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Noun/Pronoun Verb: (On Board) Basic Sentence Patterns in English
Noun/Pronoun Verb: (On Board) Basic Sentence Patterns in English
Every sentence in English (except interjections) has a subject and a verb. The subject is
either a noun or a pronoun. The verb is either an action verb or a helping verb.
Basic Sentences
SUBJECT PREDICATE
Noun/Pronoun Verb
Michelle swims.
They are laughing.
Noun/Pronoun Verb Noun/Pronoun
Their teacher is holding a book.
Renukha is eating ice cream.
Noun/Pronoun Verb Adjective
Mary Is smart
He Is quite tall.
Noun/Pronoun Verb Prepositional Phrase
Tzzy Jiun studied for the SPM test.
The dog waited for its owner yesterday.
Noun/Pronoun Verb Adverb
Que Xi swims daily
We are walking slowly
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SIMPLE, COMPOUND AND COMPLEX SENTENCES
Experienced writers use a variety of sentences to make their writing interesting and lively.
Too many simple sentences, for example, will sound choppy and immature while too many
long sentences will be difficult to read and hard to understand.
This page contains definitions of simple, compound, and complex sentences with many simple
examples. The purpose of these examples is to help the ESL/EFL learner to identify sentence
basics including identification of sentences in the short quizzes that follow. After that, it
will be possible to analyze more complex sentences varieties.
SIMPLE SENTENCE
A simple sentence, also called an independent clause, contains a subject and a verb, and it
expresses a complete thought. In the following simple sentences, subjects are in yellow, and
verbs are in green.
The three examples above are all simple sentences. Note that sentence B contains a
compound subject, and sentence C contains a compound verb. Simple sentences, therefore,
contain a subject and verb and express a complete thought, but they can also contain a
compound subjects or verbs.
COMPOUND SENTENCE
The above three sentences are compound sentences. Each sentence contains two
independent clauses, and they are joined by a coordinator with a comma preceding it. Note
how the conscious use of coordinators can change the relationship between the clauses.
Sentences B and C, for example, are identical except for the coordinators. In sentence B,
which action occurred first? Obviously, "Alejandro played football" first, and as a
consequence, "Maria went shopping. In sentence C,
"Maria went shopping" first. In sentence C, "Alejandro played football" because, possibly, he
didn't have anything else to do, for or because "Maria went shopping." How can the use of
other coordinators change the relationship between the two clauses? What implications
would the use of "yet" or "but" have on the meaning of the sentence?
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COMBINING
COMPLEX SENTENCES
SENTENCE
A complex
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simple sentences independent
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sentences by important
is an one or more dependent
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and transforming
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subjects are in yellow, verbs are in green, and the subordinators and their commas (when
required)
Simple are in red.
Sentence -> Complex Sentence
Complex
Note SentenceDExercise
that sentences and E are the same except sentence D begins with the dependent
clause which is followed by a comma, and sentence E begins with the independent clause
which contains
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paragraphs.
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The fans wait in line to buy tickets.
The fans often pay more than $60 dollars for a ticket.
answer key-
Here are two possible paragraph answers to this exercise. Compare your answer with these examples.
Remember that there is more than one possible correct answer for each sentence.
Peter is a famous baseball player. He lives in a beautiful house in Miami. He often flies around the
United States to play away games. Both fans and coaches love his excellent pitching abilities. Every
week he plays home games in Glover Stadium which is usually sold out. Glover Stadium is an old
stadium without enough seats for all the fans. Fans wait in line to buy the tickets which often cost
more than $60. Even though the fans are unhappy about ticket prices, they love Peter.
Peter is a famous baseball player who lives in a beautiful house in Miami. He often flies to different
cities around the United States to play away games. His excellent pitching is loved by both fans and
coaches. Old Glover Stadium doesn't have enough seats for the fans who want to come to home
games. Even though they are unhappy about ticket prices, the wait in line and pay more than $60 to
see Peter play.
If you continually use short sentences in your writing, your paragraphs will sound
very choppy. Read this paragraph and notice how it sounds.
