Unit 2

Constructing English Sentences

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Contents

Sentence components in English Sentence patterns in English Types of sentence Movements of sentence components

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2.1 Sentence components in English

English sentences can be broken down into some distinct components. the subject (S for short)

These components include

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the predicate verb (V)

the object (O for short) the adverbial (A) the complement (C) the predicative (P)

 (1) The interesting story made these little children very happy. SVOC (2) Jack became a professional lawyer after graduation. SVPA
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Note:
1. Sometimes, the noun phrase
(subject, object, or complement ) will take

Attributives (Att) Determiners (D for short)

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articles (a, an, and the) demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, and those) indefinite pronouns (some, any, a, most, other, etc.) numerals (one, first, twenty, and the like) possessive expressions (my, sb.s, etc.)
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Determiners

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 (1) Jack became a professional

D Att

lawyer after graduation. (2) The interesting story made

D

Att

these little children very happy.

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Att

Note:
2. Some verbs take two objects.

(3) Jack gave Joan a ring. S V Oi Od Oi= indirect object

Od= direct object

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Note:
3. Complements(part after a V, adding info. to the S or O)
(1) Jack became a professional lawyer after graduation. (2) The interesting story made these little children very happy.
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subject complement (Cs) object complement (Co

 4. Predicative: part of the predicate after be, get, seem, look, turn, become, appear, etc. You look fine today. It seems that you are right. Cf:The predicate is the part of a sentence which states or asserts something about the subject and usually consists of a verb either with or without an object, complement, or adverb.
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Subject complement

Predicative

Jack fell to the ground dead. S V A Cs

Can you think of other examples?

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 5. appositive: when two words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence have the same reference, they are in apposition. Example: My sister, Helen Wilson, will travel with me. 6.parenthesis: a word, phrase or sentence inserted as an added explanation or thought, like Well, you know, as you can see, etc
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2.1 Sentence components

in English 2.2 Sentence patterns in English 2.3 Types of sentence

2.4 Movements of
sentence components
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seven basic sentence patterns in English

a. SV (5) Jack arrived (yesterday). S V b. SVO (6) Jack missed his train (by a minute). S V O c. SVA (7) Jack weighed 200 pounds. S V A d. SVC/P (8) Jack was very sad this morning. S V C/P
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 e. SVOA (9) Jack put the book on the desk. S V O A f. SVOO (10) Jack gave Joan a kiss on the forehead. S V Oi Od g. SVOC (11) Jack let Joan make her own decision. S V O C
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Note:
1. Some components are not considered in the classification of the sentence patterns Eg
b. SVO minute).

. (by a (6) Jack missed his train

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S V O e. SVOA (9) Jack put the book on the desk. S V O A

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Note:
2.Compare the part in red

b. SVO (6) Jack missed his train (by a minute). S V O c. SVA (7) Jack weighed 200 pounds. S V A Does each sentence still make sense if we remove the part in red ?
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Lets have a try!

What sentence pattern does each sentence belong to?

a. John seems happy.

SVC/P SVA

b. The girls sing quite often.

c. They elected Bush president again. SVOC d. Chasing cats is fun for dogs. SVP/C
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e. John sent Jane a bunch of roses. f. John never keeps his room clean. g. The film lasted two hours. h. John let Jane out.
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 SVOO or SVOC? They elected Bush president again. John sent Jane a bunch of roses. One way to distinguish is trying to add a copular be between the two nouns or noun phrases, if they make sense as a sentence, the latter noun is used as object complement in the original sentence;
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if they can't, the noun is an object. Which of the following sentences has an object complement?(TEM-4 2010) A. The directors appointed John manager. B.I gave Mary a Christmas present. C. You have done Peter a favor. D. She is teaching children English.
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Addition to sentence patterns

1. Independent elements Hey! Where are you heading for? 2. Existential sentence:There-be patteren There can be very little doubt about his guilt.
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 There appears to be no doubt about it. 3. It is +N./A. phr. +Subject. Its very important to learn English well.
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2.3 Types of sentence

A simple sentence has only one subject and one predicateverb, but may contain more than one object, attribute or adverbial. Short simple sentences are usually emphatic; they have special clarity, and provide variety when used with longer sentences.
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 1) The Middle Eastern Bazaar takes you back hundredseven thousands-of years. 2) Hurried home. I would run under the dark, leafless trees. I would walk fast uphill. I would run down the hill. The ground was freezing. I had to hurry. I had to run. I reached the long ridge that led to our cow pasture.
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 A simple sentence is not necessarily short. For example: Anxious to check inflation and rising living costs, the federal government appointed a board of grain supervisors to handle deliveries from the crops of 1917 and 1918.
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 3. compound sentence or coordinated sentence: two or more sentences joined by connectives. Not only did the garage overcharge me, but they hadn't done a very good repair job either. She is a funny girl, yet you can't help liking her.
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 4. Complex sentence: a main clause plus one or more subordinate clause. I can't imagine what made him behave like that. He had overslept, so that he was late for class. I had hardly left when the quarrel started.
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 Sometimes, a comlex sentence has more than one subordinate clause or embedded subordinate clause:

The researchers made great progress in the early 1970s, when they discovered that oncogenes, which are cancercausing genes, are inactive in normal cells.
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Analysis of long sentences

(1) (2) (3)

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 The study made clear that the working class that is so overrepresented in crime statistics consists of lower-class people living in the lower-class areas of large cities.

