of the wonderful stories and messages behind which can make this research
Through this research, the researcher hopes that readers can understand and
learners, hopefully that this research can help more in identifying the sentence
patterns and the phrase categories which are in the phrase structure rules. Last but
Program (ELESP) students, the researcher hopes that this research can improve
their comprehension in analysing sentences, especially for those who take Grammar
B. Research Question
to be discussed, namely “what sentence patterns are used in John Denver’s song
lyrics?”.
C. Research Significance
The researcher hopes that this research can give significance for ELESP
students and future researchers who are interested in studying this topic.
1. ELESP Students
lyrics in Grammar classes. In addition, it is also expected that this research can be
useful for students to practice drawing tree diagrams and identify phrase structure
2. Future Researchers
The researcher expects that this research can be used as a useful reference
Furthermore, the researcher also hopes that future researchers can conduct the same
D. Definition of Terms
In order to enable readers to follow the thesis more easily, the researcher
defines some significant terms to avoid any confusion and misconception. In this
section, there are four terms which are presented: Syntactic Analysis, Sentence
1. Syntactic Analysis
its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and
Hall, and Ross’ (2007, p. 671), who have defined syntactic analysis as the analysis
(by human or computer) of the syntactic structure of a sentence that is heard or read:
syntactic analysis, readers will be able to understand how words can be changed
into phrases, clauses, and sentences. In this study, the researcher focuses on
2. Sentence Pattern
the structure categories of each lexical item which can be analysed. In this research,
3. Tree Diagram
Katamba’s (1996, p. 734) who state that the diagram “represents the details of a
word’s or phrase’s internal structure”. Radford (1997) also adds tree diagram is “a
way of representing the syntactic structure of a phrase or sentence” (p. 533). From
the explanation, it can be seen that tree diagram can be considered as a suitable
In short, using the theory of tree diagram in this research will make the structure of
4. Song Lyrics
Song can be defined as a piece of music which can be used for singing.
music with words that you sing” (p. 1440). On the other hand, lyric is defined as
words which form a song. Hornby (2015) states that lyric is “an artistic licence
which expresses direct personal feeling” (p. 906). In this research, the researcher
uses six John Denver’s song lyrics as the contexts of the research.
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CHAPTER II
In this chapter, the researcher discusses some theories related to this thesis.
There are two major sections, namely theoretical description and theoretical
which are used as the bases in this thesis. In the theoretical framework, the
researcher discusses more how the theories help to find out the answer of the
research problem.
A. Theoretical Description
This section provides some theories which are used to support this research,
namely Syntax, Types of Sentences, Sentence Pattern, Tree Diagram, Song Lyric,
1. Syntax
structures. It studies about the system of rules and categories which underlies
p. 732). In addition, Radford (1997) adds that syntax is the study of how words are
from the words “syn”: together, and “taxis”: an arrangement) and the name given
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to the part of grammar which treats how words are arranged together in a sentence
and how they function (Onions, 1971, p. 23). Matthews (1981), then, follows the
definition by saying that the term “syntax” was from ancient Greek “syntaxis”, a
verbal noun which meant “arrangement” or “setting out together” words into
2. Types of Sentences
the sentence as “a free-standing clause which is not contained within some larger
expression” (p. 527). In short, sentence is simply defined as a group of words which
a. Simple Sentence
The first sentence type is called simple sentence. As its name suggests,
simple sentence is “simple” and it can stand by itself, which means that this type of
sentence does not need any other clauses to make it independent. Murcia and
Freeman (1999) states “A simple sentence, then, contains at least one subject and
one verb and can stand alone as an independent clause” (p. 20). Thus, simple
Simple sentence has the most basic elements. It must contain at least subject
and verb to make it stand by itself. Below are some examples of the simple
sentences.
b. Compound Sentence
importance (Murcia & Freeman, 1999, p. 20). The main clauses of a compound
sentence are connected with connectors (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so). The
3) Sandra goes to the park, but she is not finished with her homework yet
c. Complex Sentence
The third sentence type is called complex sentence. This sentence contains
one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. The examples are as
below.
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d. Compound-Complex Sentence
has at least two or more independent clauses and at least one or more dependent
clauses. The sentence can be in the forms of statement, question, request, and
1) My brother and I went to the cinema that I had been wanting to see, and then
2) Before they were friends, Lisa and Trevor knew Julia, but they did not
3) Stephanie cried when her dog died, but she soon got better.
a. Noun Phrase
as the head of the phrase. Matthews (1997) defines noun phrase as “a phrase whose
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head functions as noun”. According to Close (1975, p. 2), noun phrase can be in the
2) a NOMINAL GROUP, such as the girls, the boy’s book, in which a noun
(girls, book) is the HEAD, and in which the other words (the, the boy’s)
PRONOUNS (I, you, we, they, he, she, it) or an INDEFINITE PRONOUN
like everyone or something, or one of the words like this and that which can
be used as pronouns
In syntactic analysis, the noun phrases are represented by using the phrase structure
rule as below.
NP The man
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From the phrase structure rules of the noun phrases above, the tree diagrams of the
b. Verb Phrase
Verb phrase is a group of words which has a verb as the head. The definition
is similar to Dwijatmoko (2002), who states that “a verb phrase contains a verb as
the head” (p. 37). Radford (1997) defines the verb phrase as “a phrase or maximal
projection which is headed by a verb” (p. 534). In syntax, the tree diagrams of verb
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3. Sentence Pattern
varieties of sentences (e.g. simple and complex sentence) which are useful in
producing correct sentence patterns in writing. In English, there are several types
and different numbers of sentence patterns which are proposed by different experts.
Some experts only gave patterns while the others proposed seven. Quirk and
1) Pattern 1: S + Lv + A
Example:
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2) Pattern 2: S + Lv + SC
Example:
a) Karin is beautiful.
b) He looks sad.
3) Pattern 3: S + Vt + dO
Example:
4) Pattern 4: S + Vt + dO + A
Example:
5) Pattern 5: S + Vt + dO + OC
Example:
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6) Pattern 6: S + Vt + iO + dO
Example:
7) Pattern 7: S + Vi
a) She is crying.
