7.3 Basic Sentence Transformations (Ch. 9)

We have learned seven basic verb valency patterns (predicate structures) in English.

All the sample sentences we have seen all end with a period; they indicate a state of factuality or state of something that is happening in reality. These sentences are indicative.

However, in real life communication, we also give commands or hear commands/orders quite often through imperative sentences.

We also ask questions using interrogative sentences.

Occasionally, we talk about a conditional or imaginative situation through subjunctive sentences.

These are called the four moods of verbs.

In addition, we can also negate a sentence by adding the word 'not' or 'no', the negators.

Despite the surface differences, these sentences share similar deep structures.

In the chapter, we will look at several basic types of transformed sentences and analyze the processes that they have gone through to look different.

1. Indicative/declarative sentences e.g., The government has made a mistake.

2. Negative sentence e.g., The government has not made a mistake.

3. Interrogative sentences

3.1 Yes/No question e.g., Has the government made a mistake?

3.2 Information question e.g., What mistake has the government made?

Who has made a mistake?

4. Passive voice sentence e.g., A mistake has been made (by the government).

5. Imperative sentence e.g., Do not make a mistake. Stop making mistakes.

In creative writing, we can bend the basic sentence structure to create the intended rhetorical effect. Other sentence transformations include but are not limited to the following:

• • It is the government that has made a mistake. (cleft sentence emphasizing the subject 'the government')

  • It is a mistake that the government has made. (cleft sentence emphasizing the object 'a mistake')

  • A mistake, the government has made.

  • Has made a mistake, the government.