THE SIMPLE SENTENCE

Parts of speech
Sentence analysis
SENTENCE
Largest unit of grammar, usually containing a subject, a verb, an object, etc. and
expressing statements, questions, or commands.
Language units: sense of completeness, notional ( notion or idea- expresses a complete
thought),
Form: in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end
punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress,
pitch, and pauses.
Types
Regular: conform the structural patterns, e.g. SVO
Irregular: does not conform the pattern, it leaves words out but meaning is clear.
Eg. David and Helen have three children. Regular SVO
Where did you put the book?
On the table. Irregular
Prep. phrase
Non sentences: ungrammatical/ non grammatical, they cannot be
analyzed (labels, titles, newspaper headings)
Eg. Non smoking here.
Traffic chaos
Pure lemon juice

Simple sentence: a sentence that has only one clause
My sister is a cheerful person.
Multiple sentence: contains two or more clauses.
Compound coordinated, they are equally important
Complex subordinate, they are dependent
My sister is a cheerful person but she seems rather unhappy today.
The man who is standing over there is my father.
Clause: a group of words, consisting of a subject and a predicate including a
finite verb, that constitutes a sentence o part of a sentence.
Phrase: a group of words forming an immediate syntactic constituent of a clause
(embedded within a larger unit)
They have a main element called Head, and other elements (determiners,
complements, modifiers, specifiers, etc. The head determines the kind of phrase.

Types of phrases:
noun phrases, eg. That poor boy
verb phrases,
adverbial phrase,
adjective phrase,
prepositional phrase

Subject: word or group of words naming who or what does or undergoes the
action stated by the
Predicate: the part of a sentence that expresses what is said about the subject
verb, it can be a noun, a noun phrase, or pronoun.
Noun a word that is the name of something (such as a person, animal, place, thing,
quality, idea, or action) and is typically used in a sentence as subject or object of a
verb
Pronoun a word (such as I, he, she, you, it, we, or they ) that is used instead of a noun or
noun phrase
Adjective a word indicating a characteristic to a noun or pronoun
Determiner a word, such as a number, article, possessive adjective, etc, that
determines (limits) the meaning of a noun phrase, e.g. their in `their black cat
determine definiteness (the , a) , quantity (some, many) , number (two) or possession
(my, his) . Many very familiar words are determiners: each; every; no; some; most; all;
both; many; few; several...
Article a kind of determiner that lacks independent meaning but may serve to indicate
the specificity of reference of the noun phrase with which it occurs,
definite article, indefinite article
Adverb a word or group of words that serves to modify a whole sentence, a verb,
another adverb, or an adjective;
They could easily envy the very happily married couple
Conjunction any word or group of words, other than a relative pronoun, that connects
words, phrases, or clauses;
Preposition a word or group of words used before a noun or pronoun to show place,
time, method.
Interjection a word or remark expressing emotion; exclamation
VERB
Verb indicate the occurrence or performance of an action, the existence of a
state or condition

Types
Lexical Verb
Modal verb expressing a distinction of mood, such as that between possibility
and actuality. The modal auxiliaries in English include can, could, may, must,
need, ought, shall, should, will, and would
Auxiliary verb a verb used to indicate the tense, voice, mood, etc, of
another verb where this is not indicated by inflection, such as English
will in he will go,
was in he was eating he was eaten
do in I do like you

Tense a category of the verb or verbal inflections, such as present, past, and
future, that expresses the temporal relations between what is reported in a
sentence and the time of its utterance
Verb

Finite verbs It shows tense (past / present etc) or number (singular / plural)
Non finite verbs no subject, tense or number. forms are the infinitive, the gerund or the
participle.
He smokes. To smoke like that must be dangerous.


Aspect Completeness of an action, progressive or perfective
The Republicans have won the election.
Shes writing some short stories.

Mood a category of the verb or verbal inflections that expresses semantic and
grammatical differences, including such forms as the indicative, subjunctive, and
imperative
If I were rich, I would travel round the world.