Basic Sentence Structure

1. Basic Sentence Structure This lesson comes from Grammar Troublespots by Ann Raimes. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

2. Is it standard English? • the sun is shining. • They walk slowly and quietly • Watching themselves make steps on the white sand. • You can hardly see any sand. • Because there are so many people and so many umbrellas. • You can imagine walking on the white glittering sand. • The feeling of cool sand running through your toes.

3. Is it standard English? • There is a big coconut tree. • Some leaves on the sand. • Is a St. Croix beach in the Virgin Islands. • The tree on the beach it is very big. • Shade from the sun some umbrellas provide. • On that beach, two people who are enjoying the beautiful weather. • The sun shining. • The people who are sitting on the beach feel very relaxed.

4. What is a sentence? • A sentence contains a topic and a comment about that topic: • e.g. Babies cry. • The topic is usually the grammatical subject and the comment is usually the grammatical predicate. • A predicate contains a complete verb that indicates time.

5. Sentence fragments • The soft, crashing waves and the shade cast by a tall palm tree make this an attractive spot. One that we would really like to return to. • People are lying on the beach and getting a suntan. Because it is a holiday. The beach is packed. • On that peaceful beach, two young people strolling along the water’s edge. They look happy.

6. Required elements of a sentence • A capital letter at the beginning • A period, question mark, or exclamation point at the end • A subject, stated only once • A complete verb phrase • Standard word order • An independent clause

7. Usual word order • Subject + verb + object/complement • Childrenlike cookies. • Heis a teacher. • Theylook happy. • Don’t separate verb and object. • X Heboughtyesterdaya new car. • Put time expressions first or last.

8. Direct and Indirect Objects • Subject + Verb + D.O. + to/for I.O. • Shegaveher MP3 playerto George. • Shegaveit to him. • X She gave it him. • Subject + Verb + I.O. + D.O. • ShegaveGeorgeher MP3 player. • Shegavehimher MP3 player. • X She gave him it.

9. Inverted word order • Use Verb + Subject + Object/Complement • in direct questions • Doyouwant to come with us? • in coordinate tags • She likes swimming, and so doI. • after negatives and “only” • Never haveI been so embarrassed! • Rarely dowe encounter such a problem. • Only if I have time willI be able to help you. • when “if” is omitted • HadI known about it, I could have participated.

10. Parallel structures • Use the same grammatical form for structures connected by coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.). • X I want to go to Italy and spending a week in Rome. • X They want to feel cool and happily.

11. Test yourself 1 • The children in the park are eating some delicious ice cream cones. Because they want to get cool. • They eating very slowly. • The children who were eating the ice cream they were with my uncle. • Usually in the summer is very hot in the city.

12. Test yourself 2 • She spends every week a lot of money. • He likes very much his sister’s friend. • She gave to her sister an expensive present. • On a beach, nature gives you tranquility and peace without noisy, pollution, crowded, dirt, and humid. • The smell of frying hot dogs filling my nostrils and making me hungry.

13. Editing Strategies • Begin with the last sentence of your text and work backward. This enables you to isolate the sentence and look at it more objectively. • If using a word processor, you can further isolate sentences by writing one sentence per line. However, be sure to join them together for your finished product.