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Pasco Hernando Community College Tutorial Series What is a Sentence? A sentence is a group of words that has a subject (the doer of the action), a predicate (the action, the verb), and a complete thought (a finished action or idea). In other words, a sentence is a group of words that has somebody or something doing something. There must be a complete thought. What is a Sentence? Bunnies hop. The word bunnies is the subject (the doer of the action) The word hop is the predicate (the action word, the verb) This is a complete sentence since it has a subject, predicate, and completes a thought. What is a Sentence? A sentence can include words that describe. Big, white bunnies hop quickly. The words big and white are words that describe the noun bunnies. Words that describe nouns are called adjectives. The word quickly describes the verb hop. Words that describe verbs are called adverbs. Phrases Blue giraffes fly at midnight. In addition to the subject (giraffes) and predicate (fly), this sentence has an adjective, a word that describes a noun: blue is an adjective. It also has another word group: at midnight. Word groups that do not have a subject and predicate are called phrases. The words at midnight are a phrase. Phrases usually have nouns (a person, place, thing, or idea), but the noun is not a subject since there is no verb to serve as predicate. Phrases Phrases are groups of words that do not have a subject or predicate. They are used to further tell something. Blue giraffes fly at midnight. The phrase at midnight tells when the blue giraffes fly. There are different types of phrases. This is a prepositional phrase because it begins with a preposition. Prepositions are words that tell position: over, under, around, during (position in time), to, from, before after (positions in place), and so on. Phrases Here are some examples of sentences with prepositional phrases: With the mist, the single duck in the pond looked lonely. After the meal, they had chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert. People with a heart condition should not mow the lawn in the heat. Before the storm, the sky was strangely quiet. Phrases In addition to prepositional phrases, there are other phrases: -ing phrases – begin with an –ing word: dancing all night, running in the park. Infinitive phrases – phrases that begin with an infinitive – the to form of a verb such as to sing or to enjoy: to sing loudly, to enjoy a good meal Appositive phrases – word groups that describe something or someone: the flower in the garden, the stars in the sky, the woman in the hall. Phrases While phrases may have nouns and verbs, a phrase cannot be a sentence since they don’t convey a doer (subject) doing something (predicate, verb) and complete a thought. Some aspect of a sentence in missing in all phrases, generally the action and complete thought. A phrase cannot be a sentence. Phrases Here are some examples of how phrases give more information in a sentence: At school, the children played in the yard. (prepositional phrases) Driving on the country road, she saw three deer. (-ing phrase) She had a goal to become a nurse. (infinitive phrase) The cab driver, a man with a moustache, beeped the horn. (appositive phrase) To Review Sentences are word groups that begin with a capital and end with proper end punctuation: period, question mark, or exclamation points. Sentences which are so closely related they seem to belong in one sentence may be separated with a semicolon. Sentences are word groups that have a subject (doer), predicate (action, verb), and a complete thought. A subject must be a noun (person, place, thing, or idea) or a pronoun (a word that can replace a noun – he, she, it, they. A predicate must be a verb – an action word or a state of being word. To Review Sentences can have modifiers which tell more about the subject, verb, or other parts of the sentence: adjectives and adverbs. Phrases, word groups that do not have a subject and predicate, may be used to tell more about something in the sentence. Types of phrases include propositional (begins with a word that shows position), -ing phrases (begins with a phrase that ends in –ing), infinitive phrases (begins with an infinitive [to + verb], and appositive phrases.