The Structure of the English Sentence

1. The Structure of the English Sentence Analyse the following sentence and underlined phrases: " If you have a bank account, the bank sends you a monthly statement to inform you what has been debited from and credited to your account ". This is a complex sentence. The clause “if you have” is a subordinate clause; the clause “the bank sends you” is the independent clause. The clause “what has been debited” is another subordinate clause, functioning as the object of the main clause.

2. The Structure of the English Sentence " If you have a bank account, the bank sends you a monthly statement to inform you what has been debited from and credited to your account ". The phrase a monthly statement is a noun phrase. “statement” is the headword, or head noun, “monthly” is an adverb which premodifies the noun. The phrase has been debited is a verb phrase, formed by the lexical verb debit in the present perfect passive form.

3. The Structure of the English Sentence " " The famous fast-food company, McDonald’s, has launched a new campaign to help it compete against rivals like Burger King and Wendy’s". The sentence is simple, with only one finite clause, “has launched”. “to help it compete” is a non-finite clause functioning as a clause of purpose.

4. The Structure of the English Sentence " " The famous fast-food company, McDonald’s, has launched a new campaign to help it compete against rivals like Burger King and Wendy’s". The phrase The famous fast-food company is a noun phrase. “company” is the headword, or head noun, “famous” is an adjective which premodifies the noun; “fast-food” is a noun phrase which premodifies the head noun company The phrase has launched is a verb phrase, formed by the lexical verb launch in the present perfect form.

5. The Structure of the English Sentence " All public companies in the UK are obliged by law to publish all their annual financial results at the end of the tax year ". This is a simple sentence, with only one finite clause, “are obliged”. The clause “to publish” is a non-finite clause, functioning as indirect object of the finite clause.

6. The Structure of English "Public companies in the UK are obliged by law to publish all their annual financial results at the end of the tax year ". The phrase “are obliged” is a verb phrase, where the head verb is a lexical verb in the present passive form. The phrase “all their annual financial results” is a noun phrase, where “results” is the headword. “all” and “their” are respectively a numeral adjective and a personal possessive adjective; annual and financial are qualitative adjectives. All four adjectives are part of the pre-modification structure of the head noun.

7. The Structure of English "In a period of economic recession many businesses suffer, their profits fall and they have to make cuts ". This is a compound sentence, made up of three equal finite verb clauses, “suffer”, “fall” and “have”. The non-finite clause “to make cuts” is part of the verb phrase “they have”.

8. The Structure of English "In a period of economic recession many businesses suffer, their profits fall and they have to make cuts ". The phrase, “economic recession” is a noun phrase, with recession as the headword, and the adjective economic which premodifies the noun; “fall” is a verb phrase, lexical verb in the present simple; “cuts” is a noun phrase, the noun is in the plural form

9. The Structure of English “Unfortunately, the company’s share price has fallen recently by over 80% and there has also been strong pressure on the owners to resign as co-chairmen of the business". The sentence is compound, made up of two equal finite clauses, has fallen and has been. The non-finite clause “to resign” functions as the indirect object of the noun phrase “strong pressure”

10. The Structure of English “Unfortunately, the company’s share price has fallen recently by over 80% and there has also been strong pressure on the owners to resign as co-chairmen of the business". The phrase the company’s.. is a noun phrase where price is the head noun, premodified by the noun share, in attributive function, and by the noun phrase the company’s, in the genitive form. The second phrase is a prepositional phrase, with the prep. by is the headword