On the basis of the grammatical theory developed by Noam Chomsky, it is reasonable to presume that the different parts of a sentence may not all be understood with equal facility and speed. One purpose of this study was to determine whether some of the grammatical relations within a sentence were understood more readily than others. Sentences of varying grammatical form were presented to 26 subjects who were asked to verify them one at a time by comparing the content of each sentence with the content of a picture that was shown contiguously following the sentence. Speed of verification was taken as an index of understanding. The four independent variables (true-false, affirmative-negative, active-passive, subject-verb-object) were combined in a 2 X 2 X 2 X 3 X 26 (subjects) factorial design. The results showed that the subject-verb and verb-object relationship was not significant at the .05 level of significance. Two-way interactions were found to be significant, namely subject-verb-object X affirmative-negative and subject-verb-object X active-passive. The subject-verb-object variable was found to be significant in part; specifically, in the case of affirmative and passive sentences, but not in the case of negative and active sentences. (Author/DO)