The above sentence patterns are commonly used when somebody tries to produce
grammatically correct sentences. The sentences, however, can contain more than
one adverbials. They can be put whether in the beginning, before or after a verb of
means that the sentence patterns “can be expanded by the addition of various
optional adverbials” (p. 168). But, even though the sentences are added optional
adverbials, the patterns remain the same as the basic forms. There are three basic
Greenbaum, 1973, p. 168). Followings are the description of each pattern and its
example.
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(uncontrollably)
The optional adverbials oftenly appear when people use oral and written English.
The researcher concluded that in pattern 1, the optional adverbial (s) can occur in
the beginning and/or at the end of a sentence. In pattern 2, the first optional
adverbial can occur in the beginning of a sentence and the second one can appear
before another adverb. In pattern 6, at last, the adverbial can occur before the main
verb.
Quirk and Greenbaum (1973, p. 168) also categorise each symbol of the
sentence pattern. There are nine symbols which are found to write down the
Lv = Linking Verb
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4. Tree Diagram
(1986, p. 14) states that tree diagrams had become the most widely used as a way
SENTENCES as generated by a set of rules“ (p. 494). Thus, by using the tree
There are two different views in drawing the tree diagrams. One is the
diagram which is constructed from the traditional view and the other one is
The diagram above shows that S (Sentence) is different from any other phrases.
O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Katamba (1996, p. 191) notes that S is special as there
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them, however, nowadays linguists believe that S is the same to other phrases and
From the diagram above, it can be seen that IP (Inflectional Phrase) acts as the head
of the phrase. O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Katamba (1996) say “sentences have an
abstract category which is dubbed ‘Infl’, short for ‘inflection, as their head and it
serves as the sentence’s tense” (p. 191). The Infl is a must so that it clearly indicates
that sentences in English have tense, whether they are past or non-past.
auxiliary verb will appear in the head position and it is marked as the Infl category.
The free forms like will and can, for examples, are considered Infl when they are in
“auxiliary verbs can appear in the head position of sentences and are thus treated as
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an instance of the Infl category” (p. 192). Figure 2.5 is the example of an auxiliary
5. Song Lyric
Song lyric can only be defined separately. The word “song” means a piece
of music which can be used for singing. According to Hornby (2015), song is “a
short piece of music with words that you sing” (p. 1440). Song is able to interpret
poems and translate their mood and atmosphere into music (Kamien, 1988, p. 307).
It also creates satisfying melodies which are well-molded to the text. Thus, the
researcher concludes that song is defined as artistic licence which can be used for
Lyric is defined as the song’s words. Hornby (2015) states that lyric is “a
kind of poetry which expresses direct personal feeling” (p. 906). Usually, lyric is
produced in form of a written text by a lyre so that it can be read. From the
explanation, it can be concluded that lyric is the words of a song which describe
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break down its parts of speech components with an explanation of the form,
function, and syntactic relationship of each part. The analysis is also able to show
the patterns of the sentence. In this part, the researcher will show some examples of
The first study on syntactic analysis has been done previously by Purwata
(2008). The study meant to analyse the sentence patterns of the lyrics syntactically.
To analyse them, the researcher employed some theories which were suitable with
the subject. Also, the theory of tree diagram from Bornstein (1997) was used to
analyse the lyrics. The type of the research was descriptive qualitative research. To
gather the data, the researcher chose three songs which were taken from one of the
seventeen kinds of sentence patterns. The sentences which were mostly used in the
lyrics were kernel sentences and transformational sentences. Then, the sentence
patterns which were used in the lyrics consisted of Noun Phrase plus Verb Phrase,
Conjunction plus Noun Phrases plus Verb Phrases, and Adverb of Place plus Noun
Phrase plus Verb Phrase. At last, the researcher also found the substandard English
The second study was conducted by Khusnah (2008). The study was aimed
to describe the kinds and the dominant structure of modification used in some of
Emily Dickinson’s poems. Here, the researcher used descriptive qualitative method
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to conduct the research and he used Chinese boxes theory from Francis (1958) to
analyse the collected data. The first result of the study, which was based on
Francis’s theory (1958), showed that the kinds of modification were noun phrase,
verb phrase, adverb phrase, and adjective phrase. However, there was no structure
result revealed that the dominant phrase used was noun phrase.
The third study was conducted by Halimah (2016). The purpose of the study
was aimed to describe the syntactic structures of surface and deep structures that
were found in Hello Magazine’s gossip article sentences by using the theory of tree
gossip article sentences by using the theory of Chinese boxes. The descriptive
qualitative research was used in this study by the researcher. The first findings of
the study showed that the syntactic patterns of surface structure and deep structure
in the gossip article in Hello magazine consisted of noun phrase and verb phrase
which covered many kinds of sentences. The second findings showed that the
gossip article. First, the structure of predication consisted of subject noun and it had
tended to modificate the head noun with the noun or proper noun as the modifier.
verbal element and a direct object as the complement. Fourth, the structure of
22
The fourth study was conducted by Kurohashi and Nagao (1994). The
purpose of the study was to present a syntactic analysis method which detected
and to analyse the dependency structure of the sentences with the help of the
information about the conjunctive structures. The data of the study were 150
Japanese sentences and they were analysed by using experimental method. The
The fifth study was conducted by Ariesta (2014). The study was aimed to
identify the formula or the pattern of the relative clause, analyse the structure of
relative clause, and classify the types of relative clauses found in the Steinbeck’s
The Pearl novel. The type of the research was qualitative research since the the data
were analysed by using content analysis technique. The theory which the researcher
used was from Generative Transformation by Chomsky (1971) in his book entitled
Syntactic Structure. Then, the first results, which was the formula or the pattern of
the relative clause, were Relative Pronoun or adverb plus subject plus verb, Relative
Pronoun as a subject plus verb, and Clause plus Relative Pronoun plus Clause. The
second results were that the researcher found three types of relative clauses in the
From the five relevant previous studies above, it can be seen that all of them
have the similar aspects of this research, specificaly the syntactic analysis.
