What is a Sentence?

What is a Sentence?

A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete idea.

It always contains a verb.

A sentence almost always contains a noun or a pronoun. (The exceptions are “imperative” sentences, but we’ll hear more about them soon).

It technical terms a sentence contains a “subject” (the noun or pronoun) and a “predicate” (everything else).

A written sentence starts with a capital letter.

It ends with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark.

Here are some examples of simple sentences:

• He ran.
• The girl won a prize.
• They are watching TV.
• Is it time for school?
• Eat your breakfast!

There are four sentence forms:

Declaration (or Statement). It tells us something:

• Today is Thursday.

Question (or Interrogative). It asks us something:

• Did you see the film?

Command (or Imperative). It tells us to do something:

• Sit down!

Here there is no noun to act as a subject. But the subject is “understood” or “implied” – (You) sit down!

Exclamation (or Exclamatory). It expresses surprise or a strong opinion:

• You hurt me!

So far we have looked at “simple” sentences. They contain just one main clause. When a sentence has two main clauses we call it a “compound” sentence:

• I was tired so I went to bed.
• Are you coming with me or are you staying at home?
• Mum wanted me to do my homework but I wanted to go out.

Notice that we use particular words to join the main clauses together. We call these “connectives”. Connectives include: so, but, and, or, yet and however.

When a sentence has one main clause and one or more minor (or “subordinate” clause), we say it is a “complex” sentence. In the following examples, the main clause is in bold and the subordinate clause is in italics:

• You should work harder if you want to earn more money.
• He was late because his train was delayed.
• When I visited him, he was looking much better.

See here for more about main and subordinate clauses.

 See here for a basic introduction to sentences, clauses and phrases.

_{Posted by Graham}