TABE Level D English: Sentences

The four basic sentence types:
- Statement: You wrote that letter.
- Question: Did you write that letter?
- Exclamation: You wrote that letter!
- Command: Write that letter.

The action word in the sentences above is write wrote. In all four, the performer is you. In the fourth sentence, you is not written, but it is implied in the command.
 

English sentences need two basic parts in order to be clear and complete.

Each of the sentences below is complete—a person or thing (performer) is doing something. They’re not very interesting sentences, but each one does have a person or thing, the subject, doing something.
Also, notice that every sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark—a period. In other sentences, you will use question marks, exclamation points, or quotation marks. Remember these: ., ?, !, and ” “.
 

A plane flies.
The dog barks.
The truck stopped.
Mac laughed.
Sheila rides a motorcycle.
Cars speed.

Sometimes you use a different word—a substitute—for the name of a person or thing. The substitute is called a pronoun. You use pronouns all the time. For example, the subjects are all pronouns in the five sentences below:

Pronoun:
It flies.
It (or he/she) barks.
It stopped.
He laughed.
She rides a motorcycle.
They speed.

How are these sentences different? They are different only because each subject is a pronoun. 

Now look at a slightly more complicated sentence:
Our car makes a terrible noise.

What thing is this sentence about? It’s about our car. You might already know that this part of the sentence is called the subject. The subject contains a person, place, or thing. What does the subject (performer) do? The subject, car, makes noise. Makes is in the part of the sentence called the predicate. The main word in the predicate is the verb or action word. The main word or verb in the predicate of this sentence is makes. 

When we talk to family, friends, and even co-workers, our sentences are often incomplete, or fragments.

Example:
Meet for lunch?
Sure.
When?
About noon?
OK.

That is fine for informal, or casual conversation, but, for other occasions, you need to use standard (the most accepted) English usage when you speak or write.

Fragments and Run-on Sentences
Watch out for these errors: We sometimes confuse a group of words that includes an –ing ending word with a complete thought.

Examples:
Incorrect: Treading the floors carefully so I wouldn’t ruin the finish.
Change to: I treaded the floors carefully so I wouldn’t ruin the finish.
What has been added? Of course, the answer is the subject/performer.

Incorrect: Striking the windshield with a terrible blow.
Change to: The large rock struck the windshield with a terrible blow.
What has been added? Again, the sentence needed a subject/performer. What struck the windshield?
Run-on sentences do just as their name indicates. They go on and on with no end in sight.

Incorrect: The large rock struck the windshield we immediately called for a tow the truck took just a short time to reach us.
Change to: The large rock struck our windshield. We immediately called for a tow. It took just a short time to reach us.
What has been added? The simple answer is, punctuation! You needed to separate the three thoughts with periods. Later, in this lesson, you’ll read more about how to combine short sentences, such as sentences two and three.

Combined:
We immediately called for a tow and it took just a short time to reach us.

Sentence fragments need a subject/performer or a verb to complete them. Sometimes, though, you can correct the sentence by coordinating the fragment with another thought.
Correct: In our new apartment, we have an extra bedroom. We need it for the twins.
Also Correct and Coordinated: In our new apartment we have an extra bedroom that we need for the twins.
The writer added a connecting word, that, to solve the problem.

Subjects and Verbs
What else do you have to know about subjects/performers and verbs/action words? You have to know that they have singular and plural forms. Subjects and verbs must match or agree in number.

Compare these sentences:

1. Jorge drives to the adult learning center.

2. Malissa and Inga drive to the center, too.

How are these sentences different? In sentence one, how many performers are there? Yes, there is only one, Jorge. How is sentence two different? There are two performers, Malissa and Inge. You can say that the subject in sentence one is singular. The subject in sentence 2 is plural because more than one person is performing the action, driving.

The addition of an s on a singular verb/performer might seem strange to you. You are used to adding an s to a word to make it plural:
Car/cars
Book/books
House/houses

The words above are not verbs/performers. They are subject words. However, you do add an s to a verb/performer to show that it matches or is in agreement with the subject.

Examples:
An employee eats in the cafeteria.
Employees eat in the cafeteria.

How and why did the verb change? To match the singular employee, you use the singular verb/performer, eats. To match the plural employees, you drop the s—eat.