Download Basic Sentence Construction

Survey
yes no Was this document useful for you?
   Thank you for your participation!

* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project

Document related concepts

Arabic grammar wikipedia , lookup

Old Irish grammar wikipedia , lookup

Malay grammar wikipedia , lookup

Lithuanian grammar wikipedia , lookup

English clause syntax wikipedia , lookup

Ojibwe grammar wikipedia , lookup

Inflection wikipedia , lookup

Macedonian grammar wikipedia , lookup

Preposition and postposition wikipedia , lookup

Navajo grammar wikipedia , lookup

Kannada grammar wikipedia , lookup

Lexical semantics wikipedia , lookup

Old Norse morphology wikipedia , lookup

Ukrainian grammar wikipedia , lookup

Zulu grammar wikipedia , lookup

Modern Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup

Chinese grammar wikipedia , lookup

Esperanto grammar wikipedia , lookup

Romanian nouns wikipedia , lookup

Georgian grammar wikipedia , lookup

Portuguese grammar wikipedia , lookup

Russian grammar wikipedia , lookup

Swedish grammar wikipedia , lookup

Japanese grammar wikipedia , lookup

Old English grammar wikipedia , lookup

Scottish Gaelic grammar wikipedia , lookup

Ancient Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup

Icelandic grammar wikipedia , lookup

Italian grammar wikipedia , lookup

Turkish grammar wikipedia , lookup

French grammar wikipedia , lookup

Latin syntax wikipedia , lookup

Modern Hebrew grammar wikipedia , lookup

Yiddish grammar wikipedia , lookup

Spanish grammar wikipedia , lookup

Polish grammar wikipedia , lookup

Serbo-Croatian grammar wikipedia , lookup

English grammar wikipedia , lookup

Pipil grammar wikipedia , lookup

Transcript
UHCL Writing Center
Basic Sentence
Construction
• Sentences can contain Nouns, Verbs, Adverbs,
Adjectives, and Prepositions.
UHCL Writing Center
Word Forms
• Nouns include people, places, and things and can be
singular or plural.
• Nouns can be concrete or abstract.
• Concrete nouns are touchable, such as cat, fish, bird,
scissors, cup, table, etc.
• Abstract nouns include ideas such as happiness,
sadness, harmony, etc.
UHCL Writing Center
Nouns
• Nouns can be the subject, direct object, indirect object,
or object of a preposition in a clause.
UHCL Writing Center
Noun Placement
• Name two concrete nouns.
• Name two abstract nouns.
UHCL Writing Center
Noun Practice
• Verbs indicate action and can be conjugated to
indicate tense.
• Verbs can also link a subject and a subject
compliment in order to describe a subject.
UHCL Writing Center
Verbs
• Verbs typically go after the subject of a sentence to
indicate the action the subject is taking.
UHCL Writing Center
Verb Placement
• Name two action verbs.
UHCL Writing Center
Verb Practice
• Adjectives describe nouns
• Pretty, ugly, blue, large, small
• Adverbs describe verbs
• Often identifiable by “ly” endings
• Prettily, horribly, often, well
UHCL Writing Center
Descriptive words: Adjectives and
Adverbs
• Adjectives go before the noun: “Pretty girl,” “ugly
bruise,” “blue dog,” etc.
• The exception to this rule: when an adjective is used
as a subject complement. (More on this later.)
UHCL Writing Center
Adjective placement
• Adverbs need to go near the verb they are describing,
but do not always need to go before or after a verb.
• Examples: “He ran merrily” “He happily sang.” (They
are both acceptable.)
UHCL Writing Center
Adverb placement
• The big, black cat jumped happily onto my lap.
• He played his electric guitar merrily along with his
favorite song.
UHCL Writing Center
Examples
• Use an adjective to describe something.
• Use an adverb to describe an action.
UHCL Writing Center
Descriptives Practice
• Prepositions are also added to sentences to indicate
location in space or time.
• Think of everything a squirrel can do to a tree!
UHCL Writing Center
Prepositions
• Nouns behind prepositions indicate where/when
something happened
• Called “objects of prepositions.”
• Make up prepositional phrases
UHCL Writing Center
Prepositional phrases
• The dog ran around the tree.
• Katie dances in her apartment.
• My cat cuddles with me at night.
UHCL Writing Center
Examples
• Try to create a prepositional phrase
UHCL Writing Center
Preposition Practice
• Complete sentences must contain a subject and a
predicate.
• Subject: usually a noun that indicates what the sentence is
about
• Predicate: verb or verb phrase describing what is happening
to the subject.
• Can be very simple to very, very complex.
UHCL Writing Center
English Sentence Structure
• The dog ate.
• Subject: “dog;” predicate: “ate.”
• Katie dances.
• Subject: “Katie;” predicate: “dances.”
• I am hungry.
• Subject: “I;” predicate: “am hungry.”
UHCL Writing Center
Examples of simple sentences
• Create a simple sentence.
UHCL Writing Center
Sentence Practice
• Linking verbs do not have action, per se, but are used
to describe a noun.
• Sometimes they are “to be” verbs: am, is, are, was,
were, etc.
• The word used to describe the noun that comes after
the linking verb is called the subject complement.
UHCL Writing Center
Using linking verbs
• To describe the subject of the sentence rather than
giving it an action.
• Example: “The cat is tired,” “I am hungry,” “He is pretty.”
UHCL Writing Center
When do we use linking verbs?
• Create a sentence with a linking verb
UHCL Writing Center
Linking Verb Practice
• Sentences can also have objects.
• Objects are nouns which receive an action.
UHCL Writing Center
Objects
• The boy ate chocolate cake.
• “The boy” is the subject; “ate” is the predicate; “chocolate
cake” is the object.
• Katie threw the ball.
• “Katie” is the subject; “Threw” is the predicate; “the ball” is
the object.
UHCL Writing Center
Examples of sentences with objects
• Two types of objects: direct vs. indirect
• Direct objects: answers the question “what,” or “who?”
• Indirect objects answer the question, “to whom,” or
“for what?”
UHCL Writing Center
Direct vs. Indirect Object
• Katie threw the ball to Whitney
• Subject: “Katie;” Predicate: “threw;” Direct object: “the ball;”
indirect object: “Whitney.”
UHCL Writing Center
Example
• Create a sentence with a direct and indirect object
UHCL Writing Center
Object Practice
• The big, black cat happily chased the mouse down the
hallway.
UHCL Writing Center
Putting it all together
• Create a sentence with:
• An adjective and adverb
• A direct object
• A prepositional phrase
UHCL Writing Center
Now you try!
• There are other things sentences can contain, such as
coordinating conjunctions, subordinate conjunctions,
and relative pronouns.
• Come to our advanced sentence structure workshop to
learn more!
UHCL Writing Center
Other considerations