Basic English Sentence Structures

7/27/2019 Basic English Sentence Structures

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neither ... nor, either ... or.

Examples: and, but, or

INTERJECTION- is used for exclamations.Examples: Oh!, Aha!

NOUN- names an object or action. Common nouns refer to ordinary things.Propernouns are usually capitalized and refer to persons, specific things or specific places.

Examples: mouse, fire, Michael

PREPOSITION- indicates relationship or relative position of objects.Examples: in, about, toward

PRONOUN- is used in place of a noun.Personal pronouns are used to refer topersons.Interrogative pronouns introduce questions.Demonstrative pronouns refer to

a previously mentioned object or objects.Relative pronouns introduce clauses.

Examples: he, this

VERB- specifies an action or links the subject to a complement. The tense of a verbindicates the time when the action happened, e.g., past, present, of future.

Examples: take, is, go, fire

CONTINUED: Declarative Sentences

Basic English Sentence Structures

Declarative Sentences

Declarative Sentences are used to form statements. Declarative sentences consist of asubject

and apredicate.The subject may be a simple subject or a compound subject. A simple subjectconsists of anounphrase or anominative personal pronoun. Compound subjects are formed
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by combining several simple subjects withconjunctions. All the sentences in this paragraph

are declarative sentences.

=

Learn to construct Declarative Sentences:

Click Here for the Declarative Sentence Syntax

Interactive Worksheet.

Examples:

My name is Mary.

= "My name"

= "is Mary"

Declarative Sentences are used to form statements.

= "Declarative Sentences"

= "are used to form statements"

Example of a Declarative Sentence

CONTINUED: The Subject of a Sentence


The Subject

The subject is the part of the sentence that performs an action or which is associated with theaction.
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= |

= |

Thenominative personal pronounsare: I, you, he, she, it, we, they. The pronoun "you" isused to refer to one (singular) or many persons (plural). "He", "she", and "it" are used to refer

to masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns, respectively. English nouns do not have a

grammatical gender, but singular nouns that represent masculine subjects (king, boy) are

referenced with the masculine pronoun "he". Nouns representing feminine subjects (queen,

lady) are referenced with the pronoun "she". Inanimate objects in singular form (table, chair)

are referenced with the pronoun "it".

NounsIn any of the descriptions of the subject where anouncan be used, the may be

substituted by a noun followed by any number of prepositional phrases:

= [*]

In this way we can generate noun phrases such as "Tarzan of the jungle", "the difficult

chapter in the book", etc. These constructions might be said to consist of a "noun phrase" and

a "prepositional phrase" in a traditional grammar. Similarly, we may substitute the following

for any occurrence of :

= ("and" | "or")

This enables the formal description to generate noun phrases with adjectives joined byconjunctions, such as "a very beautiful and intelligent lady". Prepositional phrases consist of

aprepositionfollowed by an object. Objects are defined under complements.

=

Noun PhrasesA "noun phrase" is generally defined as a syntactic unit that includes a noun. The formal

definition of a noun phrase given below describes the most common components of a noun

phrase.

=

"the" |

|

|

[* ] |

[* ] |

[* ] |

[* ] |

[* ]
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Note: Thearticles"a" and "an" require a singular noun.

Examples:

the Atlantic Ocean

the Sahara

John

America

Dr. Allen

State Street

someone

anyone

this

[* ]

a very long bridge

the book

the extremely pretty dress

[* ]

very yellow flowers

books

[* ]

John's very long sentence

Mary's shoes

[* ]

his book

my very long hair

[* ]

a dog's tail

the book's very difficult style

Compound SubjectsCompound subjects consist of simple subjects joined by conjunctions.

=

("and" | "or") |
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"Either" "or" |

"Neither" "nor"

Examples:

("and" | "or")

Someone and I

Tarzan of the jungle and Dr. Allen

"Either" "or"

Either John or Dr. Allen

Either the lion or my small dog

"neither" "nor"

Neither John nor I

CONTINUED: The Predicate of a Sentence


The Predicate

The predicate is the part of the sentence that contains a verb or verb phrase and its

complements.

= ( | )

English has three main kinds of verbs:auxiliary verbs,linking verbs,andaction verbs.The

verb"to be"is the most frequently used verb in English. Learn to use it correctly! Sometimes

the verb "to be" is categorized as an auxiliary verb. The following list of auxiliary verbsexcludes "be", "do", and "ought" because they have very different usage from other auxiliary

verbs.

= "must" | "may" |"might" |

"will" |"would" |"shall" |

"should" |"can" |"could"

The formal description ofverbsuses verb forms starting with a "V" followed by an

abbreviation with a number and a letter to represent the person and number. For example,

"V1s" means Verb 1st person, singular. The abbreviations "Vinf", "Vpast", "Ving", "Vpastp",
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refer to the infinitive, past tense, present participle, and past participle forms of the verb,

respectively.

