Sentences are more functional than object-oriented, assuming you break them down more or less like the following...

The brown cow is in the meadow across the deep river.

So we need to find the head phrases and the rest:

The cow (brown)
the meadow (across)
the river (deep)

In one go:

The cow ((the meadow (the river (deep)) (across)) brown)

Sentences are more functional than object-oriented, assuming you break them down more or less like the following...

The brown cow is in the meadow across the deep river.

So we need to find the head phrases and then the rest:

The cow (brown)
the meadow (across)
the river (deep)

In one go:

sentence: The cow ((the meadow (the river (deep)) (across)) brown)

Parse tree:

|                     sentence
|                      /         
|                  The cow
|                 /       \
|            the meadow   brown
|            /         \
|      the river      across
|              \
|              deep

Parsimony infects functional thinking;

Hats off to Gottlieb Frege 1890s, Alan Turing (entschiedungsprobleme) 1930s, Noam Chomsky (1960s).