The Simple Sentence

Of the three types of sentence structures in English, simple, compound and complex, we are now going to study the simple and the compound sentences.

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.

What Is a Simple Sentence?

We describe the most basic English sentence.

Every English sentence has two basic components:

  • a noun or pronoun in the subject position, and

  • a verb in the verb position.

My wife was crying.
main subject   main verb

If a simple sentence has more than a main subject and a main verb, we call the rest of the sentence the subject complement. It is still a simple sentence.

  • It is more interesting.

  • Rose bushes and flowers are everywhere.

  • There is one special day in each person's life.

The clause which contains the main subject and main verb is called the main (or independent) clause.

While many sentences have a complicated sentence structure, every sentence will always contain at least one main clause. In other words, each sentence will always contain at least one main subject and one main verb.

The Compound Sentence

We describe a 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 clauses.

My wife was crying and I couldn't help her.
main subject 1  main verb 1  and   main subject 2  main verb 2

Below are simple and compound sentences.  1) Underline each main subject once.  2) Underline 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 advice, but she refuses to take it.

Click here for the answers.

Next... the Complex Sentence

Continue with us in our Sentence Structure unit as we study the Complex Sentence.

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