Grammar Question

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"  (attributed to Albert Einstein)

In my paraphrastic grammar of English, the solution would be given by restating the various propositions of Einstein's question as a series of six separate assertions with one question.  Each of the seven paraphrastic sentences share some parts that function differently in context.  

1. We were doing something (a). 
2. This thing (a) was something (b). 
3. We may know this thing (b) in some case (c). 
4. This thing (b) may be called research. 
5. This thing (b) may not be called research. 
6. This case (c) would be (4) or (5).  
7. Would this thing (a) be called research in this case (6)? 

The first thing (a) is the direct object of the progressive subjunctive "were doing" in (1), the subject of the conditional "was" in (2) and of the passive interrogative "be called" in (6).  The second thing (b) is the predicate complement of the conditional "was" in (2), the direct object of the conditional "knew" in (3), and the subject of the interrogative "would be called research" in (7).  The case (c) is noun head of a conditional limiting adverb prepositional phrase in (3) and (7) and the noun subject of the tag question in (6). 

Here I have tried to be as explicit as I could manage.  Some ideas for such explanations of sentences in English are outlined on my website (bdespain.org) under "Linguistics" in my work on a paraphrastic grammar.  There is also work on a "dendrology" (tree-diagraming) of English. There my trees are compared to Reed-Kellogg diagrams. 

Bruce D. Despain