Sentences

CLAUSES &
SENTENCES

PAGE 5/7

Most people recognise a sentence as a unit which begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (period), a question mark, or an exclamation mark. Of course, this applies only to written sentences. Sentences have also been defined notionally as units which express a "complete thought", though it is not at all clear what a "complete thought" is.

It is more useful to define a sentence syntactically, as a unit which consists of one or more clauses. According to this definition, the following examples are all sentences:

[1] Paul likes football

[2] You can borrow my pen if you need one

[3] Paul likes football and David likes chess

Sentence [1] is a SIMPLE SENTENCE -- it contains only one clause.

Sentence [2] consists of a matrix clause You can borrow my pen if you need one, and a subordinate clause if you need one. This is called a COMPLEX SENTENCE. A complex sentence is defined as a sentence which contains at least one subordinate clause.

Finally, sentence [3] consists of two clauses which are coordinated with each other. This is a COMPOUND sentence.

By using subordination and coordination, sentences can potentially be infinitely long, but in all cases we can analyse them as one or more clauses.



In the following examples, determine the sentence type from the choices given.

1. We took a taxi home after the theatre Simple
Complex
Compound
2. The policeman was not impressed by your alibi Simple
Complex
Compound
3. As soon as I heard the news, I rushed straight to the police Simple
Complex
Compound
4. Amy watches football on television, but she never goes to a game Simple
Complex
Compound
5. If you give your details to our secretary, we will contact you when we have a vacancy Simple
Complex
Compound

 

 

  

More on Clauses and Sentences...
     

    


copyright The Survey of English Usage 1996-1998
Supported by RingJohn
Online Marketing UK