Sentence
A sentence is a group of words that usually contains a subject and a predicate.
A sentence must make sense.
It expresses a complete idea or asks a question.
It begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop.
A sentence may be a word or short sentence used to express a strong feeling such as surprise, excitement or anger.
The subject is what the sentence is about.
The subject is a noun, pronoun or noun phrase
It usually comes before a main verb.
It represents the person or thing that performs the action of the verb (Example: She scolds him.), or about which something is stated (Example: Bees are insect.)
The predicate tells us something about the subject.
It consists of a verb, which may be one word or a verb phrase as indicated in the following table.
Subject
|
Predicate
| ||||
Noun
|
Verb
|
Noun
|
Pronoun
|
Adjective
|
Adverb
|
Jack
|
sleeps
| ||||
Jill
|
loves
|
him
| |||
Pronoun
| |||||
She
|
is crying
| ||||
They
|
play
|
football
| |||
Noun Phrase
| |||||
This lady
|
is
|
weak
| |||
That man
|
lives
|
here
| |||
Each sentence consists of one or more clauses.
A clause can be as short as one word (Example: Wait!) or a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate, and usually forms only part of a sentence.
Example: He could not lift the box because it was too heavy.
The first clause, “He could not lift the box” is clear in its meaning
and is called a Main Clause or Independent Clause. A main clause has a subject and a verb, and does not depend on the other clause to make a complete statement or question.
The second clause, “because it was too heavy” is incomplete in its meaning and is called a Subordinate clause. It too has a subject and verb but depends on the first clause preceding it to make sense. A Subordinate clause may also precede a Main clause.
A clause may also be inserted in the middle of another clause. Example: Orchids, which have air roots, are tropical flowers
The Main clause here is “Orchids are tropical flowers.”.
The Subordinate clause: “which have air roots”.
In a sentence, the subject agrees with its verb. A singular verb is used with a singular subject. A plural verb is used with a plural subject
Example: A dog barks / Dogs bark.
If two subjects are joined by “and”, the verb should be in the plural.
Example: My father and brother are going to Japan next month.
If two subjects are joined by “or” the verb agrees with the subject nearest to it..
Example: Either this book or those books are his.
Example: Either they or he is responsible.
A sentence must therefore have a main clause or more than one main clause.
