a definition of grammar

lexical and phrasal categories

features of lexical categories
word classes, identification of word classes;
Phrases: The structure of a phrase, the role of a phrase, common phrases in English grammar,
distribution of phrases in English clauses
The basic structure of an English clause
Noun phrases: features of nouns,
Roles of nouns in English clauses
determiners (pre, central and post ), premodification (adjectives and nouns), post modification
(relative clauses, appositives, finite and non-finite clauses);
verbs and verb phrases: verb features, dynamic, stative, finiteness, tense, mood, agreement, aspect,
voice, transitivity; the auxiliary, primary and secondary, functions and features;
adverbs and adverb phrases: features, types including adjuncts and disjuncts, grammatical features
including comparison, grammatical uses; adjectives and adjective clauses: features, structure and
grammatical uses;
prepositions and prepositional phrases: common features, common complements in PPs and
grammatical uses of English PPs;
clauses: basic parts, classification, interrogatives, affirmative, negative, clause patterns, exceptional
clauses such infinitival clauses and clefts, coordination, ellipsis and subordination;
complementation: grammatical complementation, common complements in English grammar,
errors in complementation.
INTRODUCTION

- English grammar entails a study of the principles which govern the formation and interpretation of
words, phrases and sentences.
DEFINITION OF THE TERM WORD
-Word: Refers to the minimum syntactic unit,
- syntax- the way words combine to form sentences.
- It gives an account of the rules for combining words to form sentences and combinations on what words
can be combined and in what order they combine.
- Word- a minimal free form as opposed to bound form i.e. that which can occur alone as an utterance.
E.g. come, woman etc.
- Weakness in that it leaves out function words like articles which occur in relation to others on a
paradigmatic plane e.g. those, that and these.
- A word- a basic and meaningful sentence component that speakers recognize as the smallest speech unit
because it admits a momentary pause before and after it and is marked off in writing by a space on either
side.
- Other linguistics view the ‘word’ as the least element between which other elements can be inserted with
relative freedom and add that there is a potential pause point at the end of each word.
- Another definition of the term word as a unit of a particular meaning with a complex of sound, of a
particular grammatical employment also has a weakness in that other elements e.g. the phrase or clause
meets in this definition but may not be considered as a word e.g. a bright boy.
- In summary, the various definitions suggest that there cannot be a single criteria according to which
the term ‘word’ can be defined. Each of these criteria help us to understand the status of the word
without a single one being comprehensive. What may be a word in one language may be units of a
different kind in another while some units may be simultaneously both words and morphemes.
-
PARTS OF SPEECH
-Traditional Grammar (TG) which was concerned with knowing what elements of sentences belonged
to what category labels formed on the basis of semantics (or meaning) e.g. the noun and the verb or both
meaning and function e.g. adjective, adverb, conjunctions and pronouns.
-The category labels came to be known as word classes or parts of speech. They are sub-divided into the
following –

a) Open word classes- are content words. They include Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs.

b) Closed word classes- express relationships with other words in a sentence. They include Pronouns,
determiners, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Auxiliary verbs and Interjections.

OPEN WORD CLASSES

NOUNS
-Words which name people, places, things, qualities, states or actions e.g. Chris, Kenya, pails, perfection,
liberty, obedience, e.t.c.
Types of nouns
1. Common nouns name general tings or nay group of persons, things or places and are always written
with initial capitals except when the noun occupies sentence initial position e.g. book, mountain,
hotel, hospital.
2. Proper nouns- name particular items or people or places, denoting how one is different from every
other in the same class of things e.g Facing Mount Kenya, Longonot, Serena, The Karen Hospital and
The Hague.
3. Concrete nouns- name anything physical, that which can be touched, seen, heard, smelt or otherwise
perceived by the senses e.g. coward, beggar, lion.
4. Abstract nouns- name qualities, states or actions. They are ideas and therefore cannot be touched,
seen, heard, smelt or otherwise perceived by the senses. E.g. fear, patience, beauty, anxiety.
5. Collective nouns- name groups of individuals as if they were one individual. Though singular in
form, it is plural in meaning e.g. litter, flock, swarm, committee, jury, herd, pride, troop, pack, etc.
They from plurals.
6. Compound nouns- formed by combining more than one independent word from the same or different
word classes to form a single meaningful unit e.g. passer-by, work sheep, white board, mother-in-law.
Compound nouns form plurals, and the plural marker can be on any of the words.
7. Mass nouns- refer to things as a mass or a block as opposed to single items. E.g. soil, water,
[Link] do not from plurals.
8. Countable/count-
9. Uncountable nouns/ non-count-name things which cannot be counted e.g water, tea, flour, bread,
e.t.c They can however be quantified by use of phrasal quantifiers or expressions of quantity e.g. a
kilogram of flour, a litre of water, a loaf of bread.

