Syntactic Analysis – Which Part of Speech Is ‘As’ in Each Example?

adverbialsconjunctionsparts-of-speechprepositional-phrasessyntactic-analysis

I've come across something that has stumped me a bit.

I think that the following usage of "as" is conjunctive. Am I correct?

He is the same as the dog is.

Is the following usage of "as" prepositional?

He is the same as the dog.

Are the following sentences functionally identical to the previous one? As in, do "just like" and "similar to" retain the structure found in "the same as" from sentence #2?

He is just like the dog.

He is similar to the dog.

I am curious as to what the sentence structure looks like in all of these; I'd love to see syntax trees of these sentences.

Thank y'all!

Best Answer

[1] He is [the same as the dog (is)].

In [1] "as" is a preposition and the expression "as the dog (is)" is thus a preposition phrase functioning as complement of the adjective "same". The verb "is" can be optionally added. The whole expression "the same as the dog (is)" is an adjective phrase functioning as predicative complement of the verb "be". Note that "the" is a dependent of "same".

[2] He is just like the dog.

[3] He is similar to the dog.

In [2] "like" is an adjective" and "just like the dog" is thus an adjective phrase functioning as predicative complement of "be".

In [3] "to the dog" is a preposition phrase functioning as complement of the adjective "similar". "Similar to the dog" is thus an adjective phrase functioning as predicative complement of "be".

Note that all three examples are comparative constructions.

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