Transcript Sentence Types

The Sentence
As much as any sane person
needs to know…
Terms we’ll need
• Subject
• Verb
• Clause
• Independent
• Dependent
Simple sentence
A simple sentence has one independent
clause and no dependent clauses:

The student yawned.
Although a simple sentence cannot
have a dependent clause, it can have
modifiers:
•The tall student sitting in the back in
my Pre-AP English class yawned loudly.
The basic sentence is ‘The student
yawned’. The other words are modifiers
- they are descriptive words.
• A simple sentence contains only one
independent clause, but it can have
more than one subject or verb:
• TWO SUBJECTS: The student and his
friend yawned.
• TWO VERBS : The student yawned
and fell asleep.
Compound Subjects and Compound
Verbs
• TWO SUBJECTS: The student and his
friend yawned.
• TWO VERBS : The student yawned
and fell asleep.
A sentence with all these elements will be long,
but it is still simple because it contains only one
independent clause:
The tall student sitting in the back in my
Pre-AP English class and his friend
yawned loudly and fell asleep.
Can you identify the ‘real’ sentence and
the modifiers?
Compound Verbs
The tall student sitting in the back in my PreAP English class and his friend yawned
loudly and fell asleep.
Compound sentence
A compound sentence has two or more
independent clauses joined by a coordinating
conjunction:
INDEPENDENT CLAUSE, COORDINATING CONJUNCTION INDEPENDENT CLAUSE
• Katja got a new house, so he has to move.
• I have a lot of homework, but I am not going
to study tonight.
Notice the difference between a simple sentence
with a compound verb and a compound sentence
with two clauses:
SIMPLE
My house guests returned from a
long day of shopping and went
straight to bed.
COMPOUND My house guests returned home
from a long day of shopping, and
we decided to stay at home
instead of going out.
What is the difference?
Compound sentence with
coordinating conjunctions
Most compound sentences are formed with a
coordinating conjunction: and, or, but,
so, for, nor, yet. The last three occur
almost exclusively in writing, so they add a
level of formality:
• The experiment was deemed successful,
yet our results were unsatisfactory.
• The students were unhappy with their
professor, for he often wasted their time in
class.
Coordinating Conjunctions
For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So
Complex sentence
A complex sentence has an independent
clause with one or more dependent
clauses (independent clauses are in
italics):
• Since we got to the concert late, we had to
make our way to our seats in the dark.
• We left class early so that we could attend
a special lecture.
Complex sentences should be
punctuated in one of two ways:
 INDEPENDENT CLAUSE dependent clause (no
comma)
We left class early so that we could attend a
special lecture.
Dependent clause, INDEPENDENT CLAUSE (comma)
So that we could attend a special lecture, we
left class early.
Comparing compound and
complex sentences
• To provide interest, variety, and coherence
• compound sentences differ from complex
sentences in one important way: In a
compound sentence, both clauses have
equal importance; in a complex sentence,
the independent clause is more important.
Compare these sentences
• COMPOUND John was tired, but he
finished his homework.
• COMPLEX Although John was tired, he
finished his homework.
• In the first sentence, the writer is
communicating that both clauses are
equally important. In the second sentence,
the writer is saying that the subordinate
clause ("John was tired") is less important
than the independent clause ("he finished
his homework").
Long, rambling sentences
Writing that has too many strings of
independent clauses joined by coordinating
conjunctions can be tiresome and
frustrating for the reader.
These long rambling sentences leave the
reader out of breath and wondering which
information is important.
Long rambling sentences are also perceived
as informal because they duplicate
spoken language
Look at this paragraph with many independent
clauses joined with coordinating conjunctions:
I went home, but my roommate wasn't there,
so I started to cook dinner, but my roommate
came in and saw me trying to cook her favorite
recipe, but I didn't really know how to make it
well, and she got really angry, so I stopped
cooking, and she made dinner for us, and then
everything was all right.
The independent clauses are underlined, and the
coordinating conjunctions are in bold:
I went home, but my roommate wasn't there,
so I started to cook dinner, but my roommate
came in and saw me trying to cook her favorite
recipe, but I didn't really know how to make it
well, and she got really angry, so I stopped
cooking, and she made dinner for us, and
then everything was all right.
This is better! Notice how it makes use of a variety
of sentence structures.
When I went home, my roommate wasn't
there, so I started to cook dinner. Then, my
roommate came in and saw me trying to cook
her favorite recipe even though I didn't know
how to make it well. I stopped cooking
because she got really angry. In the end, she
made dinner for us, and everything was all
right.