The Three Basic Sentence Structures of English

Here we deal with simple sentences and compound sentences.

Welcome to our online grammar book.  Today we continue our chapter on Sentence Structure.

To study the previous unit, The Basics of Sentence Structure: Part 1, please click here.

There are three main types of sentence structures in English: simple, compound, and complex.  Every sentence has a simple sentence at its root.

Before you begin the activities, you may want to study the podcast and grammar lesson, He's Always Talking about Grammar, also in our Library.

The Simple Sentence

The Simple Sentence

A simple sentence has one main clause; this main clause has a main subject and a main verb.  It does not have a subordinate (or a dependent) clause.

  •  My wife was crying.

  •  The customs officials were checking her bags.

The Compound Sentence

The Compound Sentence

A compound sentence is created when two or more simple sentences are connected with a coordinator: a, an, but, so.  Thus, a compound sentence has two or more main claues.

  • The customs officers were checking her bags and she was crying.

  • A lot of people were sick and they couldn't stand or sit anymore.

Analyze the structure of the compound sentences below.  Underline each main subject once and each main verb twice.

1.  The two men were fast asleep.  I tried to wake them up but they were too drunk to get up.

2. She loves to give others advice, but she refuses to take it.

To learn more about compound sentences, please go to our unit "Punctuation and the Compound Sentence."

S-V clauses and S-V-O clauses

S-V-O (Subject-Verb-Object)

Now we are going to build upon the basic building blocks of a sentence.

 

In many sentences, the verb is intransitive. That means that the verb does not require an object. We describe this type of phrase as S-V: Subject-Verb.

We are going to add a new sentence pattern: Sentences in which the verb is transitive (which means that it takes an object). The pattern of these sentences is S-V-O: Subject-Verb-Object.

Warm-up 2

Each of the following simple sentences follows the pattern S-V-O. For each sentence, identify the object of the verb. Underline it once. The first one has been done for you.

1.Many Americans watch television to relax.

2. I am having a problem with my landlord.

3. I didn't want to do my homework.

4. I realized how important this teacher was to me.

5.  Samantha wrote a letter to the Russian president Andropov.

6. Watching so much TV has hurt my eyes.

For the answers to these exercises, click here to go to our "Answer Key".   You will need to be a member of our (free) library in order to access the answers.  It's easy to join!

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