It was my birthday. I ask for a bike. My parents bought me a red bike. It had
white strips on the fenders. I like to ride my bike everywhere. I like to ride on
smooth payment best. I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk. People walk on
the side walk. If I have time. I ride on the bike trail in the park.
To make your writing more interesting, you can combine the short sentences to make
longer sentences. The longer sentences can be either compound or complex. Read
the revised paragraph below. Notice how the paragraph flows much better with
longer sentences.
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It was my birthday, so I ask for a bike. My parents bought me a red bike,
and it had white strips on the fenders. I like to ride my bike everywhere, but I like
to ride on smooth payment best. I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk
because people walk on the sidewalk. Whenever I have time, I ride on the bike
trail in the park.
Did you notice the kind of changes that were made in the second paragraph?
Conjunctions and commas were used to connect the sentences.
When you make a compound sentence you are joining two or more simple sentences
together with a conjunction and a comma. If you took the conjunction away, the
sentences would be complete and they would still make sense. Look at this example:
What is a clause? A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb.
Sometimes clauses are complete short sentences, but in a complex sentence at least
one of them will depend on the conjunction for its meaning. This means if you take
the conjunction away, the sentence won't divide into complete units that make sense
by themselves. Look at these examples:
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Complex sentence: I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk because
people walk on the sidewalk.
Complex sentence: Whenever I have time, I ride on the bike trail in the
park.
Changing sentences
Can you join these sentences with an interesting connective and then change it around
using a different one? Write both sentences in your book.
Examples:
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4. Dad lit the fire.
5. We walked down the road.
Task 2: Use the following words to give more information about someone or something:
Examples:
The girl walked into the classroom.
The girl, who had long red hair, walked swiftly into the classroom.
The girl, whose red hair sparkled as the light caught it, walked slowly and confidently into the
classroom.
The girl walked into the classroom, which by now was filled with children.
The girl, who was now feeling extremely nervous, walked steadily into the classroom, which by now
was filled with people, who were busily getting ready for the start of the day.
The girl walked into the classroom that had been allocated to her on arrival at the school earlier this
morning.
SENTENCE COMBINING
Let's consider an example. Start by looking at this list of eight short (and repetitive) sentences:
Now try combining those sentences into three, two, or even just one clear and coherent sentence: in
the process of combining, omit repetitive words and phrases (such as "She was") but keep all of the
original details.
• Our Latin teacher in high school was a tiny woman. She was swarthy and birdlike. She had
dark, sparkling eyes and graying hair.
• When we were in high school, our Latin teacher was a tiny woman. She was swarthy and
birdlike, with dark, sparkling eyes and graying hair.
• Our high school Latin teacher was a swarthy, birdlike woman. She was tiny, with dark,
sparkling eyes and graying hair.
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• Our Latin teacher in high school was a birdlike woman, tiny and swarthy, with graying hair
and dark, sparkling eyes.
TASK 1: Combine the following sentences into a single clear sentence using one adjective or adverb.
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 1: It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was high. The trees waved and
crashed against the barn. I looked around me and saw that I wasn’t alone. A man stood
behind me. He was tall. He was mean. He had a knife. It was shining in the moonlight. It
was long and slender. He reached back. He stabbed with it. I jumped out of the way. I ran
away.
_______________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Use the joining words to match the beginning and end of the sentence together. Write the sentences
into your books. You can only use each word once. Remember that there is a capital letter at the
beginning and a full stop at the end.
Joining Sentences
9
7. The whole class was in big trouble because
Answer key:
TASK 1
TASK 2
1. It was a dark and stormy night and the wind was high. The trees waved and crashed against
the barn. I looked and around me and saw that I wasn’t alone. A tall and mean man, who had a
knife stood behind me. The knife, which was shining in the moonlight, was long and slender. He
reached back and stabbed with it. I jumped out of the way and I ran away.
2. Tom prefers baseball because it seems more interesting to him. He thinks baseball is a
gentleman’s sport and more structured than basketball. Since baseball requires athletes to use
more skill than aggression when playing, he respects baseball players the most because of this.