-Nouns can be inflected so that a change in its spelling shows a change in meaning.
Noun inflection, also called declension shows changes in number, gender and case.
1. Number- the form of a noun that shows whether it is singular or plural i.e. if it refers to one or more
than one.
-Regular way of forming plurals is by adding the suffixes –s or –es. e.g. dish- dishes, bottle- bottles.
-Some of those ending with –y have the –y substituted with –I and –es added to the noun e.g. baby-babies
fly-flies.
2. Gender- indicates sex or the absence of sex. And distinguishes between three major genders namely
Masculine, Feminine and Neuter genders.

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-Masculine- male human beings or animals e.g. boy, son, cock, bull.
-Feminine female human being or animal. E.g. cow, lady, hen, girl and woman.
-Neuter gender objects without sex e.g. food, fence, house or goods.
-English has gender neutral words that refer to a person without denoting his or her gender e.g.
Chairperson, head teacher or police officer.
-Common gender- human beings or animals that may belong to either sex e.g. Cousin, parent, child, fish
or bird.
-Formation of gender words may be done through any of the following methods
i). writing a different word e.g. dog-bitch. Stallion-mare.
ii). Changing the formation e.g. actor-actress, hero-heroine.
iii). Adding a word to the existing word e.g. Billy goat-nanny goat, landlord-landlady.
3. Case- the change in the form of the noun that shows the grammatical relationship of nouns to other
words in the sentence.
-Three cases are identified namely the nominative(function as subjects) , objective (case function as
objects) and possessive(explains possession or ownership in either the plural or singular e.g boy’s or
boys’).
VERBS- words that express action, condition or state of being.
Categories
1. Main Verbs- express an action and function alone in a sentence.
The two main classes of action verbs- transitive and intransitive verbs.
-Transitive verbs requires an object to complete the meaning, action expressed by the verb is directed
towards the person or thing named in the sentence. e.g.
The teacher hit the student.
He bought a car.
-Intransitive verbs have the action confined to the subject, and therefore does not need an object to
complete its meaning. it expresses action without reference to an object. The verb simply helps to make a
statement.
I sat down.
We left yesterday.
-Some verbs can function both transitively and intransitively e.g.
She speaks French. (Transitive)
She speaks fluently. (Intransitive)
Jane answered a question. (Transitive)
Jane answered angrily. (Intransitive)

2. Auxiliary Verbs/ helping verbs help another principal or main verb to complete a meaning.
-The two types of auxiliaries: Primary and Modal auxiliaries.
-There are three primary auxiliaries and their corresponding forms.
1. Be-Is, was, am, were, are, be, being, been
2. Do- do, did, doing, done.
3. Have- have, had, has.
-They are used with main verbs as illustrated below.
1. I am working all day.
2. She has completed all the work.
3. They do not eat bananas.
-The three auxiliaries can however also function as main verbs in sentences as shown below.
1. I have a pen.
2. He is tired.
3. We did the work.
-Modal auxiliaries express a variety of meanings in sentences e.g.
1. Obligation- You should guide the students.

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 You ought to work hard.
2. Certainty- I must go today.
3. Possibility- We might visit you tomorrow.
4. Ability- She can win the race.
5. Permission- You can go.

