SENTENCE PATTERN

What is a Sentence? There are a lot of problems involved in defining a sentence.

A large proportion of such sentence problems have to do with the relationship between The Subject & The Verb

Hence it is important to identify the subject and verb and to understand a number of key factors about them. Types of Sentences: 1. Statements:
Ex: Mr.Gopal is leaving the company next month.

Five elements of a sentence are:

1. Subject 2. Verb 3. Object 4. Complement

2. Questions:
Ex: Why is Mr. Gopal leaving the company next month?

3. Directives (Commands & Requests) 5. Adverbial

Ex: Clear your desk before leaving.

4. Exclamations:
Ex: What a beautiful car it is!

THE SUBJECT

Position:

In statements The Subject normally occurs before The Verb.

Meaning: It often (but not always) gives information on what the sentence
will Ex: be about, or where its focus will be. 1. Success motivates many managers. Subject Verb 2. Many of my friends Subject are unhappy in their work Verb

Exception But always there are exceptions to almost every rule. Hence The Subject need not necessarily always tell what the sentence is all about or what its focus will be. Ex: It is always easy to spot a successful product. Here the subject It doesnt give complete details. The Subject of a sentence may be : A Noun or A Noun Phrase or A Pronoun.

1. Noun:
People Noun/Subject are strange

2.Noun Phrase: The people in our department will miss Mr.Gopal.

Subject / Noun Phrase

3. Pronoun : They
Subject / Pronoun say the most interesting stories Ive ever heard.

Warning:
The subject does not always come first in the sentence. It is often preceded by other words.

Ex:
1. During the whole of last year I only went to cinema twice. Subject 2. Fortunately for the Indians, Abhinav Bhindras efforts paid off. Subject

Exercise: Identify the subject and verb in the following sentences:

1. I like coffee. 2. Last evening my close friend called me. 3. Rajesh has won the race. 4. During the match the captain had a severe leg pain. 5. Sleeping in my room is none other than my brother.

Ans: Subjects: Verbs:

I, My Close friend, Rajesh, The captain, My Brother like, called, has won, had, is

THE VERB

The grammatical term Verb can be used to refer to a class of words like: Be , happen , & kill It is also used to refer to one part of a clause or sentence. (Sometimes it is referred to as verb phrase).

A verb is a word that tells:

1. What a person or a thing does (Ex: the dog barks, Usain Bolt wins the race, The bus arrives at the right time). 2. What is done to a person or a thing (Ex: The student was praised by the principal, The stadium was decorated for the ceremony). 3. What a person or a thing is (or) the state of a person or a thing. (Ex: The box is empty, He was a poor man)

Position:
In a statement sentence The Verb usually comes after The Subject. Mrs.Jaya likes ice cream. Subject verb

The Verb does not necessarily come immediately after the subject.
In the following sentence the words in brackets come between the Subject and the Verb. She [only recently] started to read political magazines. S V

In exceptional cases verb may come even before the subject.

Standing in the corner is V V my former English teacher. Subject / Noun Phrase

Meaning: The Verb provides important information about the Subject

It usually refers to:

An Action (Ex: China hosts the 2008 Olympics)

A state or condition 1. He is a rich man. 2. She is an honest leader. 3. They are safe. 4. I hate American politics.

A verb may act as a link between the subject and the rest of the sentence.

My fatehers first name Subject / noun phrase

is V

Muthu. Complement / Noun Phrase

The form of the verb phrase: The verb in a sentence may be one word or several
Ex: 1. I am a lecturer. 2. I have been working as a lecturer for the past eight years.

When the verb phrase consists of several verbs they are all verbs.

There are three types of verbs. They are:

Full Verbs Auxiliary Verbs Primary Verbs

Full Verbs:
These are verbs which can function on their own. (Ex: Collect ,
Make, Send, Suggest)

Auxiliary Verbs:

These are verbs which function with the full verbs. (Ex: shall, will,
can, may, must, am, is, are, was, were, has, have, had etc.,)

Primary Verbs:
There are three verbs which can function as full verbs or as auxiliary verbs. They are called primary verbs. [Ex:
(be/is/am/are/was/were), (has/have/had), (do/does/did) ]

Parts of a Verb:
The infinitive (This is the to form of the verb, Ex: He was eager to sing a song) The ing form (Arun is reading his lessons) The ed form (They are informed by the principal) VERB REGULAR (WEAK) Add Bowl Call Dry Added Bowled Called Dried Added Bowled Called Dried IRREGULAR (STRONG) Go Come Buy Put Went Gone Came Came Bought Bought Put Put

REGULAR (WEAK)

IRREGULAR (STRONG)

Many common verbs in English are irregular

Tenses:
English has a wide variety of tenses, which give information about WHEN something happened, and also the ASPECT of the action we wish to focus on.

