Saturday, January 17, 2009

Lesson 51: The Basic Sentence Structure

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Let's take a look at the elements that make up simple sentences and then at how simple sentences can be used to produce compound and complex sentences.


Words can be combined into groupings or phrases. Words and phrases can be further combined to make clauses.

We will first consider simple sentences, those with only a single independent clause made up of a subject and a predicate.





The subject and the predicate may each be a single word or a group of words. Simple sentences are composed of some combinations of these basic elements:

  • Subject (S)
  • Verb (V)
  • Direct Object (DO)
  • Indirect Object (IO)
  • Subject Complement (SC)
  • Object Complement (OC)
  • Adverbial modifier (A)

Review:
  • Subject - it is the one being talked about in the sentence.
  • Verb - a word that tells about action or existence, or links words in the sentence
  • Direct Object - the receiver of an action or idea being said in the sentence.
  • Indirect Object - the receiver of an action or idea after being received by the direct object.
  • Subject Complement - either phrases or clauses that modify or further explains the subject.
  • Object Complement - either phrases or clauses that modify or further explains the predicate or the object to which the subject is being connected.
  • Adverbial Modifier - either phrases or clauses that modify or further explains the adverb or adverb clause that is being used in the sentence.
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The basic elements listed above can be put together into various ways to produce seven general types of simple sentence.




*English sentences usually follow these patterns. In the succeeding lessons, you'll learn to make expansions and modifications to these patterns.




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~end of lesson~

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