An analysis of sentence structure based on generative grammar in Charles Dicken’s a tale of two cities

The title of this paper is “An Analysis of Sentence Structure Based On Generative Grammar in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities”. This paper is an analysis of structure that found in A Tale of Two Cities novel. Furthermore, this novel of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” has mankind of unique sentence structure consist of simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, and compound complex sentences. The forms of sentence structures appear clearly if analyzed by tree diagram method. Tree diagram, also known as a phrase marker since it is intended to represent structure by marking which sequences of words in a sentence are its constituent phrases. In addition, this research purposed to know the types of sentences exist in A Tale of two cities novel and to describe the sentence structure through tree diagram. This research used descriptive qualitative method with syntax approach. In this case, this research described with step that used in collecting data and purposive sampling method in gaining the sample. Furthermore, this research had done by divided in four sentences that consist of simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex sentence. Data that analyzed in this paper quoted from Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities novel that re-narrated by D.H. Howe. In this case, there are 3 chapters in A Tale of Two Cities novel; however the researcher chose the first chapter to analyze. Afterwards, data that has been collected with Bungin’s formula in finding the percentage of each sentence and then data analyzed with Burton theory where the application of Chomsky’s theory. Writing that contains mostly short, simple sentences can be uninteresting or even irritating to read. On the other hand, writing that consists of mostly long, complex sentence is usually difficult to read. Therefore, a good writer must use a variety of sentence types. Based on this statement the writer summarizes that a Charles Dicken's novel that retold by D.H Howe is interesting because there is a variety of sentence types in it. At last, after all sentences been analyzed, the researcher found the conclusion. Firstly, there are 427 sentences in A Tale of Two Cities novel where the dominant sentence is simple sentence that this sentence found 241 sentences, secondly is complex sentence where this sentence found 95 sentences, thirdly is compound sentence where this sentence found 48 sentences and fourthly or the last is compound – complex sentence where this sentence found 43 sentences