Sentence Structure

Owing to the scarcity of synthetic forms the order of words, which is fixed in English, acquires extreme importance. We cannot change the position of different parts of the sentence at will, especially that of the subject and the object. Any modification of the word order should be always justified by either stylistic or communicative considerations.

A simple sentence has one clause, beginning with a noun group called the subject. The subject is the person or thing that the sentence is about. This is followed by a verb group, the predicate, which tells you what the subject is doing, or describes the subject’s situation.

I waited.

The girl screamed.

The verb group may be followed by another group, which is called the object. The object is the person or thing affected by the action or situation.

He opened the car door.

Anything which you put in front of a noun is called a modifier. Anything which you put after a noun is called a qualifier.

Most adjectives are used as modifiers. Nouns are also often used as modifiers.

He was using blue ink.

I like chocolate cake.

I held Sheila’s hand tightly.

Qualifiers can be an adverbial, a relative clause or a ‘to’-infinitive clause.

I spoke to a girl in a dark grey dress.

I was trying to think of a way to stop him.

If you want to say how many things you are talking about, or how much of something there is, you use numbers and quantifiers which come after determiners and before adjectives:

Three tall men came out of the shed.

She drinks lots of coffee.

The Verb Group

The verb group in a clause is used to say what is happening in an action or a situation, what sort of action, process or state you are talking about. You usually put the verb group immediately after the subject. The verb group always includes a main verb.

I waited.

They killed the elephants.

The main verb can have one or two auxiliaries, a modal, or a modal and one or two auxiliaries in front of it.

The car was being repaired.

I would like to ask you a question.

She would have been delighted to see you.

Some verb groups have an object or two objects after them.

He closed the door.

She sends you her love.

If an action or event involves only one person or thing, you mention only the performer of the action (the subject) and the action (the verb).

The girl screamed.

I waited.

Verbs that can occur in such cases are called intransitive verbs. They often refer to:

• existence: appear, die, disappear, occur, happen, vanish, exist;

• the human body: ache, bleed, blush, faint, itch, sleep;

• human noises: cough, cry, laugh, sneeze, snore, moan;

• light, smell, vibration: gleam, stink, vibrate, shine, sparkle;

• position, movement: arrive, fall, sleep, work, come, crawl, flow, go, run, travel, walk.

Many intransitive verbs may have or typically have an adjunct after them (a prepositional phrase beginning with a particular preposition). In this way something affected by the action can be mentioned as the object of a preposition.

Everything you see here belongs to me.

I sympathized with them.

I’m relying on Bill.

Many verbs have more than one meaning, and are transitive in one meaning and intransitive in another meaning (e.g. ‘run’ – move quickly, manage, operate):

The hare runs at enormous speed.

She runs a hotel.

Among these verbs the following could be mentioned: call, fit, lose, manage, miss, move, play, run, show, spread.

A few verbs are normally intransitive, but can be used with an object that is closely related to the verb:

dance (a dance)	laugh (a laugh)	sigh (a sigh)
die (a death)	live (a life)	smile (a smile)
dream (a dream)

Steve smiled his thin, cruel smile.

I once dreamed a very nice dream.

If the action or event involves another person or thing which the action affects, relates to or produces, you put a noun group referring to them after the verb group. This is called the direct object of the verb or clause, and verbs which occur in such situations are called transitive.

He closed the door.

I hate sport.

Some of the women noticed me.

Transitive verbs are often connected with:

• physical objects: build, buy, carry, cover, cut, damage, exchange, find;

• senses: feel, hear, smell, taste, see;

• feelings: admire, dislike, enjoy, hate, like, love, upset;

• facts, ideas: accept, believe, consider, claim, correct, include, justify, mean;

• people: address, blame, comfort, calm, convince, demand, introduce, respect, risk.

A small number of transitive verbs allow you to mention a person who benefits from an action or receives something as a result. They have two objects after them, a direct object and an indirect object. They are sometimes called ditransitive verbs or double-transitive verbs.

After link verbs like be, become, feel, seem the verb group may be followed by a noun group or an adjective called a complement. The complement tells you more about the subject.

She was a doctor.

He was angry.

The verb group, the object, the complement can be followed by an adverb or a prepositional phrase, called an adverbial. The adverbial tells you more about the action or situation, for example how, where and when it happens. Adverbials are also called adjuncts.

They shouted loudly.

She won the competition last week.

The word order in a clause is different when the clause is a statement, a question, or a command.

He speaks English very well.

Did she win at the Olympics?

Stop her.