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However, the object which will be analysed in this research is different. In the study
which was conducted by Purwata (2008), particularly, Westlife’s songs lyrics were
taken as the data source while John Denver’s songs lyrics are taken as the data
source in this research. Therefore, the findings of this research will also be different
from the previous studies which have been conducted by Khusnah (2008), Halimah
(2016), Kurohashi and Nagao (1994), and Ariesta (2014). Since the researcher tried
to develop the research which have been done by the previous researchers, the
research objective of this study is to analyse sentence patterns from other song
lyrics. Therefore, it can be concluded that the researchers from the previous studies
give significant help in finding the references of the theories. The researcher expects
that this research can be beneficial to readers and future linguistic researchers who
B. Theoretical Framework
This research analyses syntactically the sentence patterns which are found
in John Denver’s song lyrics. From the theoretical description, the researcher used
the theory of sentence patterns from Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) and the theory
the data.
To answer the research question, namely “What sentence patterns are used
in John Denver’s song lyrics?”, the researcher referred to the theory of sentence
patterns which was proposed by Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) to find out the types
of sentence patterns in the song lyrics and the theory of phrase structure rules from
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O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Katamba (1996) to draw the tree diagram and represent
the patterns.
Thus, this chapter provides the theories which are related and needed in this
research. The main theory of this research is from Quirk and Greenbaum (1973)
about sentence patterns. The second theory is from O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and
Katamba (1996) about the popular contemporary view of the phrase structure. The
theories were employed to analyse the patterns of several sentences in the lyrics.
Therefore, in order to find out the answer to the research question, the researcher
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
conduct the study. This chapter discusses the methodology systematically. The
discussion includes research method, data source, instruments and data gathering
A. Research Method
John Denver’s song lyrics. There is only one research question formulated to be
discussed in this study. The question is “What sentence patterns are used in John
Denver’s song lyrics?” The research was done by analysing the chosen sentences
Since this research focused on the sentence patterns of song lyrics, the
researcher used qualitative research to analyse the data. Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh
hypotheses” (p. 25). It means that the data are collected and analysed in forms of
researchers deal more with descriptions rather than the quantity of data.
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Denver’s song lyrics. It means that this research belongs to content analysis.
2011, p. 478). The communication can be in the form of songs, textbooks, essays,
media, or scripts (Fraenkel et al, 2011, p. 478). This means that the document which
visual documents. According to Gall, Gall, and Borg (2007), content analysis
lyrics, film, or other form of communication”. Therefore, the researcher used the
John Denver’s song lyrics to be analysed in order to answer the research question
of this study.
B. Data Source
This research was done by analysing song lyrics which were written by John
Denver. The analysis of the song lyrics was started on 15th November 2017 up to
28th March 2018. For three months, the researcher had analysed, identified, and
categorised the sentence patterns of the lyrics and written up the report on the
research. Therefore, the research setting was varied, such as library, home, and cafe
as long as the scripts of the song lyrics were available since the study does not deal
27
The subjects of this research were John Denver’s song lyrics. John Denver
was Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., or known professionally as John Denver, was
He was born on 31st December 1943 in Roswell, New Mexico, United States. After
dropping out of college, he traveled to New York City and began his music career.
Peter, Paul and Mary recorded his "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in 1967 and his, "Rocky
Mountain High," became an official song of the state of Colorado. Denver was an
activist for environmental causes and founded the World Hunger Project.
Unfortunately, Denver passed away when he and his pilot flight his new aircraft
over the ocean on 12th October 1997. Denver's pilot's license, due to his drunk-
driving arrests, was missing the medical endorsement required to make it legal, and
toxicology tests were run on his remains, but they came back negative. Denver was
thought to have lost control of the plane while fumbling with a lever that shifted the
The researcher used six John Denver’s song lyrics in which their sentences
were taken to be analysed. The songs were Wild Montana Skies; Darcy Farrow;
Poems, Prayers, and Promises; Take Me Home Country Roads; Shanghai Breezes;
and Fly Away. They were chosen because there are many sentences which can be
In this research, the first instrument was human, that is, the researcher
himself. The researcher organised what he did with the data such as find the data
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28
related to the limitation of the study (sentences which are in the John Denver’s song
lyrics). The researcher gathered the data by using a website, namely azlyrics.com.
There were 59 corpus data collected by analysing the sentences in the song lyrics.
From the corpus data, the researcher selected five sentences from each song lyric to
be analysed. Also, the researcher used information several books, journals, and
The second istruments were the lyrics of John Denver’s songs. There were
five songs used to be analysed in this research. The songs were entitled Wild
Montana Skies; Darcy Farrow; Poems, Prayers, and Promises; Take Me Home
Country Roads; Shanghai Breezes; and Fly Away. The selected lines of the songs
were used to answer the research question which was “What sentence patterns are
To collect the data, the writer firstly observed the John Denver’s song lyrics.
The researcher searched the lyrics of the songs on the internet. Observation is the
basic technique to collect data in qualitative research. The data gathered were in
According to Miles and Huberman (1994), there are three steps of analysing
qualitative data, namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing.
29
1. Data Reduction
(1994) say that data reduction is the process of selecting, simplifying, abstracting,
and transforming data in the transcriptions. The researcher analysed all sentences
in the six John Denver’s song lyrics whose patterns were able to be analysed. Then,
the researcher chose five sentences from each lyric, particularly sentences which
2. Data Display
constructed. By using this process, the researcher drew the tree diagram and then
put the formulas of the diagram and patterns of the sentences based on the diagram
into a table. It was made so that the researcher would be easier to draw the
conclusion according to the data. Miles and Huberman (1994) say that by looking
at displays will help the researcher to comprehend the idea of the information so
that the researcher is able to determine what to do next. In short, by displaying data,
30
Figure 3.1 The Tree Diagram Example of a Sentence in John Denver’s Song
Lyrics
Table 3.1 The Examples of the Sentence Type and Pattern in John
Denver’s Song Lyrics
Sentence Type Simple Sentence
3. Conclusion Drawing
The last step in interpreting the data is drawing the conclusions. The
researcher drew the conclusions based on the data which had been simplified after
finishing the previous steps. In short, the conclusions became more accurate and
clearer since they were built from the processed data before.
