Sentence, Clause, Phrase

Introduction to Sentences

(a) A sentence is a group of words that makes complete sense. It does not depend upon anything else to make its meaning clear.

For example:

Raju hit the ball.

Here, the individual words ‘Raju’ ‘hit’ ‘the’ ‘ball’ combine to form a group that has a particular meaning—someone named Raju has hit the ball.

This brings us to the second important point about a sentence.

(b) A sentence consists of two parts—subject and predicate. The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing or idea being talked about. The predicate consists of a word or words which show what is being talked about the person, place, thing or idea.

Let us take the previous example:

[Raju] [hit the ball.]

Here, ‘Raju’ is the subject. He is the topic of the sentence. The remaining part of the sentence forms the predicate as it contains all the information regarding the topic (i.e., Raju).

(a) A sentence is a group of words that makes complete sense. It does not depend upon anything else to make its meaning clear.

For example:

Raju hit the ball.

Here, the individual words ‘Raju’ ‘hit’ ‘the’ ‘ball’ combine to form a group that has a particular meaning—someone named Raju has hit the ball.

This brings us to the second important point about a sentence.

(b) A sentence consists of two parts—subject and predicate. The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing or idea being talked about. The predicate consists of a word or words which show what is being talked about the person, place, thing or idea.

Let us take the previous example:

[Raju] [hit the ball.]

Here, ‘Raju’ is the subject. He is the topic of the sentence. The remaining part of the sentence forms the predicate as it contains all the information regarding the topic (i.e., Raju).

The Subject of a Sentence

The subject of a sentence is a noun, pronoun or a group of words that acts as a noun.

A noun, as you know, is a person, place, thing or idea.

For example:

Geeta moved the table. (‘Geeta’ is the name of a person and ‘table’ is a thing.) Paris is in France. (‘Paris’ and ‘France’ are names of places.) Freedom is good. (‘Freedom’ is an idea.)

A pronoun is used in place of a noun.

For example:

She moved the table. It is in France. It is good. (‘She’ and ‘it’ are examples of pronouns.)

Sometimes a group of words can also act as the noun.

For example:

To play professional tennis is my ambition. (Here, ‘to play professional tennis’ is a group of words that acts as a noun. It is the subject of the sentence.)

The Predicate of a Sentence

The predicate of a sentence is composed of a verb, and either an object or a complement.

A verb, as you know, describes the action performed by its subject or the state of being of its subject.

For example:

Balram kicked the football. (Here, ‘kicked’ is the verb that shows the action performed by the subject ‘Balram’.) Prachi seems happy. (Here, ‘seems’ is the verb that shows the state of being of the subject ‘Prachi’.)

In the last two examples, the predicate is composed of different elements.

In the first case, the predicate is composed of the verb and the object. What is this object? The object is the person or thing upon which the action is performed by the subject.

So,

Balram = Subject Kicked the football = Predicate

Another way to express this is,

Balram = Subject Kicked = Verb The football = Object

[Note: Like the subject,the object can be a noun, a pronoun or a group of words acting as a noun.]

In the second case, the predicate is composed of the verb and the complement. What is this complement? The complement gives more information about the subject.

So,

Prachi = Subject Seems happy = Predicate

Another way of writing this would be,

Prachi = Subject Seems = Verb Happy = Complement

[Note: The complement can be a noun, an adjective or a group of words acting as a noun or an adjective.]

 

The Subject of a Sentence

The subject of a sentence is …