WRITING SENTENCE

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.