3. Linking Verbs.
-This is a special kind of intransitive verb. This helps to make a statement, not by expressing an action but
by serving as a link between two words, the most common of them being the different forms of the verb
‘be’ e.g.
God is love
We are surprised.
-They join the subject to the predicate. Other linking verbs include appear, become, feel, grow, look,
prove, seem, remain, turn, smell, stay and sound to mention a few.
The food smells nice.
That watch looks expensive.
-Verbs can be inflected or have their form or spelling changed to vary the range of meaning. This
inflection is also referred to as conjugation.
1. Person to show whether the subject is speaking, spoken to or spoken about/ of.
2. Number to indicate if the subject is singular or plural.
3. Tense to tell whether the subject is involved in a present, past or future action.
4. Mood which tells whether the speaker regards an action as a fact , command or condition.
5. Voice which indicates whether the subject performs an action or is acted upon.
-Verbs have three principal parts. The infinitive which comprises the present and the future, the past tense
and the participle comprising the present and past perfect, the past participle and past perfect. The greater
the challenge in forming these, lies not with regular verbs but with the irregular ones. Examples of both
include the following.

Present Past Participle

Come Came Came
Go Went Gone
Sing Sang Sung
Write Wrote Written
-A discussion on the different verb Inflections or conjugations follows here below, under the various sub-
topics.
1. Tense -Tense refers to the grammaticalized expression of location in time. The term is derived from the
Latin word ‘tempus’ meaning time. It can also be defined as the correspondence between the form of the
verb and the concept of time and has three broad divisions viz
i). Present tense to refer to the action that takes place at the time of an utterance.
ii). Past to express past time reference i.e. an action that took part in the past, with the action or event seen
as having taken place at some time before now.
iii). Futurity which is expressed by the modal auxiliaries ‘will’ and ‘shall’
2. Aspect
-Aspect refers to a grammatical category referring to the way the time of the situation is viewed by the
speaker. It expresses information of the verb as whether the action of that verb is completed or unfinished
and going on, or still in progress. The English language has two aspects namely the progressive and
perfective aspects.
-The progressive aspect denotes a continuing action. The perfective aspect refers to an action that has
been completed and is marked by the word have + -en, as illustrated in the following examples
respectively.
1. He is cleaning his clothes.

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2. He has taken the baby to hospital.
3. Voice
-This is a relational category because it is associated with the positions occupied by the noun phrase
arguments of a verb rather than any inherent properties of the verb itself.
-The system of voice contrasts between the active and passive. It shows whether the subject is active or
passive. The verb is active if the subject performs an action, passive if subject receives an action.
-Voice refers to the way in which a language expresses the relationship between a verb and the noun
phrases associated with it. Two sentences can differ in voice, but have the same basic meaning e.g.
He killed the Cat. (Active)
The Cat was killed by him. (Passive)
-In the passive sentence, the object of the active sentence occupies the subject position while the subject
occupies the object position as the agent introduced using the preposition ‘by’.
-Use of voice gives rise to Active and Passive Sentences. As already noted, the system of voice contrasts
between the active and passive. It shows whether the subject is actively involved in the action stated by
the verb or is passive. The verb is active if the subject performs an action and passive if the subject
receives an action.
-Voice refers to the way in which a language expresses the relationship between a verb and the noun
phrases associated with it. Two sentences can differ in voice, but have the same basic meaning e.g.
They sold the house. (Active)
The house was sold by them. (Passive)
-In the passive sentence, the object of the active sentence occupies the subject position while the subject
occupies the object position as the agent introduced using the preposition ‘by’.

