What makes up sentences

Adjectives modify nouns, while adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Like adjectives and adverbs, prepositional phrases add meaning to the nouns and verbs in sentences. A prepositional phrase has two basic parts: a preposition plus a noun or a pronoun that serves as the object of the preposition. There are four basic sentence structures in English:. A common way to connect related words, phrases, and even entire clauses is to coordinate them — that is, connect them with a basic coordinating conjunction such as "and" or "but.

To show that one idea in a sentence is more important than another, we rely on subordination, treating one word group as secondary or subordinate to another.

One common form of subordination is the adjective clause, a word group that modifies a noun. The most common adjective clauses begin with one of these relative pronouns: who , which , and that. An appositive is a word or group of words that identifies or renames another word in a sentence — most often a noun that immediately precedes it. Appositive constructions offer concise ways of describing or defining a person, place, or thing. Like an adjective clause, an adverb clause is always dependent on or subordinate to an independent clause.

Like an ordinary adverb, an adverb clause usually modifies a verb, though it can also modify an adjective, adverb, or even the rest of the sentence in which it appears. An adverb clause begins with a subordinating conjunction, an adverb that connects the subordinate clause to the main clause.

A participle is a verb form used as an adjective to modify nouns and pronouns. All present participles end in -ing. The past participles of all regular verbs end in -ed. Irregular verbs, however, have various past participle endings.

In addition, there are other elements, contained within the subject or predicate, that add meaning or detail. These elements include the direct object, indirect object, and subject complement. The direct object receives the action of the sentence. The direct object is usually a noun or pronoun. The indirect object indicates to whom or for whom the action of the sentence is being done.

The indirect object is usually a noun or pronoun. Note the auxiliary verb was. The complete predicate is was jumping on the trampoline. The various forms of the verb to be is, am, are, was, were, etc. Remember that verbs indicate an action or state of being. I am tired today. Am is the predicate verb.

Wes and Bill are home today. Are is the predicate verb. John and Neil were at the hardware store yesterday. Were is the predicate verb. Note: If you have problems with sentence fragments or run-on sentences, first identify the predicate verb, then identify the subject that belongs to the verb. For example, in the first sentence above, who or what is jumping? There is no one doing the action, so jumping is not the predicate verb.

On the other hand, who or what is fun? The answer is jumping , so the predicate verb is is. Words such as nouns, pronouns, and adjectives that are used to complete the verb they are placed after the verb are called complements.

A phrase is a group of related words that is not a complete thought. Therefore, unlike a clause or a sentence, it does not have a verb.

Unlike a phrase, a clause does have a verb. If it is an independent clause, it can function as a complete sentence; it is a dependent clause, then it must be part of a complex sentence. That he should have declined your offer puzzles me. The noun clause serves as the subject of the sentence. He described how he had escaped. The noun clause serves as the object of the verb. She talked about whether or not she should change her will. The noun clause is object of the preposition about.

The decision that the company should down-size was made months before a formal announcement was made. The noun phrase is in apposition within the noun decision. The girl who sits next to me in class is from Goa. The clause modifies the preceding noun, girl. The clause modifies the preceding noun, books. The woman whose car was stolen happens to be the Chief of Police.

The clause modifies the preceding noun, woman. Note: In essential clauses, the pronoun can be omitted when referring to the object:. The man I spoke to had a soft voice. Can you tell me where he has gone? From whence she came , no one knows. As he had an hour to kill , he decided to clean out his fridge. She was such a pleasant work-mate that everyone was sorry when she left.

If I had known then what I know now , how differently things would have turned out. Supposing you had been caught , what then? Although they disagreed about most things , they were the best of friends. The child does as she likes , and no one ever says a word about it. She spoke as though she had prunes in her mouth.

Her sixteen-year-old son, however, is shorter than Midge. The verb is , after Midge, is omitted, but understood. What is a Paragraph? Word order is very important in English. For this reason, it is essential to recognize and use the various sentence parts that make up the pattern of English sentences. These sentence parts occur in several basic formats; these basic formats can be used to develop more complex sentences.

With practice, these formats are manipulated to provide the complexity of English. Basic Sentence Patterns The five patterns illustrated below provide the basis for all other sentence structures: that is, other kinds of sentences are transformations of these basic patterns.

Subject Verb Birds fly. The sun set. Mildred laughed. Subject Verb Direct Object The child ate her vegetables.

I prefer tea. The police arrested him. Jack mended the fence. The sun made me sleepy. The club elected Gena president. He told them the truth. The army awarded her a medal. Peter gave the dog a bone. She has written a letter to the company.

A verb is a word that usually indicates some type of action. There are two basic types of verbs in English: action verbs and linking verbs. An action verb represents something the subject of a sentence does, whereas a linking verb connects the subject to a specific state of being. In other words, a linking verb describes a subject instead of expressing an action.

Linking verbs are also known at state of being verbs , and the most common one in English is the verb to be. An object usually appears after the verb. There are two types of objects in the English language: direct and indirect.