What role did the new communications medium—television—play in the initiation of public interest in the mafia and organized crime, generally?

the sentence does not violate the phrase structure second rule (introduced by noam chomsky) because noun phrases consist of a determiner such as a, the or every, and a noun. in the sentence, the noun phrase the cake includes a determiner (the) and a noun (cake).

on the other hand, the first rule indicates that a sentence encloses a noun phrase, followed by a verb phrase. the example sentence can be analysed as follows:

john (n) + ate (v) + the (det) + cake (n).

honestly you should not write it the word placement is not right and this does not sound right so i think you should write it this way. the life lessons i refused to learn, taught me the hard way this sounds way better you should try it! hope this is very !