4. Mood
This refers to the grammatical system that expresses the speaker’s relation to a preposition, factual or
otherwise. It is the characteristic of a verb that tells us which of the functions – e.g commands requests
whether factual or non-factual the writer or speaker intends It is therefore the writers or readers altitude in
relation to the proposition in order to communicate with the audience.
-There are different types of moods as listed below.

a). Declarative or Indicative mood

-This refers to statements and is used for actual events to record facts or statements presented as facts. e.g.
-He goes to college tomorrow.
-She is asking a question.
b). Interrogative mood
-This refers to questions e.g.
-Are they leaving today?
-Did you lock the door?
c). Imperative mood.
These refer to commands and requests e.g.
-Keep Quiet!
-Stand there!
d). Subjunctive Mood.
-This expresses non-factual information like wishes, doubts, conditions and imaginations suppositions
and is also used in idiomatic expressions e.g.
-If I were you, I would marry him.
-I will be there, come what may.
-Mood can therefore be attitudinal i.e. has everything to do with the speaker/writer and the intentions.
This is because the mood of a verb shows the manner in which a statement is made.
5. Number and person (If-Previous notes on these two)
-For person, the verb agrees with its subject in person. E.g

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 1st Person I work we work.
2nd Person You work you work.
3rd Person He, she, it works They work
-For number, the verb agrees with its subject in number, i.e whether singular or plural.

ADJECTIVES
-An adjective is a descriptive word which points out, modifies or qualifies a noun or pronoun providing
more information about
-an adjective is a descriptive word which points out, modifies or qualifies a noun or pronoun providing
more information about it, and in the process altering in some way it’s meaning or range.
-Adjectives commonly precede the noun they modify directly, (referred to as attribute) although in some
cases they come after the noun as oppositives (which explains the noun) or as predicative’s e.g.
-He is a brilliant boy.
-He is the boy who is bright.
-The boy, bright and disciplined, won the competition.
-Adjectives form degrees of comparison. They therefore are inflected for degree. They denote variable
qualities. There are three degrees of comparison.
a). The positive degree Names the simple or ordinary quality to refer to a single noun. e.g. good man,
great idea.
b). The comparative degree expresses a higher degree of quality and is used to compare two nouns e.g
greater, smaller, more comfortable.
c). The superlative degree expresses the highest degree of the quality e.g greatest, most comfortable.
-It is used to compare three or more nouns.
-Regular comparative adjectives are formed by adding –er to the positive degree adjective or the word
more before the adjective. Irregular superlative adjectives are formed by adding –est. to the positive
adjective or the more before the adjective.
-Irregular adjectives form degrees of comparison by changing the form of the positive degree adjective
e.g. good, better, best.
Bad, worse, worst.
Little, less, least
At the same time some adjectives cannot be graded i.e. do not form degrees of comparison and retain the
same form in their comparative and superlative degrees e.g.
-Dead Dead Dead
-Round Round Round
-Circular Circular Circular
ADVERBS
-Adverbs are words that modify or qualify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, thus changing their
meanings or range in some way.
e.g he walked briskly.-verb modifier.
I ran very quickly.-adverb modifier.
-The common and simple adverbs alter the meaning of single words in some way, and are of various
types, deriving their names from answers from any one of several questions as explained below.
a). Adverbs of time answer the question ‘when’ something happened or will take place.
b). Adverbs of place tell where something is.
c). Adverbs of manner answer the question ‘how’ or the manner in which something is done. e.g. slowly,
quickly and majestically
d). Adverbs of degree/measure/intensity answer the question ‘how much’ or ‘to what extent’ e.g. very,
quite, extremely and almost.
e). Adverbs of frequency answer the question often’ e.g. yearly, frequently, always or daily.
f). Adverbs of duration show how long an activity has taken place e.g. one hour, a day or a week.
g). Adverbs of clause or purpose answer the question ‘why’.

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-Most adverbs, especially those of manner formed from adjectives are formed by adding the suffix –ly to
the adjective e.g. swift-swiftly, slow-slowly, quick-quickly.
-Some of these adverbs also form degrees of comparison like the adjectives as earlier discussed.