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 (1) ( The study made clear that the working class that is so overrepresented in crime statistics consists of lower-class people living in the lower-class areas of large cities.
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 2 The study made clear that the working class (that is so overrepresented in crime statistics) consists of// lower-class people (living in the lower-class areas of large cities).
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Practice
Analyze the sentence structure:

But "retirement" is not sometning that suddenly occurs when you are around 65; it's not a matter of one day you are working and the next you are enjoying yourself living on your social security benefit.
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2.1 Sentence components in English 2.2 Sentence patterns in English 2.3 Types of sentences

2.4 Movements of sentence components

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 Look at the following pairs of sentences:

(12) a. Jack arrived at the airport yesterday. b. Yesterday Jack arrived at the airport.

(13) a. Jack stole a car last month. b. A car was stolen by Jack last month.
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Inversion
(14) a. We need change. b. Change we need. (15) a. Jack should not cheat Joan under any circumstances. b. Under no circumstances should Jack cheat Joan.
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Note:
1.Some movements bring about minor changes in the other parts of the sentences. Eg:

(13) a. Jack stole a car last month. b. A car was stolen by Jack last month. active voice
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passive voice
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Note:
2. Some movements lead to some difference in the communicative effect. Eg:
(14)

a. We need change. b. Change we need.

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 Check Your Understanding

TRUE or FALSE

1. All sentences must explicitly or implicitly

contain the subject and the predicate.

2. The subject complement is another name

for the predicative.

3. Not all adverbials in a sentence are

grammatically obligatory.
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 4. The determiner is not an obligatory sentence component because its absence would not affect the grammaticality of the sentence. 5. Components like the object and the adverbial can be arbitrarily moved
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within the sentence.

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In-Class Activities
1. Affirmative sentences VS negative
sentences 2. Active-voice VS passive-voice 3. Transformation of SVOO sentence 4. THERE-BE sentences 5. Ambiguity 6. Transferred negation
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1. Affirmative sentences VS negative sentences

Look at the following pictures:

(1) What may be the special effects communicated by each of the negative sentences?
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 (1) Picture 1: By the use of the capitalized NOT, one can alert visitors to the need to buy tickets. Picture 2: By responding to the presupposition that some may belittle the card, one can be emphatic in promoting the sale of the card.
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(2) How are the negative sentences different from each other in the way they are constructed? Are there other ways of negating a sentence?

a. No smoking in this area. b. Jack has no secret about Joan. c. Jack never really loves Joan. d. Joan knows little about Jack.
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 Ways of sentence-negation are various: the employment of not following auxiliary; No+verb+ing adverbial; the use of negative frequency adverbials (seldom, by no means, etc..); the combined use of negative adverbials with inversion, etc.
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(3) Negation can be made emphatic by

some means, as in the following. Are there other ways in English to achieve emphatic negation?
a. I dont like Jack at all. b. On no condition will Jack be allowed to quit.
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 not a ; Not a dime can be found in his pocket. inversion + negation not the least / never in my life
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2. Active-voice VS passive-voice

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What are the situations in which the passive-voice sentences are used? What possible reasons are there for the choice of the passives?

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They are usually used in the following situations or for the following reasons: a. the agent of the action in question is unknown or unnecessary to tell; b. the patient or the target of the action is the focus of the topic; c. the unwillingness to define the agent out of inconvenience, politeness or courtesy, etc.

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 d. a consideration of sentence development for coherence sake. Besides, the choices of passives should also take into consideration the stylistic differences. Passivevoice sentences are usually formal than their corresponding activevoice sentences.
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3. Transformation of SVOO sentence

Look at the following pairs of sentences:

A. i. Jack gave Joan a ring. ii. Jack gave a ring to Joan. B. i. Jack bought Joan a ring. ii. Jack bought a ring for Joan. (1) Are there any other verbs behave like give and buy respectively?
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 bring, pass, promise, send, show, offer, prepare, etc. (2) The following sentences are often considered wrong. Why? Why do Chinese students often make these mistakes? a. The company supplies us some spare parts of the autos.
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b. Jack provided Joan a lot of money for her education.

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4. THERE-BE sentences
Categorization of THERE-BE sentences
Several variants of BE

a.There was nothing Jack couldnt do for Joan. b. There seems to be a lot of problems we need to tackle right now. c. There appeared a big mouse on the table.
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 (1) The THERE-BE sentences are sometimes transformable with Sb. HAVE sentences, but sometimes not. Which of the sentences above can and which cannot? How do we generally distinguish between the two types of structures?
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a and b can, while c cannot. The former has to do with some kind of existence and ownership, whereas the latter relates to the occurrence/appearance of something.

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(2) Why are the following sentences wrong? Why do Chinese students sometimes make these mistakes?
a. * There are many students fail in the final exam. b. * There are the boys on the playground.
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(3) In what context is the following sentence acceptable? c. There is the pollution problem that we must solve. when there is a definite reference for both sides,usu. mentioned earlier
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(4) The following sentences also seem to constitute a unique category of sentence pattern. How do you like to describe it? Do we have its equivalent in Chinese?

d. It snowed last night. e. It is Christmas today. f. It is eight oclock.

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5. Ambiguity
Look at the following pictures:

(1)Are the two sentences ambiguous? If so, use paraphrases to show their different readings.
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a. Do not put valuables in an unattended state. b. Do not depart from valuables that are not attended. Life needs a great deal: a. One needs to do many things for a good life. b. Life requires a great transaction.
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 (2) Are the two sentences ambiguous for the same reason? Why or why not? Not completely. leave + object / leave + N + object + object complement; a great deal: many things / a great transaction.
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(3) Are the following sentences structurally ambiguous? a. Flying planes can be dangerous. b. The professors appointment was shocking.
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 More exercises

Which of the following sentences are structurally ambiguous?

a. No smoking section is available. b. Are you tired of cleaning yourself? Let us do it. c. Patent medicines are sold by frightening people.
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Project Work

Randomly collect 40 newspaper headlines from some online newspapers like The New York Times, Washington Post and U.S.A. Today, and report the distribution of different sentence patterns.
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