‘Sentence Structure (Word Order Rules) sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought and contains a subject and a predicate. The most basic sentence structure consists of only one clause. However, many sentences have one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses. The standard order of words in an English sentence is subject + verb + object. While this sounds simple, it may be dificult to identity the subject(s), verb(s), and obect(s), depending on the structure and complexity of the sentence. There are four types of sentence structure: (1) simple, (2) compound, (3) complex. and (4) compaund-complex. ‘Types of sentence structures Sentence structure type Sentence parts Example Simple Sentence Independent clause Like animals. ‘Compound Sentence Independent clause + coordinating conjunction (or semicolon) + independent clause ike animals, but Molly prefers plants. Complex Sentence Independent clause + subordinating conjunction (or relative pronoun) + dependent clause I lke animals because they are cute. ‘Compound-Complex Sentence Independent clause + subordinating conjunction + dependent clause + coordinating conjunction + independent clause like animals because they are cute, so | work at an animal shelter.Table of Contents 1 Simple Sentence Structure 2 ‘Compound Sentence Structure 3. Complex Sentence Structure 4 Compound-Complex Sentence Structure