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CHAPTER IV
This chapter discusses the results and discussion in order to answer the
In this section, the researcher describes the result of the patterns of sentences
of the six John Denver’s song lyrics, namely Wild Montana Skies; Darcy Farrow;
Poems, Prayers, and Promises; Take Me Home Country Roads; Shanghai Breezes;
and Fly Away. From the sentences, the researcher identified sentence patterns in
Table 4.1 The Numbers of the Sentence Patterns in John Denver’ Song
Lyrics
Sentence Patterns
Songs’
Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern
Titles
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Wild
Montana 1 - 4 1 1 - 1 1 -
Skies
Darcy
- 1 1 3 - - - - -
Farrow
Poems,
Prayers,
1 1 3 - - - - - -
and
Promises
Take me
Home,
- 1 1 2 1 - - - -
Country
Roads
Shanghai
- 2 1 - 1 - - - 1
Breezes
Fly Away - 1 2 - 1 - 1 - -
Total 2 6 12 6 4 - 2 1 1
31
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Table 4.1 shows the results of the used sentence patterns. It can be seen that
the pattern 3 is mostly found in some sentences of John Denver’s song lyrics. In
this part, the researcher elaborates and presents the sentence patterns, the sentence
Sentence 1: His mother took him to her breast, and softly she did sing
The tree diagram above shows the structures and the categories of the whole
two or more main clauses. Therefore, the sentence above was the combination of
two clauses which can stand independently because it was connected by the
conjunction “and”.
33
From the analysis, the researcher found that the pattern of Sentence I was
“His mother took him to her breast”. Here, the elements which were identified were
Subject (His mother), Transitive Verb (took), Direct Object (him), and Adverb (to
her breast). Therefore, the elements were combined and it produced the sentence
Sentence II was “she did sing softly”. In this sentence, however, there was
an exception from one of the sentence patterns in the relevant theory. It was because
there was an “Emphasis” element in the sentence. Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) did
not mention the pattern which contained Emphasis within and there was no relevant
sentence pattern theory which included such an element in a sentence. Aside of that,
the adverbial element in here was considered as optional, which meant that it could
be included or not. Therefore, from the analysis, the researcher proposed the
“Emphasis (abbreviated into Emph)” element since the term “Emphasis” was the
widely used in analysing grammar. Therefore, the researcher created a new sentence
Syntactically, it can be concluded from the tree diagram that the Inflectional
were three major syntactic elements; Noun Phrase (NP) + Inflection (Infl) + Verb
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Phrase (VP). In Noun Phrase, the lexemes His mother (Det + N) functioned as the
Subject (S). The Inflection element was past since the main verb in the sentence
was in the past form. In Verb Phrase, there were several layers which had different
elements functions. The lexemes were took functioned as the Transitive Verb (Vt),
him functioned as the Direct Object (dO), and to her breast functioned as the
Adverb (A). In addition, the conjunction (conj) and was used to connect the
Inflectional Phrase 2 had the same syntactic elements like the ones in the
Inflectional Phrase 1. They were Noun Phrase (NP) + Inflection (Infl) + Verb
Phrase (VP). In Adverbial Phrase, the lexeme softly was considered optional as it
did not always have to appear in the beginning of the sentence (Quirk &
Greenbaum, 1973, p. 167). In Noun Phrase, the lexeme was the pronoun she which
functioned as the Subject of the sentence. Then, the Inflection was in the past form
since the time reference of the main verb was simple past. In Verb Phrase, finally,
there were two categories involved, namely the Emphasis (Emph) did and the
Intransitive Verb (Vi) sing. As far as the researcher knows, there is no Emphasis
category in the tree diagram. Therefore, the researcher used Emph to represent the
35
Sentence 2: His mother died that summer and he never learned to cry
From the data above, it can be seen that the type of the sentence was
compound sentence as it had two main clauses and it was connected with
coordinated conjunction and. To analyse the patterns, the sentences were divided
Sentence I:
Pattern 1: S + Vi +A
Sentence Pattern (s)
Sentence II:
Pattern 3: S + (A) + Vt + dO
Sentence I was “His mother died that summer” and it contained the elements
of Subject (His mother), Intransitive Verb (died), and Adverb (that summer). The
Greenbaum, 1973, p. 167). Sentence II was “He never learned to cry”. The elements
here were Subject (He), Adverb (never), Transitive Verb (learned), and Direct
Object (to cry) which formed pattern 3: S + (A) + Vt + dO (Quirk & Greenbaum,
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36
1973, p. 167). Therefore, it can be concluded that the sentence patterns from
there had already been used by Inflectional Phrase (IP). Also, the researcher argued
that the use of IP symbol to represent the term Infinitive Phrase, as used by Andrew
Radford (1997) in his book entitled Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English:
A Minimalist Approach, was not efficient due to the existence of Inflectional Phrase
which was also symbolised as IP. Therefore, the researcher would rather use the
Sentence 3: He never knew his father and he never did ask why
According to the tree diagram above, it could be could be seen that the type
of the sentence was compound sentence. The sentences were connected by the
conjunction “and”.
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From the analysis, the researcher found that the sentence patterns from the
compound sentence were pattern 3 and pattern 7. The elements of the first sentence
were He as the Subject, never as the Optional Adverb, knew as the Transitive Verb,
and his father as the Direct Object. They were combined together and it formulated
the sentence pattern pattern 3: S + (A) + Vt + dO. In the second sentence, the pattern
was considered as pattern 7 since the main elements of the sentence were Subject
(He), Intransitive Verb (ask), and Adverb (why). In addition, the Optional Adverb
(never) and the Emphasis (did) also appeared before the main verb. Thus, the
researcher concluded that the patterns from both sentences were pattern 3 and
pattern 7.
Regarding the diagram, there were two Inflectional Phrases (IP1 and IP2)
below the main Inflectional Phrase (IP), which each of them has their different
Noun Phrase (NP) Pron (He), Inflection (Past), and Verb Phrase (VP) Qual
(IP2), there were the major syntactic categories were NP Pron (he), Infl Past,
and VP Qual (never) + Emph (did) + Vi (ask), AdvP Adv (why). Again, there
was the new element of Emphasis (Emph) within the Verb Phrase category whose
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38
function was to emphasize the main verb. Thus, it can be concluded that the major
Sentence 4: He never knew the answers that would make an easy way
The tree diagram above showed that the sentence was categorised as
complex sentence because there were one main clause and one subordinate clause.
