 Introduction to sentences

A sentence is a grammatically complete idea. All sentences have a noun or pronoun component called the subject, and a verb part called the predicate. David and Paige explore this division across several different example sentences.

What is a sentence?

Three essential types of sentence are declarative sentences (which are statements), interrogative sentences (which are questions), and imperative sentences (which are orders). Join us as we give examples of each! 

Three types of sentences

An exclamation is a sentence that expresses great emotion! David and Paige covered declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; now they tackle a fourth type of sentence that ends in an exclamation mark. Find out more! 

Exclamations

Types of sentences

A simple sentence contains one independent clause. A compound sentence contains more than one! Put another way: a simple sentence contains a subject and a predicate, but a compound sentence contains more than one subject and more than one predicate. 

Simple and compound sentences

Complex sentences are simple sentences with dependent or subordinate clauses added to them. Paige and Rosie explain how to spot them and use them in this video. 

Complex sentences

Compound-complex sentences are compound sentences with dependent or subordinate clauses added to them. Paige and Rosie explain how to spot and use them. 

Compound-complex sentences

 Subjects and predicates

A subject is the noun or pronoun-based part of a sentence, and a predicate is the verb-based part that the subject performs. Let’s explore how that works in context. 

Subjects and predicates

A subject is the noun phrase that drives the action of a sentence; in the sentence “Jake ate cereal,” Jake is the subject. The direct object is the thing that the subject acts upon, so in that last sentence, “cereal” is the direct object; it’s the thing Ja

Subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects

Phrases and clauses

A phrase is any collection of words that behaves like a part of speech, like a noun phrase (“my brother Stu”), an adjectival phrase (“in a different shade of blue”), or an adverbial phrase (“with elegance and tact”). A clause is any noun phrase plus a verb

An independent clause is a sentence that has a subject and a verb and requires no extra information to understand. Dependent clauses, which start with subordinating conjunctions such as "while," "that," or "unless," give background information but cannot s

Dependent and independent clauses

A relative pronoun is a word like “that” or “which” or “who”, so a relative clause is a clause that begins with a relative pronoun. In the sentence “The dragon who breathed blue fire has retired,” “who breathed blue fire” is a relative clause. Learn more a

關於我們

相關連結

支持我們