For Example:
Simple Past: I walked to the office this morning. (Action is in the past, attention is focused on the fact that it is a single completed action.)

Past continuous: As I was walking I saw a boy playing. ( Action happened in the past, but the attention is focused on the continuing nature of the action.) [ It was going on when something else happened]

Agreement:

The Verb has to agree with the subject in number and person. That is when the subject is singular then the verb should be singular too, if the subject is plural then the verb should also be plural. (This is agreement in number)

When the subject is in first person then the verb should agree with it. (Ex: subject I always takes verb am for present tense and was for past tense. Though I is a singular subject it takes the root form of the action verbs [ex: like, prefer, play, study, try, etc.,] for present tense when other singular subjects like he, she, it and singular proper nouns take root form of the action verbs with s for simple present tense. (Ex: walks, talks, speaks, drinks) This is because I is a first person and the rest are third persons.

Singular:
I Person II Person I You

walk/am/was/have/do
walk/are/were/have/do

III Person

He/She/It

walks/is/was/has/does

Plural:
I Person II Person III Person
\

We You They

walk/are/were/have/do walk/are/were/have/do walks/are/were/have/do

NUMBER

NOUN
-

PRONOUN
I

VERB
walk, talk, drink, play / am / was / have / do / had / did

SINGULAR

Aarthi, Arun, Boy, Girl, Wife, Box Aarthi & Arun, Boys, Girls, Wives, Boxes.

He / She / It

walks, talks, drinks, plays / is, was, has, does, had, did

PLURAL

We / You / They

walk, talk, drink, play / are/ were / have / do / had / did

Sentence Problems:
Verb is the life of a sentence, if there is no verb then there is no sentence.

One of the major causes of problems when writing sentences, especially long sentences is The Verb.
Finite Verb: A sentence MUST contain a complete, finite verb. This is a verb that shows tense, number and person. (If a sentence doesnt contain a finite verb then it isnt a sentence.) Ex: In the late May in Sri Nagar during those last magical days of summer, walking around the Dal Lake!

It is typical of sentences like this that the reader is left waiting for something to happen, but nothing does and then the sentence ends. Here we want to know WHO the sentence is about and exactly WHAT the person was doing / the persons were doing. It might mean for example: In the late May in Sri Nagar during those last magical days of summer, I used to love walking around the Dal Lake!

But in reality we can not know what the writer actually meant (in the first example), because the sentence doesnt contain a finite verb.

Lack of Agreement:
Another major problem is that the subject and verb fail to agree. (Sometimes)

If the sentence is short and simple then no problem. (Ex: He likes coffee)

Subject Verb
Tense

He

Singular, Third Person Singular, Third person , & Simple Present

likes -

If the subject is complicated, then it is difficult to keep track of exactly WHAT the whole subject is? Several members of the Nehru family including the elected representative of Amethi, has visited the region in the last week.

Subject
(or)

Several members

Plural, Third person

Subject

The elected representative of Amethi

Singular, Third person

Verb

(?)

have visited if the subject is plural

has visited if the subject is singular

Actually Several members including the elected representative of Amethi is the subject and since it is a plural subject the verb should be have visited .

Either / Or & Neither / Nor Usage

You have to be careful when you use Either, Or & Neither, Nor.

If both items are singular then there is no problem; the verb should be singular.

Ex: Either the sales manager or his assistant is the person to finish the report.

If one of the subjects is plural , then the verb should agree with the one that comes immediately before it:

Ex: Either the prime minister or his ministers are to blame. Ex: Either the ministers or the prime minister is to blame.

The same applies to the person of the Verb:

Either Prasanna or I am going to look after it.

Either you or Prasanna is going to look after it.

Exercises: I. Pick out the subject and the verb in the each of the following sentences. Making good coffee is an art. The occasion of my last visit to see my Great Aunt Annie could have been a disaster. 3. This time next month I shall have been living in Australia for ten years. 4. During the last years of his regin, the King had become increasingly eccentric. 1. 2.

II.

In each of the sentences that follow the verb is in brackets. Put it in the correct form so that it agrees with the subject of the sentence.

1) Both Ragul and I ____ (be) members of the local cricket club. 2) After sometime, all the members of the board of management, including our latest recruit, Mrs. Janaki __________ (be) happy about the decision. 3) Either your brother-in-law or you _______ (have) to decide what to do next. 4) Neither I nor my sisters ___________ (be) present when the will was read.

OTHER SENTENCE ELEMENTS Some sentences only consist of a subject and a verb. Ex: Subject Verb

1) Mrs.Gandhi has left. 2) Most of our long term problems are being overcome.

3) This question would have been forgotten. Many sentences have one or more elements after The Verb. OBJECT: An object is something that is affected by the action of the verb. The dog bit our visitor. (Here who is affected by the verb bit? Ans: Our Visitor). Hence the object is: Our Visitor. Often however there isnt much action involved: I like ice cream. So it is more accurate to say, an object is a noun, a pronoun or a noun phrase that follows the verb and usually refers to a different person or thing from the subject. Direc / Indirect object: Some sentences have two objects as Direct and Indirect. Our visitor Subject gave Verb the baby a gift. Indirect Object Direct object

To distinguish these two kinds of objects, add to to one of them. Our visitor gave a gift to the baby. X Our visitor gave the baby to a gift. CASE: Case of the object is one of the most important problems.

Some pronouns in English change according to whether the word is The Subject or The Object of the sentence. Subject (Subjective case) Verb case) I He I Ramu Ramu He told told told told told told him. me. Ramu. me. him. Ramu. Object (Objective / Accusative

Problems may occur when there is a double object. After the accident the chairman visited my wife and I / my wife and me in the hospital. Which is correct? I or me. If you are in any doubt, remove the other part of the object and check if it sounds right. After the accident the chairman visited I in the hospital. (dosent sound good, so it should be visited me in the hospital.) You should also use Objective / Accusative case after prepositions. The chairman paid several visit to my wife and me.

Three different case forms of pronouns: Subjective I We You They He She It Who Exercise: We helped the poor man the poor man was helped by _______. She sang a good song. A good song was sung by _________. Ragul bought a new bike. I like ________ bike. She likes _________ father very much. They finalised a new house. A new house was finalized by __________. The puppy lost ______ mother, have you seen ________ somewhere? Possessive my, mine our, ours your, yours their, theirs his her, hers its whose him her it whom Accusative/objective me us you theirs

_____ bag is this? _________ did you ask? _________ bag is this?

COMPLEMENT A small number of verbs are not followed by an object but by a complement. The verbs are sometimes called linking verbs. (Ex: to be, to seem, to appear, to become) In sentences containing these verbs, the subject and the complement refer to the same person or thing: Subject My uncle Verb became Complement a collector.

The complement of a sentence can be : A noun or a noun phrase A preposition or a prepositional phrase An adjective or an adjective phrase.

Subject

Verb

Complement

My uncle Noun phrase

is Verb

Very happy Adjective phrase

ADVERBIAL Adverbial in a sentence provides information that answers the following questions:

When / how long?

o I met him yesterday

(To) Where?
o He kept the book on the table

Why?
o They did it for my sake

How?
o He ran fast o She danced very skillfully

How much?
o I helped him a lot

o I helped him as much as possible.

As in the examples the adverbials can be: A single word (An adverb) An adverbial phrase A prepositional phrase

Position: The other sentence elements like Subject, Verb and Complement are fairly predictable; there isnt much choice about where you put them in the sentence. But adverbials can appear anywhere in a sentence. There is often a choice about where you put them. Both the following sentences are possible: He placed a book on the table. On the table he placed a book. Rule :

The adverbial should come as close as possible to the verb it modifies, but not before the verb and its object. Where will you place the adverb urgently in the following sentence? He called the clerk Choose the best option: He called urgently the clerk. He called the clerk urgently. Exception: Almost all the rules have exceptions, so does the rule for positioning the adverbs. If the object is longer and if we place the adverbial after it, it may become attached to the wrong part of the sentence. Ex: The labour explained his reasons for leaving the site angrily. The labour explained angrily his reasons for leaving the site. Exercise: Each of the following sentences has one part underlined. Is it Subject, Verb, Object, Complement or Adverbial? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The mechanic placed the new carburetor on the work bench Later that year she became leader of the local council. Our only daily local paper has just ceased publication. I should have preferred a more interesting approach. In a few years time everyone except us old folk will be computer literate.

Is there any difference in meaning between the sentences within these groups?

Example: 1a. Murugan forgot even his grandfathers birthday (he forgot even his grandpas birthday not someone elses birthday who is less important). 1b. Even Murugan forgot his grandpas birthday (usually Murugan remembers the birthday of his grandpa though nobody else in his family remembers it, but now even Murugan forgot it.)

2a. Originally I concentrated on black and white photographs 2b. I concentrtated on black and white photographs originally. 3a. Happily Ganesan gave Meena back her book. 3b. Ganesan gave Meena back her book happily. 4a. Only the sales department wants the new product painted pink. 4b. The sales department wants only the new product painted pink. 4c. The sales department wants the new product painted only pink.