The classifications were “He never knew the answers” as the main clause and “that
From the analysis, the researcher found that the pattern of sentence 4 was
pattern 5. Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) mentioned that in sentence pattern 5, there
were Subject, Transitive Verb, Direct Object, and Object Complement as the main
elements. In sentence 4, the elements involved were the same as the theory from
them, except that there was an Optional Adverbial before the Transitive Verb. Here,
the classifications of the elements were the lexeme he as the Subject, never as the
Optional Adverb, knew as the Transitive Verb, the answers as the Direct Object,
and that would make an easy as the Adjective Clause which functions as the Object
Complement. Thus, the elements were grouped together and it formed the sentence
39
Based on the tree diagram, it can be seen that the Inflectional Phrase
contained three major syntactic elements, such as Noun Phrase, Inflection, and Verb
Phrase. In Noun Phrase, the pronoun He functioned as the Subject. The Inflection
element was past as the main verb of the sentence was in the past form. In Verb
Phrase, there were several layers which had different elements functions; the
qualifier never functioned as the Adverb, knew functioned as the Transitive Verb,
and the answers that would make an easy way functioned as the Noun Phrase. In
addition, the researcher created a triangle layer for the Noun Phrase the answers
that would make an easy way in order to make the analysis faster and shorter.
The diagram shows that the type of the sentence was considered as
compound sentence. The first sentence (IP1) was connected to the second sentence
Sentence I:
Pattern 3: S + Vt + dO
Sentence Pattern (s)
Sentence II:
Pattern 3: S + Vt + dO
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The results showed that the sentences had the same patterns. It was shown
that both sentences contained similar elements, such as Subject, Transitive Verb,
and Direct Object. In Sentence I, the classification of each element was He as the
subject, learned as the Transitive Verb, and to read the seasons as the Direct Object.
In Sentence II, the elements were He as the subject, learned as the Transitive Verb,
and to make a stand as the Direct Object. Those elements were grouped and it
Aside of that, the diagram also showed that both Inflectional Phrases (IP1
and IP2) had the same major syntactic categories, namely Noun Phrase, Inflection,
and Verb Phrase. The categories in Inflectional Phrase 1 were NP Pron (He), Infl
Inflectional Phrase 2, only that their lexical items were different; NP Pron (He),
Darcy Farrow
Sentence 1: She promised to wed before the snows came that year
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41
The diagram showed that the sentence type was complex sentence since
there were one main clause and one subordinate clause. According to the type of
the clause, it can be considered that the subordinate clause was adverbial clause.
From the analysis, the researcher identified that the sentence contained four
main elements. They were the subject we, the transitive verb promised, the direct
object to wed, and the adverb before the snows came that year. According to Quirk
and Greenbaum (1973), the sentence pattern which had those elements was
considered as pattern 4: S + Vt + dO + A.
In the tree diagram, it could be summarised that there were two Inflectional
Phrases in one sentence. In Inflectional Phrase 1, the major rules were divided into
three major categories, namely Noun Phrase, Inflection, and Verb Phrase. Hence,
the structures of the phrase were NP Pron (She), Infl (Past), and VP Vt
had different minor structures compared to the previous one. They were NP Det
42
The sentence which was represented in the tree diagram above was
considered as simple sentence for it only had one main or independent clause.
From the analysis, the researcher found that the sentence pattern as
represented in the diagram was pattern 2. There were three elements of the sentence;
the Subject (Her eyes), Linking Verb (shone), and Subject Complement (bright like
the pretty lights). The elements were combined and it became the sentence pattern
pattern 2: S + Lv + SC. From the tree diagram, then, the major phrase structure
categories were Noun Phrase, Inflection, and Verb Phrase and they were NP Det
43
The diagram above shows that the type of the sentence was simple sentence
which was written in the form of passive voice. According to Crystal (2008),
passive voice could be defined as a sentence where the grammatical subject was
typically the recipient or goal of the action which was denoted by the verb.
From the analysis, the researcher found that the sentence pattern was
considered as pattern 3. There were three main elements found in the sentence,
namely Subject (She), Transitive Verb (was courted), and Direct Object (by Young
Vandamere). Aside of that, the structures of the tree diagram were NP Pron
Vandamere). Thus, the researcher concluded that the sentence pattern was pattern
3: S +Vt + dO.
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Sentence 4: Young Vandy in his pain put a bullet through his brain
From the diagram, it can be seen that the type of the sentence was simple
sentence.
The sentence contained some main elements such as the Subject (Young
Vandy in his pain), Transitive Verb (put), Direct Object (a bullet), and Adverb
(through his brain). The elements were grouped together and they formed pattern
researcher found that the major syntactic categories were Noun Phrase, Inflection,
and Verb Phrase. The rules of the structures were NP N (Young Vandy) + PP
45
The type of the sentence as shown in the diagram above was considered as
complex sentence. It had one main clause and one subordinate clause. In addition,
the subordinate clause was adverbial clause, which functioned as the adverb.
In the sentence, there were three basic elements and one optional element.
They were we as the subject, buried as the transitive verb, them as the direct object,
together as the optional adverbial, and the adverbial clause as the snow began to
fall as the adverb. Those elements were combined and it produced sentence pattern
4: S + Vt + dO + (A) + A.
From the tree diagram, the researcher found out that there were two
Inflectional Phrases below the main Inflectional Phrase. The phrases were
Phrase, the structures of the phrase were NP Pron (We), Infl (Past), and VP
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46
Inflectional Phrase, the structures were a bit different compared to the first one.
