English Sentence Structure -

English Grammar Lesson

To begin, a question:
What’s the simplest sentence you can make in
English?
1. How to Build a Simple Sentence
What does every sentence in English need?

Every sentence needs a verb.

The simplest sentence is an imperative, which means when you tell someone to do
something.

For example:

• Run!
• Leave!
• Work!

These are the simplest complete sentences you can make in English; they’re just one
word long!
Of course, most sentences are longer than this.

Most sentences that are longer than one word also need a noun
before the verb. This noun is the subject.

With a subject plus a verb, you can make simple sentences like:

• He runs.
• She left.
• They’re working.

You can see that the verb can be in different forms: past or present,
simple or continuous. The verb form doesn’t change the structure of
the sentence. These are all the same: subject plus verb.

Of course, these sentences aren’t very interesting. You can’t say

much with short sentences like these.
Let’s add a little more information. Take the sentence he runs. What could
you add after runs to make it longer?

You could add an adverb of place:

He runs around the park.

You could add an adverb of time:

He runs every morning.

You could add both:

He runs around the park every morning.

You could add an adverb of manner:

He runs slowly.
You can see that you have many choices, but your choices are
also limited. In this case, you can use different kinds of
adverbs, but there are also things you can’t use.

For example, you can’t use another verb after run, you can’t
use an adjective, and you can’t use a noun, or at least you
can’t use a noun with this meaning of run.