Paul McCartney (and Lennon)
from Please Please Me (1963)
Listen to "P.S. I Love You" on YouTube
The Grammar
The greatest challenge posed by this song is the title phrase "P.S. I Love You." "Postscript" (the extended version of P.S.) is a noun, but Paul uses it almost as a conjunction, joining his promise to return soon with the final message "I love you." Although my goal here is to superimpose the Beatles' exact lyrics (correct grammar or otherwise) onto the sentence diagram structure, I felt that I could make this fit without taking too many liberties with either the grammar or the lyrics. In the end, I decided that an assumed linking verb was present: Paul states that the postscript is "I love you."A second challenge came from the additional vocals on the third repetition of the first verse. While most of these inserted lyrics function as interjections ("yeah," "oh!") the phrase, "You know I want you to..." drastically changed the sentence structure, enough that I added a new diagram for the final recurrence. While it would have been easier to cut and paste or indicate another repetition, the opportunity to diagram a sentence that includes four pedestals made the extra work worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment