Sentences

A sentence is a group of words that says a complete thought. It must contain a subject and a predicate.

The subject is the person or thing a sentence is talking about. "Elvis is still alive." (Elvis is the subject.)

The predicate is what the sentence is saying about the subject. "The baby played the piano." (played the piano is the predicate.).

There are four kinds of purposes for sentences:
Declarative, interrogative, and imperative, and exclamatory.

A declarative sentence makes a statement or declaration. It ends with a period. "The aliens landed and took my dog's supper dish away with them."

An interrogative sentence: asks a question and ends with a question mark. Sometimes it's in transposed order. "Is that my left elbow or yours?"

An imperative sentence commands or requests and ends with a period. (The subject is usually the word "you," which is not said but is understood.) "Go to your room."

An exclamatory sentence expresses strong and sudden emotion. It does not follow rules for sentence structure, may look like a question or a command, ends with an exclamation mark.

Simple subject: The main word of the subject. "The rough-hewn woodsman, who liked to dye his hair blue, leapt over the cliff's edge and disappeared." ("Woodsman" is the simple subject, though all the words in brown make up the whole subject.)

Simple predicate (verb): the main verb of the predicate. "Sally barked loudly, rumpling the rug as she spun in place." ("Barked" is the simple predicate, though all the words in brown make up the whole predicate.)

Expletive: something that fills out the sentence. "There" in the sentence "There is a fire in the fireplace" is an expletive, a signal that the sentence is transposed. The structure of the sentence is "A fire is in the fire place."

Verb phrase (verb string): a verb consisting of more than one word ("is breaking," "has been learning") using auxiliaries (helping verbs) ("is, has, will, has been"). It may be interrupted by other words. "The poem has often been quoted."

Auxiliary verbs (helping verbs) include is, has, has been, will, shall, may, might, can, could, must, ought to, should, would, used to, need. They are used with main verbs to create verb phrases which express a particular time or mood. A list: do, does, did, may, might must; can, could, shall, should, will, would (the previous combine with the naming form of the verb); am, are, is, was, were (combine with the present participle); have, has, had (combine with the past participle).

Compound: Having more two or more parts. Subjects and predicates may be compound, using the conjunctions and, or, and but. "Ronald and Gandalf whimpered noisily." ("Ronald and Gandalf" is a compound subject) "My elderly mother rose from her bed and danced a jig." (compound predicate) A compound sentence unites two or more clauses which are equal in importance, using the coordinate conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so (FANBOYS). "Mr. Dabney wondered what the noise was, but he never found out."

Complement: a word that completes the predicate (the "object"). Anything that answers the question "what?" after a verb. Many verbs require complements to make sense. "Elbert gave his sister a magic box." ("a magic box" is the complement. What did Elbert give his sister? A magic box.)

A transitive verb requires a complement, while an intransitive one does not. "The construction worker yawned. ("Yawned" is an intransitive verb. You don't say someone "yawned the door," or "yawned the mouth." They just "yawned.")

Phrase: any short group of words, usually lacking a subject or a verb. "whistled a tune" "the energetic cat"

Prepositional phrase: a group of words combining a preposition with the object of the preposition. ("to the house"). The preposition indicates a relationship, often in time or place. "I wandered under the bridge." ("Under the bridge" is a prepositional phrase.)

When "to" is used with a form of a verb, the construction is an infinitive and not a prepositional phrase. "I plan to bungee-jump." ("To bungee-jump" is an infinitive.)