Parts of a Sentence

                   Notes over Basic Sentence Parts

I. A sentence: is a group of words that has a subject and a verb and it expresses a complete thought.

   A. Subject: the word or group of words that answers the question Who? or What?

   B. Verb: tells what the subject does, what is done to the subject or what the condition of the subject is. Three examples follow:

     1. The San Antonio Spurs won the NBA Championship!

     2. The trophy was given to Tim Duncan.

     3. Their fans have been happy for weeks.

II. Complete subjects and predicates:

   A. The complete subject of a sentence consists of the subject and any words related to the subject.

   B. The complete predicate of a sentence consists of the verb and any words related to it.

III. Hard-to-find subjects:

   A. Requests or commands: The subject may be you understood.

         Clean your room, please.

   B. Questions: The subject often follows the verb.

         Are you going home now?

   C. Sentences beginning with here or there: Here and there are never the subjects of a sentence.

   D. Other inverted order sentences: Sometimes the subject will come after the verb in order to receive greater emphasis.

         In the middle of the football field ran my pet dog, Bucky.

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