Sentence Types

Although various principles can be used to group sentences in different ways, all sentences share one common structural feature: they all include at least one subject-predicate pairing.  Such a pairing is called a clause.  Analysis at the level of sentence complexity reveals that some sentences may have more than one such pairing, but no complete sentence is without any pairing of this type.  Any group of words that has something that could be a subject but lacks a corresponding predicate (e.g., the President of the United States) is not a clause, and any group of words that contains a verb form but lacks full conjugation (e.g., walking the dog) or lacks a concomitant subject is not a clause (e.g., is walking the dog).  Only when a subject is paired with a predicate do we have a complete clause (e.g., The President of the United States is walking the dog.).  Every sentence must have at least one clause in it.

Activity 3.2: The Essential Feature of all Sentences

Find the subjects and predicates in the following sentences:

Exercise 5: Click on each word to rotate between red, blue and the original black colors. Turn all the words in the subject blue and all the words in the predicate red. Click on the Check button to check your answer. If frustrated, the Solution button will give the correct answers.

Notice from the sentences above that the default location for a subject in an English sentence is to the left of the predicate.  Variations on this order exist, but the general rule is that the subject will be left of the predicate.

Activity 3.3: Action or Linking

Identify the verbs in these sentences as either action verbs or linking verbs.

Exercise 6: Click to turn the verb in each sentence blue. Type in whether it is an action or linking verb. Click on the check button to check answer. After 3 tries, a Solution button will appear. Click and hold for solution, then let up the mouse button to reset the sentence and try again.

Certain verbs are linking verbs, and other verbs are action verbs.  Linking verbs essentially describe a state of being or possibly a change of state.  Common linking verbs in English include: 1) Be, 2) Become, 3) Sound, 4) Seem, 5) Appear, 6) Look, 7) Smell, 8) Smell, 9) Feel.  There are others, so it is more helpful to have a strategy to use to figure it out rather than simply memorize a list.  Also, the strategy is useful because in some of these verbs can be a linking verb in one sentence, but an action verb in others.  To test for a linking verb, see if the verb actually is a form of BE or can be replaced by BE and maintain grammaticality and essentially the same meaning.  If so, then the verb is a linking verb.

Activity 3.4: What types of Linking verb complements exist?

All the following sentences contain linking verbs.  Identify the complements as either predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives, prepositional phrases, or adverb phrases.

Exercise 7: Click on words to turn the predicate complement in each sentence blue. Click on the check button to check your selection. Release to reset the sentence and try again. If you err three times, hold the check button for correct answer.

After finding each complement correctly, drag the sentence to the appropriate box on the right.

Linking verbs have certain sentence patterns that are allowed for what comes after them in the predicate.  All the four possibilities can be grouped together and referred to as subject complements because they always refer back to and say something about the state of the subject, whether they rename the subject, describe in some way, or tell its location.

Linking verbs have four different sentence patterns that are allowed to complete the sentence.  The four possibilities can all be grouped together and referred to as subject complements because they always refer back to and say something about the state of the subject, whether they rename the subject, describe it in some way, or tell something about its location or time.  Each one of the patterns can be given its own name, as well, and you may remember some of these terms from earlier training you’ve had in grammar.  A predicate nominative is a single noun or a noun with modifiers that completes a linking verb sentence.  A predicate adjective is a single adjective or an adjective with modifiers that completes the sentence.  A prepositional phrase is a group of words beginning with a preposition.  An adverb phrase is a single adverb or an adverb with modifiers.

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