The Sentence

WHAT IS THE SENTENCE?

A sentence is a group of words which starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!). A sentence contains or implies a predicate and a subject.

Sentences contain clauses.

Simple sentences have one clause.

Compound sentences and complex sentences have two or more clauses.

Sentences can contain subjects and objects.

The subject in a sentence is generally the person or thing carrying out an action. The object in a sentence is involved in an action but does not carry it out, the object comes after the verb.

For example:            The boy climbed a tree.

If you want to say more about the subject (the boy) or the object (the tree), you can add an adjective.

For example:            The young boy climbed a tall tree.

If you want to say more about how he climbed the tree you can use an adverb.

For example:            The young boy quickly climbed a tall tree.

The sentence becomes more interesting as it gives the reader or listener more information.

Parts of a sentence	Description
Adjective	Describes things or people
Adverb	Alters the meaning of the verb slightly
Article	a, an - indefinite articles the - definite articles
Conjunction	Joins words or sentences together
Interjection	A short word showing emotion or feeling
Noun	Names things
Preposition	Relates one thing to another
Pronoun	used instead of a noun to avoid repetition
Proper noun (subject)	The actual names of people or places etc.
Verb	Action or doing word

TYPES OF SENTENCES

Simple Sentences

A simple sentence contains a single subject and predicate. It describes only one thing, idea or question, and has only one verb - it contains only an independent (main) clause.

Any independent clause can stand alone as a sentence. It has a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought.

For example:            Jill reads.

Even the addition of adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases to a simple sentence does not change it into a complex sentence.

For example:            The brown dog with the red collar always barks loudly.

Even if you join several nouns with a conjunction, or several verbs with a conjunction, it remains a simple sentence.

For example:            The dog barked and growled loudly.

Compound Sentences

Compound sentences are made up of two or more simple sentences combined using a conjunction such as and, or or but. They are made up of more than one independent clause joined together with a co-ordinating conjunction.

Every clause is like a sentence with a subject and a verb. A coordinating conjunction goes in the middle of the sentence, it is the word that joins the two clauses together, the most common are (and, or, but)

For example:

·         I walked to the shops, but my husband drove.

·         I might watch the film, or I might visit my friends.

·         My friend enjoyed the film, but she didn't like the actor.

Complex Sentences

Complex sentences describe more than one thing or idea and have more than one verb in them. They are made up of more than one clause, an independent clause (that can stand by itself) and a dependent (subordinate) clause (which cannot stand by itself).

For example:            "My mother likes dogs that don't bark."

Dependent clauses can be nominal, adverbial or adjectival.

THE ANATOMY OF A SENTENCE

The Verb

The verb is the fundamental part of the sentence. The rest of the sentence, with the exception of the subject, depends very much on the verb. It is important to have a good knowledge of the forms used after each verb (verb patterns), for example: to tell [someone] TO DO [something]

Verbs also show a state of being. Such verbs, called BE VERBS or LINKING VERBS, include words such as: am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being, became, seem, appear, and sometimes verbs of the senses like tastes, feels, looks, hears, and smells.

For example:

·         "Beer and wine are my favourite drinks." The verb "are" is a linking (be) verb.

Fortunately, there are only a limited number of different verb patterns. Verbs can descibe the action (something the subject actually does) or state (something that is true of the subject) of the subject.

For example:

ACTION: I play football twice a week.

STATE: I've got a car.

Some verbs can represent both actions and states, depending on the context.

For example work:

ACTION: David's working in the bank.

STATE: David works in a bank.

Finding the Verb

When you analyze a sentence, first identify the verb. The verb names and asserts the action or state of the sentence.

For example:

"Working at the computer all day made David's head ache."

The main verb of the sentence is "made", not working.

Verbs identify our activity or state.

For example:

eat, sleep, run, jump, study, think, digest, shout, walk ....

The Subject

The subject is the person or thing the sentence is 'about'. Often (but not always) it will be the first part of the sentence. The subject will usually be a noun phrase (a noun and the words, such as adjectives, that modify it) followed by a verb.

Finding the Subject

Once you determine the verb, ask a wh...? question of the verb. This will locate the subject(s).

For example:

David works hard.

Who "works hard"?=David does=the subject.

Beer and wine are my favourite drinks.

What "are my favourite drinks"? Beer and wine are=the subjects.

The subject(s) of a sentence will answer the questions, "who or what."

The Predicate

Once you have identified the subject, the remainder of the sentence tells us what the subject does or did. This part of the sentence is the predicate of the sentence.

The predicate always includes the verb and the words which come after the verb. For example:

Michael Schumaker drove the race car.

"Michael Schumaker" is the subject; "drove the race car" is the predicate.

Complement

A complement is used with verbs like be, seem, look etc. Complements give more information about the subject or, in some structures, about the object.

There are various definitions of 'complement', which range from the very general (anything in the predicate except the verb, including the direct object and adverbs) to the much more restrictive one used here.

A complement is the part of the sentence that gives you more information about the subject (a subject complement) or the object (an object complement) of the sentence.

The complement to be used, if any, is dependent on the verb used in the sentence. Subject complements normally follow certain verbs.

For example:

·         He is Spanish.

·         She became an engineer.

·         That man looks like John.

Object complements follow the direct object of the verb-

For example.

·         They painted the house red.

·         She called him an idiot!

·         I saw her standing there.

The complement often consists of an adjective or noun phrase, but can also be a participle phrase, as in the last example. It is often not very clear whether a phrase is a complement or an adverbial.


You can also check for more information http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/sentencetext.html