Understanding sentence structure is the most esssential part
of learning how to write effective English.
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A sentence
is a group of words that express a complete thought.
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Examples:
- The villagers tried
to reach home before dark.
- Having befriended
both, I found Lisa and Aria
to be more interesting than
the others in the class.
To express a complete idea,
every sentence must have a subject and a verb. In the first
sentence, the
villagers is the subject and tried is the verb.
In the second sentence, I
is the subject and found is the verb.
How
to identify the subject of a
sentence?
The
subject of a sentence may be
one or more persons, things
or ideas. The subject tells
you what the sentence is
about.
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The first example sentence
is about the
villagers, and the second is about I.
The subject may be singular
or plural. It may be just one word or a group of words.
- Los
Angeles and Santiago are both coastal
cities on the Pacific.
The subject in this sentence
is plural, consisting of two cities, Los
Angeles and Santiago.
How
to identify the verb in a sentence?
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The word
or group of words that tell what the subject is about
or what it does is the verb.
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The subject in a sentence
does something and this action is expressed by a verb. If
you ask the the question, "What did the villagers do?"
the answer is, "They tried to reach." Here, the
action is expressed by the word tried.
In
the second sentence, the action is
expressed by the word found.
Tried and found are the
verbs of the two sentences.
If you have trouble identifying
the subject of a sentence, first try to find its verb. Since
most verbs change in form in relation to time, find that particular
word in a sentence which changes in reference to present,
past or future action.
In
the first sentence, tried changes to try, and in the
second, found changes to find when you
want to talk about the present.
To
identify the subject, use the verb to
ask the question who or what.
Who tried? The villagers. What are? Los
Angeles and Santiago.
Next
to Subjects and
Verbs - Test Yourself 1
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