Sentences - Part 1, Simple Sentences

In today's blog we are going to look at some of the rules around sentence structures. In this post we will look at simple sentences and some of the problems we might have with sentence structures when we writing in English.

So first of all, what is a sentence?

A sentence is a group of words (independent clause) that:

• Contains at least one subject and one verb.
• Expresses a complete though.

There are four kinds of sentences in English:

• Simple sentences
• Compound sentences
• Complex sentences
• Compound-complex sentences

In this post we are going to look at Simple Sentences

A simple sentence has one subject/verb pair. The subject tells who or what did something. The verb tells the action (jump, work, think) or condition (is, was, seem, appear). Some simple sentences may have an object also. The object is the receiver of the verb by the subject. However, not all sentences have an object, e.g. I travel a lot.

In order for a sentence to be  grammatically correct, the sentence must have a subject/verb agreement. Look at these examples:

A simple sentence can have one of several possible 'formulas'. Here are four possibilities:

Notice that the subject in a simple sentence may have two or more items (sentences 2 and 4). The verb may have two or more items (sentences 3 and 4). 

Subject/Verb Agreement

You already know that the subject and verbs agree in number:

So here are some common errors with subject/verb agreement:

1. When a sentence begins with the word there + verb be, the subject follows the be verb. For example, 

2. A prepositional phrase (a group of words beginning with a preposition such as of, with, in, at or on, and ending with a noun or pronoun) can come between a subject and its verb. Prepositional phrases may come after a subject, but they are not part of the subject.

3. Some words are always singular:

4. A few words are always plural:

5. A few words can be either singular or plural. In these cases, you must refer to the noun in the prepositional phrase:

Fragmented Sentences

In some languages , you can sometimes leave out the subject in a sentence; in others, you can sometimes leave out the verb.

In English, you must ALWAYS have at least one subject and one verb in every sentence. If you leave either the subject or the verb, your sentence is incomplete. We call an incomplete sentence a fragment, or fragment sentence.

These are fragments. Fragments are sentence errors.

Reference: Oshima, A and Hogue A, Introduction to Academic Writing, 3rd Ed., Pearson Longman

So now we have reviewed Simple Sentences. Check out our next blog post in our sentences series - Part 1, Compound Sentences