Skip to main content
           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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CHIKE: "Boo of the Booless", and a fan's 2 cents about his music

Chike is the official boo of the booless , and here is a fan's 2 cents about him. 💝💝💝💝💝    Chike was born January 28, 1993. (My birth year too) he was born and raised in Lagos a.k.a Lasgidi, kogba agidi . The guy has been singing since 2009, guys! He started while in secondary school when he came out top as the best vocalist. Subsequently, he went on to MTN Project Fame in 2015, The Voice Nigeria , and even ventured into acting. Chike has been around for 11 years now. Boo of the booless. Chike has always been the "ladies’ man" since his project fame days. His unique genre of music further distinguished him from other Nigerian artists though. You know all those kinds of John Legend , Ric Hassani , Bez and Johnny Drille music that ladies like? Yeah, that is the type that baba (Chike) is using to catch these babes o. O ye boyfriends, shine your eyes as your dey jam Chike song o!👀👀 The way Chike sings will convince ( and not confuse you ) one that he knows a lot a

A Critical Analysis of "A Sandal on the Head" by Kwesi Brew

A SANDAL ON THE HEAD (Analysis) This poem has the lyrical characteristics of African orality. It is not written in the regular English poet’s literal form of writing. Kwesi Brew employed the use of proverbs and African adage to paint the poem with beautiful and colourful imagery. The features are metaphors embedded with African proverbs. Examples of these imagery are evident in: The broken cannot be made whole! The strong had sheltered in their strength The swift had sought life in their speed, The crippled and the tired heaped out of the way These statements are more than witty statements. Moreover, what this excerpt also mean is that things are seemingly not going the proper way. Perhaps the economy or political structure is defunct. The broken cannot be made whole will mean that things have been destroyed beyond reparation. That things have totally fallen apart. As a result of this hardship, only the strong, favoured, fortunate and opportune are able to endur

Word Formation and Advertisements

Words are added to the English dictionary constantly, everyday, due to writers giving themselves freedom to capture their thoughts; thus, they take liberty in creating new words. This is due to the fact that the English language is the most spoken language in the world. As a common language used among humans, therefore it calls for users to make words to convey or reveal their meaning so as to express themselves evenly. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society  (as cited in Salzmann, 1993, p. 153). Thus, one can sense the importance why new words need to be created. This attitude easily gives English the advantage to have more lexicons than some other languages. There are four different levels of linguistics, and these levels are: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The branch