They were NP Det (the) + N (snow), Infl (Past), and VP Vi (began) + InfinP
The sentence from the diagram was considered as simple sentence because
After analysing the sentence, the researcher found that the sentence pattern
of the sentence was pattern 3. The sentence had three elements, namely Subject (I),
Transitive Verb (have been lately thinking about), and Direct Object (my life’s
time). The elements were combined together and it formed the sentence pattern
Pron (I) and VP Pres (have) + Prog (been) + Adv (lately) + Vt (thinking) + PP
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47
P (about) + NP (my life’s time). Here, there were two lexical items of which the
researcher has never used in drawing the tree diagram; have and been. The
researcher wrote Pres for the lexeme have which meant that it was the Auxiliary
verb for Present Perfect Tense and Prog for the lexeme been to indicate the perfect
continuous tense. Therefore, there were two new labels which were considered new
to the researcher. As an addition, the researcher drew a triangle layer above the
Noun Phrase my life’s time to make it more efficient in analysing the diagram rather
The type of the sentence from the tree diagram above was considered as
complex sentence since there was one main clause and one subordinate clause.
48
Based on the analysis, the researcher identified the sentence pattern was
pattern 3. The elements which were involved in this sentence were Subject (I),
Transitive Verb (know), and Direct Object (I’m gonna hate to see it end). The noun
clause here functioned as the object of the verb know. Aside of that, the analysis
result of the phrase structure was NP Pron (I), Infl (Non-Past), and VP Vt
the elements were put together and it became sentence pattern 3: S + Vt + dO (Quirk
The diagram shows that the type of the sentence was considered as simple
sentence. It only had one main clause which meant that it could stand by itself.
49
There were three basic elements and three optional elements within the
sentence. In the basic elements, there were Subject (It), Linking Verb (is), and
Subject Complement (fine). The optional elements, then, were three optional
adverbs. One of them was placed before the Subject Complement and the others
were after it. The first, second, and third adverbs were really, to have a chance, and
to hang around. At last, the elements were put together and they resulted sentence
The major phrase structure categories were analysed by the researcher and
the results were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. In Noun Phrase, the structures were
The diagram above represents the picture of the structure and type of the
sentence. It is found that the type of the sentence is complex sentence, which means
that the sentence contains one main clause and one subordinate clause. Further, the
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The sentence here contains three elements which forms the sentence pattern.
The main elements are the subject (Time around me) and the Intransitive Verb
(whispers), while the other one is Optional Adverb in the form of adverbial clause
(when it is cold). It can be summarised that from the elements involved, the sentence
Syntactically, the major phrase structure categories in the sentence are Noun
Phrase, Inflection, and Verb Phrase. The classification of each structure is: NP
51
From the tree diagram, it can be seen that the type of the sentence was simple
sentence.
Subject (I), Transitive Verb (would like to raise), and Direct Object (a family). The
elements were put together and it formed sentence pattern 3: S + Vt + dO (Quirk &
researcher found that the major categories were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase.
Their structures were NP Pron (I) and VP M (would like to) + Vt (raise) +
52
The tree diagram above shows that the sentence type was simple sentence
The sentence “Life is old there” consisted of three main elements and one
optional element. The main elements of the sentence were the Subject (Life),
Linking Verb (is), and Subject Complement (old), while the optional element was
the Adverb (there). Then, those elements were combined and it created sentence
the inflectional phrase contained two major categories, namely Noun Phrase and
Verb Phrase. The phrase structures of the categories were NP N (Life) and VP
53
The diagram shows that the type of the sentence was simple sentence.
In the sentence “All my memories gather round her”, there were three main
elements, namely Subject (All my memories), Transitive Verb (gather round), and
Direct Object (her). Then, from the tree diagram, the inflectional phrase contained
two major categories; Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The structures of the phrases
The diagram shows that the type of the sentence was simple sentence.
54
There were four main elements in the sentence, namely the Subject (I),
Transitive Verb (hear), Direct Object (her voice), and Adverb (in the morning
hour). Aside of that, the result of analysing the tree diagram were that the major
categories from the Inflectional Phrase were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. Then,
the structures of the phrases were NP Pron (I) and VP Vt (hear) + NP Det
summarise, those four elements of the sentence were combined and it formed
The tree diagram above shows that the type of the sentence was simple
sentence.
55
The sentence “The radio reminds me of my home far away” contained four
main elements and one optional element, namely the Subject (The radio), Transitive
Verb (reminds), Direct Object (me), Adverb (of my home), and Optional Adverb
(far away). The researcher put the elements in the correct grammatical order and it
167).
From the phrase structure analysis, the researcher found that the major
categories of the sentence were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The structures of
The diagram shows that the sentence type was complex sentence since it
56
The sentence consisted of four main elements, specifically the Subject (I),
Transitive Verb (get), Direct Object (a feeling), and Object Complement (that I
should have been home yesterday). The elements were put together and it produced
Syntactically, the structures of the inflectional phrase were NP Pron (I) and VP
yesterday).
Shanghai Breezes
Sentence 1: It’s funny of how you sound as if you’re right next door
The tree diagram above shows that the type of the sentence was complex
sentence.
57
In the sentence “It’s funny of how you sound as if you’re right next door”,
there were five elements involved. There was, however, one element of sentence
pattern which was considered new by the researcher since he has not ever found it.
The element was used to complement the adjective (Subject Complement) of the
main clause. According to Chutavo (2012), in his article entitled The Eight
Functions of Noun Clauses in English Grammar, the element was called Adjective
Phrase Complement (APC). The researcher agreed with his theory since it was
suitable to use the term based on the case. Considering the problem, the researcher
proposed a new sentence pattern, namely pattern 9 and the elements involved were
the Subject (It), Linking Verb (is), Subject Complement (funny), Adjective Phrase
Complement (how you sound), and Adverb (as if you were right next door). Thus,
APC + A.
From the phrase structure analysis, the researcher found that the major
categories of the sentence were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The structures were
Sentence 2: I just can’t seem to find the words I’m looking for
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because there were one main clause and one subordinate clause.
The sentence “I just can’t seem to find the words I’m looking for” consisted
of four main elements, namely the Subject (I), Transitive Verb (just cannot seem to
find), Direct Object (the words), and Object Complement (that I am looking for).
Also, the researcher identified that the major categories of the inflectional
phrase were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The structures were NP Pron (I) and
looking for).
