Assignment no.

Topic:
Syntactic analysis of story “The Gift of the Magi”.

By
Nimra Nawaz
Reg. MPEN-023R19P-49

Submitted to

Dr.Masroor Sibtain

Master of philosophy
In
Literature
At
Institute of Southern Punjab Multan, Pakistan
June 14, 2020
INTRODUCTION
Syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language,
computer language or data structure. In this study, I will try to analyze a short story of O. Henry
which is called as “The Gift of the Magi”. Before this, I believe that I should give a brief summary
of the story.

Synopsis
It is Christmas Eve and the Della Dillingham is trying to find the perfect gift for her husband, Jim;
something that will reflect the depth of her love. Something just right. The only problem is Della's
budget; she has a grand total of one dollar and eighty seven cents with which to express her love
in gift form. Della and Jim are poor, and don't have very much. Her hair is one of the couple's great
treasures; it is thick and tumbles to her knees. Their other treasure is Jim's gold watch. Della steals
it herself then heads out into the frigid December air, walking to Madame Sofronie's Hair Goods
Shoppe. She sells her hair for twenty dollars, giving her enough to buy an elegant chair for Jim's
watch.
At seven o'clock, Jim arrives home, and is unnerved when she opens the door. He stares fixedly at
her hair, seemingly unable to process that her hair has gone. Della is confused by his reaction. She
doesn't know what his feelings are. After a few minutes, Jim pulls himself together and gives Della
her gift. She is filled with joy but then bursts into tears; he has given her a set of beautiful
ornamental hair combs that she has been wanting for a long while, but now she has no hair for
them. She gives Jim his gift, and her husband smiles, but sinks back onto the couch, overcome. He
sold his gold watch to get enough money to purchase the hair combs for Della. Jim suggests that
they put the presents away and have dinner. This is why they are the Magi.
Syntactic Analysis
There are various types of sentences used such as declarative, imperative, interrogative and
exclamatory sentences are present in the story. Clauses, phrases, and simple to complex sentences
are featured like:
Syntactic Categories
Sentence Types: The author uses not only declarative sentences and but also questions,
imperatives and exclamations and it gives an idea that this short story is rich in terms of its syntactic
features. Also, this can be considered as a clue of varieties in the text type.
Sentence Complexity: There are both complex, compound and simple sentences as given below;
(these sentences are in the first paragraph of the story)
- “That was all” (simple)
-So Della did it. (Simple)
- She began to think more reasonably. (Simple)
- “Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the
butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing
implied.” (Complex)
-“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he looks at me a second time, he’ll say I look
like a girl who sings and dances for money. (Complex)
-Della finished her crying and cleaned the marks of it from her face. (Complex)
-“Take your hat off and let me look at it.” (Compound)
-There was no other like it in any of the shops, and she had looked in every shop in the city.
(Compound)- There was nothing to do but fall on the bed and cry. (Compound)
Although these sentence types don’t vary often, author preferred using different sentence structures
that is, sometimes there are sentences involving two or three words, also, sometimes there are more
than twenty words in sentences.
Clause types: There are many clause types in the story such as; main clause and subordinate clause
with subtypes: (noun, adjective and adverb clausses).
- Up to the second floor Della ran, and stopped to get her breath. (main clause +
subordinate(adv)clause)
- The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. (main clause +
subordinate(noun)clause)
- Della held the watch chain in her hand and sat near the door where he always entered. (main
clause + (adj)subordinate clause)
- If you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first." (main
clause + (adj) subordinate clause)
- I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without
giving you a present (main clause + (adv) main clause).
- "If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say
I look like a Coney Island chorus girl (adjective clause). Author uses a variety of types
including adverb clauses, adjective clauses and noun clauses.
Clause Structure: There is a significant usage of “that clauses” in the story, it is often used, on
the other hand clauses which made with the item of “who” is used only four times and the situation
for the usage of “which” occurs for eight times that is noun clauses are dominant in this story.
Author generally avoids of using unusual structures in the sentences types.