CLOSED WORD CLASSES

PRONOUNS
-The term has its roots in the latin ‘pro-‘which means ‘for’ and ‘nomen’ meaning ‘name’.
-It can be identified as a word that stands for or serves as a subtitle for a noun. Like a noun, a pronoun
names a person, thing or place, but without supplying a name.
-Pronouns are important in the language because they help to avoid unnecessary repetition in sentences.
-They can be classified in some of the following categories or types.
1. Personal pronouns
-These are divided into three:
a). The first person which indicates the speaker.
b).The second person which refers to the person spoken to.
c). The third person to refer to the thing or place talked about.
-There are several personal pronoun declensions to show the different relations as summarized below

First Person
(Masculine and Feminine)
Singular Plural
Nominative I We
Possessive My or Mine Our or ours
Objective Me Us

Second Person (Masculine and Feminine)

Singular Plural
Nomination You You
Possessive Your or yours Your or yours

Objective You You

Third person (Masculine and feminine)

Masculine Singular Feminine Neuter Plural
Nominative He She It They
Possessive His Her or hers Its Their/their
Objective Him Her It Them

2. Demonstrative Pronouns
-They point out the person or thing specifically referred to and are only four in number: this-these, that-
those.
-‘This’ and ‘that’ are singular while ‘these’ and ‘those’ are plural.
-‘This’ and ‘these’ refer to things or people who are close or near the speaker while ‘that’ and ‘those’
refer to things that are far or a distance away from the speaker.
3. Indefinite pronouns
-Indefinite reference means non-specific reference.

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-These pronouns refer to people or things generally as opposed to specifically.
-Examples include somebody, anything, many, both, nobody, everyone, few, each and something to
mention but a few.
4. Relative pronouns
-These act as both pronouns and connective. As a pronoun, they act as a subject or object in the
subordinate part of a sentence e.g. this is the boy who helped me.
-As a connective it joins the subordinate to a more important part of a sentence e.g. I saw a house
that/which John bought.
-Examples include who, which, that, what, whom or the compounds whoever, whatever or whichever.
5. Interrogative Pronouns
-These help to ask a question and can be used to refer to both singular and plural.
-In sentences, they appear in sentence initial position when the sentences are questions e.g
Who killed the cat?
What answers were given to the questions?
Which part of town is the safest?
6. Reflexive Pronouns
-They are formed by adding either the singular suffix-self or the plural –selves to the personal pronouns
as indicated below.
Singular Plural
Myself Ourselves
Yourself Yourselves
Himself, herself, itself themselves
-They are used as objects, to refer to the same person as the object e.g I love myself.

DETERMINERS
-This class of words refers to certain characteristics of nouns, and are therefore said to determine the
nature of the noun in reference. Some of these characteristics include:
a) Specifying a noun as distinct from any other e.g. the
b) Referring to the quantity of the noun
c) Marking possession e.g. my, our
d) Showing distance of the noun from the speaker e.g. that, this
-Determiners take the forms below.
1. Articles
2. Possessives
3. Demonstratives
4. Quantifiers
-In relation to nouns, determiners can be categorized in the following way to indicate their positions.
a) Pre-determiners: All, both, double, half, twice, many, such, what
b) Central determiners:
i) Possessives – my, our,
ii) Articles – the, an, a
iii) Demonstratives – that, this, those, these
iv) Quantifiers – some, any, none, much, enough, every, each, either, neither
v) Which-determiner – what, which, whose
c) Post determiner
i) Cardinal numbers – 1,2,3….
ii) Ordinal numbers – 1st, 2nd, 3rd….f
iii) General ordinals – next, last, often
iv) Quantifiers – many, few, little, several, less, least, more, other, most, same, such

CONJUNCTIONS

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-A conjunction is a joining or linking word and joins words or groups of words. They serve such
functions as addition, providing contrast and indicating consequence, to name a few.
-Conjunctions can be classified as follows.