59
The sentence above was considered as complex sentence for there was one
From the analysis, the researcher found that there were three main elements
in the sentence. They were the Subject (I), Transitive Verb (can’t remember), and
Direct Object in the form of Noun Clause (when I felt so close to you). Thus,
elements of the sentence were combined and they created sentence pattern 3: S +
The researcher also found that the major categories of the inflectional phrase
were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The structures of the categories were NP
Sentence 4: The moon and the stars are the same ones
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Based on the tree diagram, it can be seen that the type of the sentence is
simple sentence.
There are three major elements which exist in this sentence. They are The
moon and the stars as the Subject , are as the Linking Verb, and the same ones as
Subject Complement. The elements are combined together and it becomes sentence
pattern 2: S + Lv + SC (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973, p. 167). Then, the result of the
(ones). In summary, the researcher concludes that the sentence pattern is pattern 2.
61
The sentence contained three main elements, namely the Subject (Your love
in my life), Linking Verb (is like), and Subject Complement (heaven to me). From
the elements involved, the researcher concluded that the sentence pattern was
pattern 2: S + Lv + SC (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973, p. 167). Also, there were two
major categories of the phrase structures; Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The
Fly Away
The sentence in the diagram was considered as simple sentence and it used
62
There were three basic elements which were used in the sentence, namely
the Subject (All of her days), Linking Verb (have gone), and Subject Complement
(soft and cloudy). Here, the researcher would like to comment that the lexeme gone
was considered as Linking Verb since the element which followed it was Subject
Complement, whose function was to give more detailed information to the subject.
complements”, which meant that other kinds of verb types (Transitive and
Intransitive Verbs) cannot have it. Thus, the sentence elements were combined
p. 167).
From the tree diagram, the researcher analysed the phrase structures of the
major categories of the inflectional phrase. The results were NP Pron (All) + PP
(soft and cloudy). In the Verb Phrase category, the researcher would like to
highlight the labelling of the lexeme have. As far as the researcher knew, there was
no tree diagram which represented the use of present perfect tense and there was no
label for it. Therefore, the label Perf (Perfect) was used by the researcher since it
was more suitable for the perfect auxiliary have. As an addition, the researcher
created a triangle layer above the Noun Phrase soft and cloudy since both were
Adjective items. Thus, the layer was used so that the analysis could be done faster.
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63
The diagram shows that the type of the sentence is simple sentence. Also,
the tense which is used here is present progressive tense. It is a type of an English
In the sentence, there were two main elements and one optional element
which were important in determining the sentence pattern. The main elements of
the sentence were the Subject (She) and Intransitive Verb (is getting ready), while
the optional element was the Adverb (to fly). Based on the existed sentence
elements, it can be concluded that the sentence pattern was pattern 7: S + Vi + (A)
After the tree diagram has been analysed, the researcher found that the major
phrase categories were Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. The phrase structures of the
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64
Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase were NP Pron (She) and VP Aux (is) + Vi
Sentence 3: Life in the city can make you crazy for sounds of the sand and the sea
The diagram above represents the structure and type of the sentence. It was
considered as simple sentence for there was only one main or independent clause.
Within the sentence, there were four basic elements and one optional
element of the sentence pattern. The four basic elements were the Subject,
Transitive Verb, Direct Object, and Object Complement, while the optional one
was the Adverb. Here, the Subject of the sentence was Life in the city, the Transitive
Verb combined with modal was can make, the Direct Object was you, the Object
Complement was crazy. Last but not least, the optional element, an adverb, was for
sounds of the sand and the sea. In short, the elements were combined and it became
65
In analysing the phrase structures, the researcher found that there were two
major categories within the inflectional phrase, namely Noun Phrase and Verb
Phrase. In Noun Phrase, the rules and categories involved were NP N (Life) +
PP P (in) + NP Det (the) + N (city). In Verb Phrase, the rules and categories
The tree diagram above shows that the type of the sentence was considered
as simple sentence.
In the simple sentence, there were three main elements which were used to
built the sentence, namely Subject (She), Transitive Verb (listens for), and Direct
Object (laughter and sounds of dancing). From the elements which exist in the
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973, p. 167). Then, there were three major categories in the
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Inflectional Phrase; Noun Phrase, Inflection, and Verb Phrase. By analysing each
of the category, it can be summarised that the structures within them were NP
The tree diagram showed that the type of the sentence was simple sentence.
Based on the analysis, the researcher identified that the elements of the
sentence was She as the Subject, is looking for as the Transitive Verb, and signs of
the spring as the Direct Object. Following the theory from Quirk and Greenbaum
(1973), it was stated that the sentence pattern which had the main elements was
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B. Summary Points
The researcher summarises three main points from the results which have
been analysed. The first one is the numbers of the sentence patterns used in the song
lyrics. There were eight sentence patterns used in the lyrics, namely pattern 1 for 2
times, pattern 2 for 6 times, pattern 3 for 12 times, pattern 4 for 6 times, pattern 5
for 4 times, pattern 7 for 2 times, pattern 8 for 1 time, and pattern 9 for 1 time. Thus,
it can be concluded that most of the types were used in the lyrics. It can also be seen
that pattern 3 is the most frequently used pattern. Pattern 6, however, was not used
at all.
The second one is the numbers of sentence types which are used in the song
lyrics are simple sentences for 17 times, compound sentences for 4 sentences, and
complex sentences for 9 times. Therefore, it can be concluded that simple sentence
is the sentence type which occurs at most. However, the researcher did not find any
The last one is the categories of the phrase structure rules. The researcher
found that there are two categories which have not ever been used in drawing tree
diagrams before. The first category is Emphasis (Emph) as in the sentence 1 of the
Wild Montana Skies lyric, for example. The second category is Adjective Phrase
researcher knows, the categories are never used in labelling the lexical items in the
tree diagrams. In addition, the researcher cannot find any sources which state the
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use of the categories. Therefore, the researcher proposes them as the new categories
CHAPTER V
There are three major sections which are provided in this chapter, namely
concludes the findings and data analysis of this research. In implications, the
A. Conclusions
question: What sentence patterns are used in John Denver’s song lyrics?
To answer the research question, the researcher analysed the data by using
syntactic analysis. The researcher drew the tree diagrams of the chosen sentences
and determined the sentences types and the sentence patterns. The data analysis
showed that there were eight patterns found, including two new patterns which
pattern 9: S + Lv + SC + APC + A.