Example:
2. Aim: Use the following words to give more information about someone or something:
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who whose which that
Example:
The girl walked into the classroom.
The girl, who had long red hair, walked swiftly into the classroom.
The girl, whose red hair sparkled as the light caught it, walked slowly and confidently into the
classroom.
The girl walked into the classroom, which by now was filled with children.
The girl, who was now feeling extremely nervous, walked steadily into the classroom, which by now
was filled with people, who were busily getting ready for the start of the day.
The girl walked into the classroom that had been allocated to her on arrival at the school earlier this
morning.
Aim: Use the following words to give more information about someone or something:
Example:
The girl walked into the classroom.
As the girl, with flaming red hair and freckles on her nose, walked into the classroom, all heads turned
to stare at her.
The girl, who was feeling very nervous by now, walked into the classroom, although she really felt
like bolting out of the door.
Since this was her first day at her new school, the girl thrust back her shoulders confidently and
walked into the classroom, which by now was packed with children.
Example:
The girl walked into the classroom.
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As the girl, with flaming red hair and freckles on her nose, walked into the classroom, all heads turned
to stare at her.
SENTENCE COMBINING
A.
This exercise will introduce you to sentence combining--that is, organizing sets of short, choppy
sentences into longer, more effective ones. However, the goal of sentence combining is not to produce
longer sentences but rather to develop more effective sentences--and to help you become a more
versatile writer.
Sentence combining calls on you to experiment with different methods of putting words together.
Because there are countless ways to build sentences, your goal is not to find the one "correct"
combination but to consider different arrangements before you decide which one is the most effective.
Let's consider an example. Start by looking at this list of eight short (and repetitive) sentences:
Now try combining those sentences into three, two, or even just one clear and coherent sentence: in
the process of combining, omit repetitive words and phrases (such as "She was") but keep all of the
original details.
Have you succeeded in combining the sentences? If so, compare your work with these sample
combinations:
• Our Latin teacher in high school was a tiny woman. She was swarthy and birdlike. She had
dark, sparkling eyes and graying hair.
• When we were in high school, our Latin teacher was a tiny woman. She was swarthy and
birdlike, with dark, sparkling eyes and graying hair.
• Our high school Latin teacher was a swarthy, birdlike woman. She was tiny, with dark,
sparkling eyes and graying hair.
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• Our Latin teacher in high school was a birdlike woman, tiny and swarthy, with graying hair
and dark, sparkling eyes.
B.
• Combine the sentences in each set into a single clear sentence containing at least one
adjective or adverb (or both). Omit words that are needlessly repeated, but don't leave out any
important details.
After you have completed the exercise, compare your new sentences with the original sentences at the
bottom of this page. Keep in mind that many combinations are possible, and in some cases you may
prefer your own sentences to the original versions.
SAMPLE COMBINATIONS:
C.
Combine the sentences in each set into a single clear sentence containing at least one prepositional
phrase. Omit words that are needlessly repeated, but don't leave out any important details. After you
have completed the exercise, compare your new sentences with the original sentences at the bottom of
this page. Keep in mind that many combinations are possible, and in some cases you may prefer your
own sentences to the original versions.
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1. A mouse darted.
It darted across the salad bar.
This happened during the luncheon.
6. Lucy played.
She was behind the sofa.
She was with her friend.
Her friend was imaginary.
They played for hours.
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My perch was in the press box.
The press box was cramped.
The press box was above the stands.
The stands were wooden.
These were the stands of the baseball park.
The baseball park was in Lumberton, North Carolina.
SAMPLE COMBINATIONS:
Improving Sentences
These sentences are really boring and need to be made more interesting!
Think about all the ways we have been learning to improve our sentences in class:
Joining Sentences
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Use the joining words to match the beginning and end of the sentence together. Write
the sentences into your books. You can only use each word once. Remember that there
is a capital letter at the beginning and a full stop at the end.
Joining Sentences
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