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           SENTENCE STRUCTURE


The English sentence structure is primarily divided into to two components: the subject and the predicate. The subject contains all the words in the sentence before the verb. From the verb to the end of the sentence is known as the predicate. The division of the sentence into subject and predicate is a Traditional Grammar notion.
This notion of the traditional grammarians was later refurbished by the modern grammarians into: Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase. Thus, the Noun Phrase (NP) is the equivalent of the subject while the Verb Phrase (VP) serves as an upgraded version of the predicate.
To further explicate on the breakdown of the sentence structure, in a linear order. There are: the subject, verb, complement, object and adjunct. Thus, the SVCOA. It is possible for a sentence to have all these components. However, not having all of these components does not make any sentence incomplete or incomprehensive.
The SVCOA will be explained thus.

The Subject: (S).
 The subject conveniently appear at the initial stage of the English sentence. It's elements are usually nominal words. Nominal words will mean Nouns and words or constituents that functions as nouns. Constituents are other grammatical units such as phrase, clause and word. The subject therefore constitutes the grammatical constituent(s)
that occur(s) before the verb in a sentence. Moreover, the subject is responsible for the verb in the sentence. If it's a person, he or she is the one carrying out the action, responsible for the complement etc. The subject can be a person, a place or a thing. Basically, the subject takes any form or shape that a noun (or noun phrase) can take.

The Verb. (V):
The verb is the backbone of any sentence. There is no sentence without the verb. The verb (V) is constituted of verbs and verb phrases. Also, the verbs here can be in any form such as lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs.

Complement (C):
The complements are usually adjectives and nouns. The nouns that occur here often functions as adjectives, which is why they are categorised as complements in the sentence.

Objects (O):
Objects are nouns or nominal constituents that comes after the verb (V), in a linear order. The object is simply described as the recipient of the action in a sentence. Thus, making them the object of the action in a sentence. Quite the opposite of the subject (the one carrying out the action) in a sentence.
Adjunct (A):
The adjuncts takes the ultimate or eventual position in the English sentence. They take the eventual position in the English simple sentence. However, as adverbials, they can occupy the initial, medial and eventual position in a complex sentence. Adjuncts are usually adverbs that modify the verbs in sentences.



Ayeojuyo, Olamilekan Joshua

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