Word classes: The usage of nouns, adjectives and also the adverbs are dominant. As it is thought,
author tries to define nouns with adjectives, and define the verbs with adverbs as a result, he
reaches a well-prepared, easy to read story for his readers.
Nouns: They are generally concrete but there are of course abstract ones. Concrete nouns have
been used to refer their surroundings, characters their living standards and presents. Proper names
are used frequently such as Jim, Della, Majesty, and Mr. James Dillingham Young, queen of Sheba,
Christmas, Babe, Magi, and King Solomon.
Pronouns: a pronoun stands in the place of a noun. Mostly the pronoun include words like he, she
and I. In this short story we can also see the use of pronoun in place of Della and Jim. For example:
- She stood by the window and looked out………..she had only $1.87 with which to buy a
present for Jim.
- He simply stared at her……..he said with an air almost of idiocy.
Adjectives: Adjectives are frequently used and the way, author is using adjectives for his
characters Della and Jim, the mood of adjectives is changing such as, beautiful hair, tiny curls,
white fingers, nice etc.
Verbs: Verbs carry an important part of the meaning that is this story involves many events and
express them dynamic verbs are used dominantly. Furthermore auxiliaries are used dominantly.
Verbs are also used transitively in most of the sentences some of transitive verbs can be shown as:
• Della doubled the fob chain in her hand
• She heard his step
• Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present
• I hunted all over town
• I sold the watch
Adverbs: Adverbs are frequently used.In this short story these adverbs are used frequently:
Gradually, exactly, certainly, seriously, greatly, fairly, rapidly, brilliantly, nervously, quickly,
surely, properly, carefully, critically, fixedly, laboriously, curiously.
Prepositions: prepositions are relation words; they indicate time, locate. or other more abstract
relationships. In this story the author used many prepositions like Over, to, on, at, under below,
over. for example: Take a look at home, At 7 o’clock , as a setter at the scent of quail, stared at
her, don’t look at me that way, look at the time-
- Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
- I reached below her knee and made itself a garment for her.
- In the vestibule below was a letter box into which no letter would go.
Conjunctions:
Also, in the story conjuncts such as “and, so, therefore” are used frequently. For example “and” is
used for the sixteen times in the story, also the conjunction “so” used for two times but “therefore”
is not used in this story.
- One dollar and eighty seven cents.
- Something fine and rare and sterling –
- My hair grows so fast, Jim.
Syntactic analysis of the text
In this short story “The Gift of the Magi” the writer used 4 sentence structures such as;
subject+verb+object (SVO), subject+verb+adjective (SVA), subject+verb+noun (SVN),
subject+verb+adverb (SVA). Followings are some examples of sentence analysis:
Sentence no.1 Della counted it three times
sentence

Subject Predicate

Subject Verb Pronoun Adverb(obj)

Della Counted It Three times

Sentence no.2= in the hall below was a letter-box too small to hold a letter.
Sentence

Subject predicate

Subject Verb Article Direct Obj adj pre art Indirect obj

In the hall was A Letter box Too small To hold a letter

below

Sentence n0.3= Her eyes were shining brightly, but her face had lost its color.
Sentence

Subject Predicate

Subject Verb Adjective conj subject H.V verb adverb

Her eyes were Shining But Her face Had lost Its
brightly color.

Sentence no. 4= "If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me,
he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl ( complex sentence)
Sentence

Subject Predicate

Subject H.V Verb obj subj V prep p.noun prep verb art obj

If jim Doesn kill me she said To Herself Befo takes a Secon

’t re he d look
prep obj P.N H.V V p.n v adj art object
 At me He will say i look Like a ConeyIsland chorus
girl

Sentence no. 5 If a king had lived in the same house, with all his riches, Jim would have looked at
his watch every time they met.
Sentence

Subject Predicate

Subject H.V Verb prep art Adj+obj prep p.N noun sub H.V

If a king had lived in the Same With all his riches jim Would
hours have
V Prep P.N V adv p.n v

looked at his watch Ever they met

y
time