Verb ConjugationAction verbs constitute the majority of English verbs. The following table illustrates regular

verb conjugation and the corresponding verb forms:

Infinitive (Vinf): start

Present Participle (Ving): starting

Past participle (Vpastp): started

Person,Number Present Past(Vpast)

1st,singular I (V1s) start started

2nd,singular you (V2s) start started

3rd,singular he/she/it (V3s) starts started

1st,plural we (V1p) start started

2nd,plural you (V2p) start started

3rd,plural they (V3p) start started

Click here to conjugate over 7,400 regular and irregular English verbs.

= | | |

| | |

|

= "am" |"are" |"is" | "was"| "were" |

"look" | "looks" | "looked" |

"become" | "became" | "become" | ...

=

("had" |"have" |"has") ["not"] |

("had" |"have" |"has") ["not"] "been" [ | ] |

["not"] "have" | ["not"] "have" "been" [ | ] |
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["not"] "be" [ | ] |

["not"] |

"ought" ("to" | "not") |

"ought" ("to" | "not") "be" [ | ] |

"ought" ("to" | "not") "have" |

"ought" ("to" | "not") "have" "been" [ | ] |

("do" |"does" |"did") ["not"] [] |

("am" |"are" |"is" |"was" |"were") ["not"] [ | ] |

("am" |"are" |"is" |"was" |"were") ["not"] "being" [] |

("am" |"are" |"is" |"was" |"were") ["not"] "going" "to" []

Verb Phrase Examples:

("had" |"have" |"has") ["not"]

has gone, had finished, had not finished

("had" |"have" |"has") ["not"] "been" [ | ]

had been studying, has been gone, have not been studying

["not"] "have"

would have gone, might have studied, would not have gone

["not"] "have" "been" [ | ]

will have been gone, should have been studying, should not have been drinking

["not"] "be" [ | ]

will be gone, must be studied, will not be done

["not"]

will go, must study, will not eat

"ought" ("to" | "not")

ought to study, ought not drink

"ought" ("to" | "not") "have" "been" [ | ]

ought to have been studying, ought not have been drinking

("do" |"does" |"did") ["not"] []

do, did study, does swim, did not eat

("am" |"are" |"is" |"was" |"were") ["not"] [ | ]

are, is gone, were swimming, was not eating

("am" |"are" |"is" |"was" |"were") ["not"] "being" []

are being, was being punished, is not being used


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("am" |"are" |"is" |"was" |"were") ["not"] "going" "to" []

am going to travel, is going to study, was not going to go

Negative Contractions

can + not cannot or can't

will + not won't

shall + not shan't

should + not shouldn't

have, has, had + not haven't, hasn't, hadn't

do, does + not don't, doesn't

Verb Tense

Verb tenses are inflectional forms of verbs or verb phrases that are used to express timedistinctions. The following table defines the structure of some common verb tenses. The

grammatical term "perfect" expresses an action or state completed at the time of speaking orat a time spoken of. "continuous" or "progressive" indicates an on-going action.

Simple Present Simple Past Simple Future

|||

||

John studies everyday.

They study everyday.

Mary studied yesterday.

"will"

("am"|"are"|"is") "going" "to"

John will help you tomorrow.

Mary is going to help you tomorrow.

Present Continuous

(Present progressive)

Past Continuous

(Past progressive)

Future Continuous

(Future progressive)

("am"|"are"|"is")

John is studying now.

("was"|"were")

John was studying

yesterday.

"will" "be"

("am"|"are"|"is") "going" "to" "be"

Mary will be studying tomorrow.

Mary is going to be studying tomorrow.

Present PerfectPast Perfect

(Pluperfect)Future Perfect

("have"|"has") "had" "will" "have"


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John has studied for three

years.

She had studied English

before coming here.

By December, she will have studied for three

years.

Present Perfect

Continuous

(Present perfect

progressive)

Past Perfect Continuous(Past perfect progressive)

(pluperfect progressive)

Future Perfect Continuous

(Future perfect progressive)

("have"|"has") "been"

She has been studying for

three years.

"had" "been"

Mary had been studying

for three days when she

got sick.

"will" "have" "been"

By midnight, John will have been studying

for over three hours.

Adverbial Particles

Some verbs acquire a different meaning when they are followed by "adverbial particles". Themost common adverbial particles are:

about, across, along, around, behind, by, down, forward, in, off, on, out, over, through, up

Adverbial particles are prepositions that are considered part of the verb. The expression

"get up", for instance, means to "rise". It is not a request to "obtain" anything. Many of the

verbs associated with adverbial particles are separable. One or more words may appearbetween the verb and the particle.

Examples:

"I will wake up early tomorrow."

"I will wake him up early tomorrow."

"He could not get his hands up."

