The ESL HELP! Desk

Today's Grammar HELP! Handbook activities begin our chapter, "Sentence Structure".  It is primarily for beginners and lower-intermediate learners of English. This is not an audio lesson.

This is the first lesson in our unit on Sentence Structure. The goals of this lesson are:

1) to understand some basic terms, such as "sentence structure", "syntax", "main subject" and "main verb", and

2) to be able to identify these within a sentence.

 

What Is Sentence Structure?  Part 1

 

What Is Sentence Structure?

In English, the order of the words within each sentence is very important.  Sentence structure refers to the order in which words appear in a sentence. Sentence structure is also known as syntax: the way in which words are put together.

Every normal sentence in written English has a main clause, which consists of a main subject and a main verb.

English has four types of sentences:

• The declarative statement

• the exclamatory statement

• the command

• the question, each with its own structure (or syntax)

We begin with declarative sentences.

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

Warmup 1

 

Let's begin with a Warm-up Exercise.

We are going to identify the main subject and main verb of each sentence in the exercise.

For each sentence below, underline the main subject once and write S beneath it.  We’ve begun this; you complete it.   You may print this page and write your answers on paper (but please recycle the paper afterward.)

1. My father's mother and two of his sisters left Odessa for America.   His third sister stayed
                                S                                V                                                 S          V
      in Odessa with us.

2.   When I was younger and living in Russia, my father had many problems with me.

3.  The lady who caught the bouquet of flowers was the next lady to get married.

You can check your answers to the introductory exercises here.

Next...  What Is Sentence Structure?  Part 2

Next

Click here to continue with What Is Sentence Structure? Introduction, Part 2.

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.

Now from the ESL Help Desk, thanks for dropping by this week and remember to email us your questions about English grammar by sending us your comments through our blog.

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