From the results, the researcher found that the largest number of the
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pattern is used for 12 times. On the other hand, there are two patterns which are
SC + APC + A. Each of them happens to be used 1 time only. Finally, there is one
B. Implications
This research provides implications for some people. The first implication
the results of this research, the ELESP students can understand better about
English sentence patterns and types of English sentences. In addition, the students
can also draw tree diagrams better and comprehend the phrase structures involved
The last implication is for future researchers. They may use this research
and sentence patterns. Therefore, it will be easier for them to look for other
C. Recommendations
1. ELESP Students
In the Grammar class, the researcher expects that students can learn the
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Aside of that, students are expected to be able to comprehend deeper about types
of English sentences. In the Syntax class, the researcher hopes that students can
draw tree diagrams and label the categories of each lexical item correctly.
2. Future Researchers
The researcher hopes that other researchers in the future can expand and
Other researchers may write further research on sentence patterns and syntax by
analysis. Also, the researcher expects that future researchers can conduct similar
research quantitatively.
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REFERENCES
Azar, B. S. (2002). Understanding and using English Grammar (3rd ed.). New
York: Pearson Longman.
Bergmann, A., Hall, K. C., & Ross, S. M. (2007). Language files: Materials for
an introduction to language and linguistics (10th ed.). Columbus: The
Ohio State University Press.
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Finegan, E. (1999). Language: Its structure and use (3rd ed.). Orlando: Harcourt
Brace & Company.
Fraenkel, J. R., Hyun, H., & Wallen, N. E. (2011). How to evaluate research in
education (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Fromkin, V., Blair, D., & Collins, P. (1991). An introduction to language (4th
ed.). Marrickville: Harcourt.
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Onions, C. T. (1971). Modern English syntax. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Poems, Prayers, and Promises (2003). In AZlyrics. Retrieved on 8th May 2018
from
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johndenver/poemsprayersandpromises.ht
ml.
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Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive
grammar of the English language. London: Longman.
Take me home country roads (2001). In AZlyrics. Retrieved on 9th May 2018
from
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johndenver/takemehomecountryroads.htm
l.
Wild montana skies (2002). In AZlyrics. Retrieved on 8th May 2018 from
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johndenver/wildmontanaskies.html.
APPENDICES
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said he came to turn the pages and to make a brand new start.
Now he never told a story of the time that he was gone.
Some say he was a lawyer, some say he was a John.
There was something in the city that he said he couldn't breathe,
there was something in the country that he said he couldn't leave.
Now some say he was crazy, some are glad he's gone.
Some of us will miss him and try to carry on,
giving a voice to the forest, giving a voice to the dawn.
Giving a voice to the wilderness and the land that he lived on.
Oh Montana, give this child a home.
Give him the love of a good family and a woman of his own.
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a light in his eyes,
give him the wild wind for a brother and the wild Montana Skies.
Oh Montana, give this child a home.
Give him the love of a good family and a woman of his own.
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a light in his eyes,
give him the wild wind for a brother and the wild Montana Skies.
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Darcy Farrow
by John Denver
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I've been lately thinking about my life's time, all the things I've done and how it's
been.
And I can't help believing in my own mind, I know I'm gonna hate to see it end.
I've seen a lot of sunshine, slept out in the rain, spent a night or two all on my
own.
I've known my lady's pleasures, had myself some friends, spent a time or two in
my own home.
I have to say it now, it's been good life all in all, it's really fine to have a chance to
hang around.
and lie there by the fire and watch the evening tire
while all my friends and my old lady sit and pass a pipe around.
And talk of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believe in.
How sweet it is to love someone, how right it is to care.
How long it's been since yesterday, what about tomorrow
and what about our dreams and all the memories we share?
Days they pass so quickly now, the nights are seldom long.
Time around me whispers when it's cold.
The changes somehow frightens me, still I have to smile. It turns me on to think of
growing old.
For though my life's been good to me there's still so much to do.
So many things my mind has never known.
I'd like to raise a family, I'd like to sail away and dance across the mountains on
the moon.
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I have to say it now, it's been good life all in all, it's really fine to have a chance to
hang around.
and lie there by the fire and watch the evening tire
while all my friends and my old lady sit and pass a pipe around.
And talk of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believe in.
How sweet it is to love someone, how right it is to care.
How long it's been since yesterday, what about tomorrow
and what about our dreams and all the memories we share?
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All my memories gather round her, miner's lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky, misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye
I hear her voice in the morning hour, she calls me, the radio reminds me of my
home far away
And driving down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday,
yesterday
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Shanghai Breezes
by John Denver
It's funny how you sound as if you're right next door when you're really half a
world away.
I just can't seem to find the words I'm looking for to say the things that I want to
say.
I can't remember when I felt so close to you, it's almost more than I can bear.
And though I seem a half a million miles from you, you are in my heart and living
there.
And the moon and the stars are the same ones you see, it's the same old sun up in
the sky.
And your voice in my ear is like heaven to me like the breezes here in old
Shanghai.
There are lovers who walk hand in hand in the park and lovers who walk all
alone.
There are lovers who lie unafraid in the dark and lovers who long for home.
Oh, I couldn't leave you even if I wanted to, you're in my dreams and always near.
And especially when I sing the songs I wrote for you, you are in my heart and
living there.
And the moon and the stars are the same ones you see, it's the same old sun up in
the sky.
And your face in my dreams is like heaven to me just like the breezes here in old
Shanghai.
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And the moon and the stars are the same ones you see, it's the same old sun up in
the sky.
And your love in my life is like heaven to me, like the breezes here in old
Shanghai.
Just like the breezes here in old Shanghai.
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Fly Away
by John Denver
All of her days have gone soft and cloudy, all of her dreams have gone dry.
All of her nights have gone sad and shady, She's getting ready to fly.
Fly away, fly away, fly away.
Life in the city can make you crazy for sounds of the sand and the sea.
Life in a high-rise can make you hungry for things that you can't even see.
Fly away, fly away, fly away.
Where are my days, where are my nights? Where is the Spring? I wanna fly, I
wanna fly