Every sentence in English (except interjections) has a subject and a verb. The subject is either a noun or a pronoun. The verb is either an action verb or a helping verb.
There are several basic sentence patterns in English.
Basic Sentences
| Subject | Predicate |
|---|---|
| Noun/Pronoun | Verb |
| Carol | swims. |
| They | are laughing. |
| Subject | Predicate | |
|---|---|---|
| Noun/Pronoun | Verb | Noun/Pronoun |
| Their teacher | is | a book. |
| ice cream. | ||
| Noun/Pronoun | Verb | Adjective |
| Mary | is | smart. |
| He | is | quite tall. |
| Noun/Pronoun | Verb | Prepositional Phrase |
| James | studied | for the GRE test. |
| The dog | waited | for its owner yesterday. |
| Noun/Pronoun | Verb | Adverb |
| Melissa | swims | daily |
| We | are walking | slowly. |
All other sentences in English can be longer if the writer wants to add more information to a sentence or combine short sentence patterns using a conjunction (and, but) into one long sentence.
For example: Carol is smart, likes ice cream, and likes to swim every day at Gallaudet.
Contact
- Grammar and Vocabulary
- Hall Memorial Building | W212
- click to show email
- 202-448-7067
- 202-250-2043