In traditional grammars, verbs that may be separated from their particles by a noun or

pronoun are called "phrasal verbs". The word "up" in the example above is considered an

adverb, rather than a preposition. Verbs for which the particle must remain by the verb arecalled "prepositional verbs". The adverbial particles of prepositional verbs may be interpreted

either as adverbs or as prepositions that start a prepositional phrase.

Complements of Verbs

Thepredicateconsists of a verb or verb phrase and its complements, if any. A verb that

requires no complements is called intransitive. A verb that requires one or two complements

is called transitive. A verb may belong to both categories. We may generate the complete

sentence "I walk." with no complements. We may also generate "I walk home.", where"home" is a complement of the verb. Further, "I walk my dog home." has two complements:
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"my dog" and "home". In traditional grammars, these complements are called the "indirect

object" (my dog) and the "direct object" (home). In this formal description they are called the

and . The complement of a verb or verb phrase is described as

being optional and consisting not only of objects, but of adjectives, prepositional phrases, etc.

This is the formal description:

=

[[] ] |

[* ] |

[*] |

["to" []] |

[]

The * option is for linking verbs or linking verb phrases. The

* option is for intransitive or linking verbs. The format of an is

the same as an :

= =

|

Notice thatobjective personal pronounsare used in objects.

= |

=

("and" | "or")

Examples of Sentences with Complements:

[]

I spent the money.

John gave me the little book.

*

Mary became very angry.

*

John slept until 10:00 AM on Thursday.

"to" []

John went to pay the rent.

I want to drink water.
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John went shopping.

CONTINUED: Verbal Phrases


Verbal Phrases

English sentences have generally only one verb, but they may have several verbal phrases.Verbal phrases are constructed from the infinitive, present participle, or past participle and

their corresponding complements:

["to" []]

[ []]

[ []]

Infinitive and present participle verbal phrases may take the place of nouns. Present participlephrases used as nouns are also calledgerund phrases. Infinitive verbal phrases are also used

as adverbs. Present participle and past participle verbal phrases may act like adjectives. In

this case, they are also calledparticipial phrases. Verbal phrases that are not essential to the

meaning of the sentence are separated by commas.

Examples:

John agreed to run for president.

To write was his ambition.

The man stopped to rest.

Reading books in the train gives me a headache.

Buildings constructed during the depression are substandard.

Students drinking on campus will be expelled.

Trembling with excitement, Mary waited for her friend.

The house, remodeled recently, is very attractive.
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CONTINUED: Interrogative Sentences


Interrogative Sentences

Interrogative sentences are used to form questions. One form of an interrogative sentence is a

declarative sentencefollowed by a question mark. In verbal communication, the final syllableof the last word of a question is pronounced with a rising pitch or intonation.

Place the cursor over the pictures to hear the difference in intonation of a statement and a

question.

=

"?"

Examples:

The computer is not working?

An actor became governor?
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"Who" "?"

Where theverbof the predicate is in 3rd person form.

Examples:

Who fixed the computer?

Who wants to drink water?

("What" |"Which") [* ]

"?"

Examples:

Which flower is the prettiest?

What bridge goes to Manhattan?

["What" |"When" |"Where" |"Who" |"To whom" |"Why"]

("do" |"does" |"don't" |"doesn't" |"did" |"didn't")

"?"

The verb of the predicate must be infinitive (Vinf).

Examples:

Where does John live?

Does John go to Manhattan?

"Which" []

("do" |"does" |"don't" |"doesn't" |"did" |"didn't")

"?"

The verb of the predicate must be infinitive (Vinf).

Examples:
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[* | * | ]"?"

Verb in the predicate must be present participle or past participle

Examples:

Why is Mary cooking noodles?

Which are the best?

Are small airplanes safe?

Was John at Mary's party?

CONTINUED: Imperative Sentences

Imperative Sentences

The word "imperative" is derived from the term "emperor". Emperors gave commands, and

imperative sentences are commands. Imperative sentences consist ofpredicatesthat only

containverbsin infinitive form;verb phrasesare not allowed. Imperative sentences are

generally terminated with an exclamation mark instead of a period.

= =

Examples:Spend the money!

Go to your room!

Look in the drawer of the dresser.

Emperor Napoleon

using an Imperative Sentence
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CONTINUED: Conditional Sentences


Conditional Sentences

Conditional sentences are used to describe the consequences of a specific action, or thedependency between events or conditions. Conditional sentences consist of an independent

clause and a dependent clause.

= ("if" | "when")

= |

=

"," |

Note: When the Independent Clause consists of an Interrogative Sentence, the question mark

is placed at the end of the conditional sentence.

Examples:

If the sun is too hot, you will get burned.

You will get burned when the sun is too hot.

If the sun is shining, is Mary happy?

Is Mary happy when the sun is shining?

Mary is happy if the sun is shining.

In the following example, the dependent clause contains a compound sentence:

Example:If the sun is too hot and you don't have an umbrella, you will get burned.
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CONTINUED: Glossary of English Grammatical Terms
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Basic English Sentence Structures

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