Building Blocks of English Sentence Structure 

Skill 1: Be Sure the Sentence Has a Subject and a Verb

Every English sentence should have a subject and a verb.

Examples:

"Traffic was backed up for miles on the freeway."

"Engineers are needed for work on the new space program."

"The boy will be going to the movies with a friend."

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Skill 2: Be Careful of Objects of Prepositions

The object of a preposition is a noun, pronoun, gerund, or noun clause following a preposition (e.g., in, at, of, to, by, behind, on).

Examples:

"Tom will take a trip by boat."

"With his friend, he found the movie theater."

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Skill 3: Be Careful of Appositives

An appositive is a noun that renames another noun and is often set off by commas.

Examples:

"Sally, the best student in the class, got an A on the exam."

"George, my friend, is attending the lecture."

"An excellent basketball player, Sarah rarely misses her basketball shots."

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Skill 4: Be Careful of Present Participles

A present participle is the -ing form of a verb.

It can function as part of a verb (with a form of "be") or as an adjective.

Examples:

"The man is talking to his friend."

"The man talking to his friend has a beard."

"The child playing in the yard is my son."

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Skill 5: Be Careful of Past Participles

Past participle can be either an adjective or a part of a verb. The past participle is the form of the verb that appears with have or be. It often ends in -ed, but there are also many irregular past participles in English.

Examples:

Part of the verb:

The family has purchased a television

The poem was written by Paul.

Adjective:

The  television purchased yesterday was expensive.

The poem written by Paul appeared in the magazine.

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Skill 6: Use Coordinate Connectors Correctly

When you have two clauses in an English sentence, you must connect the two clauses cor- rectly. One way to connect two clauses is to use and, but, or, so, or get between the clauses.

Examples:

Tom is singing, and Paul is dancing. 

Tom is tall, but Paul is short.  

Tom must write the letter, or Paul will do it. 

Tom told ajoke, so Paul laughed. 

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Skill 7: Use Adverb Time and Cause Connectors Correctly

Sentences with adverb clauses have two basic patterns in English.

S     V    adverb connector   S   V

adverb connector  S   V,      S   V

Examples:

I will sign the check before you leave.

Before you leave, I will sign the check.

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Skill 8: Use Other Adverb Connectors Correctly

Adverb clauses can express the ideas of time and cause, adverb clauses can also express a number of other ideas, such as contrast, condition, manner, and place. Because these clauses are adverb clauses, they have the same structure as the time and cause clauses.

Examples:

I will leave at 7:00 ifI am ready.

Although I was late, I managed to catch the train.

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