1. Coordinating Conjunctions
-These join words or groups of words that are coordinate, i.e. of the same order, rank or equal status.
There are three simple coordinating conjunctions: and, or, but. e.g.
-He has a book and a pen.
-She is at home or at the shop.
-He is bright but undisciplined.
-Another group of coordinating conjunctions are always coupled with each other and are referred to as
correlatives. One cannot be used without the other. Examples include:
Both……and, whether….or, neither….nor, so…..as/that, either…….or

2. Subordinating Conjunctions
-These are used to join a subordinate (dependent or minor) clause to a main (independent) clause.
-The subordinating conjunction whether at sentence initial or medical position introduces the clause upon
which it depends for its relevance and force. e.g.
-Although you wronged me, I will help you.
-I will not talk to you unless you apologise.
- A clause is a group of words containing a subject and predicate. If it can function alone to make a
complete statement, it is called a main/independent/principal clause. If it depends on another to
complete its meaning, it is called a subordinate/dependent clause.
- Examples are given below:
a) That was the man who gave me a lift (joined by a relative pronoun).
b) We finally bought the house although it was very expensive. (joined by a subordinating
conjunction).

PREPOSITIONS
-A preposition generally expresses the relation of one thing to another with respect to place or position.
They therefore express the position of a noun or pronoun as well as other relations of time,
instrumentality, manner or purpose. e.g.
-My book is on the table.
-We returned before dark.
-He died through neglect.
-I was counseled with love.
-We continued the discussion for the sake of the argument.

INTERJECTIONS
-These are words used to express sudden feelings or emotions, they can be exclamations of anger, pain
disgust, appreciation, surprise, grief or consternation, and are generally followed by an exclamation mark.
-They are normally independent entities without any grammatical relations to the other parts of the
sentence. Examples include:
Bravo Ouch Yuck
Hurrah Oh Wow

PHRASES

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 - A phrase is a group of words, containing neither a subject, nor a predicate and acts as a single part
of speech. They can be classified according to use as nouns, adjectives or adverbs. Examples are
given below:
i) Noun phrase: To do is to learn.
ii) Adjectival phrase: The lady in black and white is my sister
iii) Adverbial: She rested on the couch.
iv) Verb phrase: She could have been resting at home.
v) Prepositional Phrase: He arrived on time.

CLAUSES
- Clauses are classified according to their use as noun, adjectives and adverbs. A few examples are
given below.
i) Noun clause: I am convinced that I won the race.
ii) Adjectival clause: The man who had ulcers finally recovered.
iii) Adverbial clause: He left because he was angry.

SENTENCES
-Huddleston explains that the various categories in the grammar of any language are closely interrelated,
and one cannot be defined without making reference to another. Words from these categories can only be
combined in a limited number of patterns to form phrases, clauses and sentences.
-Traditional grammar defines the sentence in two ways:
1. Semantically as an expression of a complete thought and as a unit that has a subject and predicate.
2. Syntactically as composed of certain specified elements in certain specified elements in a certain order,
the ultimate ones being words or parts of words.
-The following are different types of sentences.

FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION
-There are four types of sentences as discussed below.
[Link]:
They are also referred to as statements. They state facts, states of being, and use the lexical form of the
verb.
a) He is my father.
b) It is raining.
c) My son lives in Mombasa.
-Declarative sentences can be either Positive and Negative sentences
-Positive sentences are also referred to as affirmative sentences. They express a a positive idea. Negative
sentences use a negator, the most common being ‘not’ to express the opposite idea of the affirmative
sentence.
1. a) They are disciplined students.
b) They are not disciplined.
2. a) Boys are more intelligent than girls.
b) Boys are not more intelligent than girls.
2. Interrogatives:
These are questions which ask something and use special forms of the verb. They can be sub-divided into
the following types.
a)Yes/No questions
-These type of questions can only have ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as their answers.
i) Is she your sister?
ii) Did you remember to clean the bathroom?

