The Sentence

A. What is a sentence?
A sentence is a group of words with four
characteristics:
1. All sentences begins with a capital letters
2. All sentences end with a period or an
exclamation point or a question mark.
3. A sentence contains one clause.
A sentence contains one subject and one
predicate.

 4. All sentences follow a standard word

order. These are correct sentences:
Example:
The dog bit the man.
The man bit the dog.

B. What is a clause?
A clause is a group of words that contains a
subject and a predicate.
1. A clause tells us that someone or
something about the subject and predicate.
A subject is usually a noun or pronoun.
A predicate always contains a verb.

 2. A clause may be a sentence:

Example:
Mary sings.
3. A clause may be a part of a sentence:
Ex:
Mary sings and Bill plays the guitar.
4. Some examples of clauses:

SUBJECT PREDICATE
Someone/Something is/was/does/did
something.
George is a boy.
He loves to eat.
What he loves to eat is pizza.
George and his friends might have pizza for
lunch.
Pizza is not served at George's house.

C. What is a predicate verb?

3 characteristics of Predicate Verb:
1. A predicate verb has a subject.
2. A predicate verb has voice (active or
passive).
3. A predicate verb has tense (past or
present) or a modal.

 These are the predicate verbs in the

clauses above:
is (present tense, active voice)
loves (present tense, active voice)
is (present tense, active voice)
might have (modal, active voice)
is not served (present tense, passive
voice)

D. What is a dependent clause?

A dependent clause is a group of
words that contains a subject and
predicate
. A dependent clause begins with a
subordinator.
Dependent clauses are also called
subordinate clauses.

 1. A dependent clause cannot be a

sentence by itself.
A dependent clause that is not part of a
sentence is a fragment.
2. A dependent clause can only be part of
a sentence. Every sentence must have at
least one independent clause.

Three basic types of Dependent

clauses:
SUBORDINATOR + SUBJECT +
PREDICATE
that his bike is beautiful
which he got for Christmas
because his bike had a flat tire

Other dependent clauses look like this :

SUBORDINATOR + PREDICATE
who loves his bike
whatever is on his plate
which is painted red and blue

The subordinator is also the subject in these

clauses.

4. Subordinators can sometimes be omitted,

so dependent clauses sometimes look like
independent clauses (Subject + Predicate).
Object relative pronouns can usually be
omitted.
Example:
The bike which he got for Christmas is
beautiful.
The bike he got for Christmas is beautiful.

 The noun clause can be omitted if it is not

the first word in a sentence.
He knows that his bike is beautiful.
He knows his bike is beautiful.

 5. Below are some examples of sentences:

George is a boy who loves his bike.
Georges bike, which is painted red and blue,
is new.
George eats whatever is on his plate.

Thank You
&

God Bless