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 iv) Has permission been granted?
b)WH- questions
-These provide information on where, what, who, why etc
i) When will the results be announced?
ii) Who left the books on the table?
iii)Why are you at home this time of the day?
iv)What is the time by your watch?
c) Question tags
-Some questions are formed by adding segments to statements, thereby changing them into questions.
i) He is in the office, isn’t he?
ii) They left early, didn’t they?
iii)Students have not paid their full fees, have they?
3. Imperatives:
These can be commands or requests. They are unique in that they need not have an overt subject. It is
implied.
i) Come in.
ii) Close the door.
iii)Write the answers correctly.
4. Exclamatives
-They are used to express strong feelings. An exclamation mark is used at the end of each sentence.
i) Shut up!
ii) Get out of here!

STRUCTURAL CLASSIFICATION OF SENTENCES

-A different criteria of sentence classification can be on the basis of structure: In this regard a sentence
can be either simple, Compound or complex. Each of these sentence types is discussed below.
a). Simple sentence.
-The simple sentence is usually taken as the equivalent of a clause and is basically one with a single noun
phrase and a single verb phrase. e.g.
-They laughed loudly.
-We worked hard.
-The following are functional elements of a sentence.
1. Subject: Can be a noun or a pronoun. E.g. ‘He/John graduated last year.
2. Object: Can also be a noun or pronoun.
-Direct object e.g. ‘The students answered the questions.’
-Indirect Object: e.g.. ‘She sent me a letter’.
3. Verb: Denote action.
4. Complements: Provides information about the subject or object.
- Subject complements describe a noun or pronoun that is the subject of a sentence e.g. ‘Christine, our
lecturer, was absent yesterday.’ ‘Uhuru Kenyatta is the president’.
-Object complements describe the nouns or pronouns that are the objects in the sentence e.g. ‘We elected
him chairman’. ‘They named the newly born Patience’.
-A simple sentence can have the following patterns.
SV He cried.
SVO She bought a house.
SVOO My mother sent me a letter.
SVOC She left him angry.
SVOA He answered the question correctly.
SVA The child cried hysterically.

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-As explained, a sentence is a group of words containing a subject and a predicate. They are therefore
structures from words expressing a complete thought. The way the words combine displays various
patterns as discussed in more examples below.
a) The simple sentence can be made up of a single word or even two words eg.
1) Come!
2) Work.
3) He wept.
4) Jane cried.
- Each of them however has a subject and a predicate; with the first two having an ellipted or implied
subject. These types of sentences therefore have the pattern subject+verb (S+V).
b) Another simple sentence has the pattern subject+Verb+Object (S+V+O) as illustrated below.
1. We answered the questions.
2. John killed a snake.
3. I read a book.
c) Other sentences have the parts Subject+Verb+Complement. (S+V+C).
1. We are tired.
2. Mary became a nurse.
3. She was proud.
d) Another simple sentence pattern has subject+Verb+Indirect object+Direct Object (S+V+Oi+0d)
as shown below.
1. Jane bought me a present.
2. Andrew gave her a ring.
3. She told us a story.
e) The other type of simple sentence combines a subject+verb+object+complement (S+V+O+C) as
exemplified below:
1. We elected him treasurer.
2. You left the door closed.
3. They appointed her class representative.

b). Compound sentence

-It consists of two clauses linked by coordinating conjunctions e.g. ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘or’.
-The sentences are therefore formed as a result of coordinating which involves the linking of units of
equal status in a construction e.g.
1a) Mary plays the guitar. Her brother plays the piano.
1b) Mary plays the guitar and her brother play the Piano.
-The coordinated units are called Conjoins and also be with phrases (e.g. Mary and John) or clausal
(coordination of clauses to give rise to compound sentences).
-Each of the coordinators determines the meaning e.g.
1. Lucy and Catherine went away. (Addition)
2. He is in the office or in the class. (Alternative)
3. She is old but still strong. (Contrast)

c). Complex sentences

-They have two or more clauses linked by at least a subordinating conjunction called a major or
independent clause) is joined to one of lower status (called a subordinate, minor or dependent clause)
which cannot function independently without the main clause; also called a super-ordinate clause.
-Any complex sentence must therefore have at least one main and one subordinate clause.

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-Examples of subordinating conjunctions include since, when, where, if, why, who, how, as long as, as far
as, so that, as soon as, and such that.

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