Writing complete sentences

WHILE terminology is not emphasised in these articles, it is important to have basic knowledge of the parts of speech so that you can communicate about language.

You have studied the eight parts of speech many times over the years.
Here is a quick review: Noun –A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing or idea: writer, Bulawayo, softball and sympathy. A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or another pronoun – she, his, themselves, anyone who and which.

A verb is a word that tells about an action, or a state of being: run, work, think. An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun. Examples: these, huge, green, several, ten and delicious. Adverb –An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Slowly, outside, later, very and quickly. Preposition – A preposition is a word used with a noun or a pronoun to show how the noun or pronoun is related to some other word in the sentence: before, on, in, across, over, to.

Conjunction – A conjunction is a word that connects words or groups of words. Examples –and, but, both, because and however. Interjection. An interjection is a word or group of words that shows feeling or emotion – wow, good, grief, ouch and hooray. Do not take for granted that you know these parts of speech yet there could be complications along the way. Quickly go through those you really understand and thoroughly practice those you are uncomfortable with.

Having revised parts of speech, you can go on and revisit writing complete sentences. A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with either a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point. The parts of a sentence: A sentence that expresses a complete thought always has a subject and a verb. In addition, the sentence may contain other elements such as objects that complete the meaning of the sentence.

The following is a quick review of the parts of a sentence. The complete subject includes all the words that identify the person, place, thing, or idea the sentence is about. The complete predicate includes all the words that tell or ask something about the subject. The excited filmmaker photographed the elephant stampede.

In this sentence: The excited filmmaker is the complete subject, while photographed the elephant stampede is the complete predicate.

The simple subject tells exactly whom or what the sentence is about. It may be one word or a group of words, but it does not include modifiers. The simple predicate, or verb, tells what the subject does, or is. It may be one word or several, but it does not include modifiers. A compound subject has two or more parts connected with a co-ordinating conjunction such as “and”. Note that predicates and objects can also have compound parts.

For example: Henry and Mary were showing the class their pictures. An indirect object is a word or a group of words that tells to whom, or for whom or to what, or for what about the verb. A sentence can have an indirect object only if it has a direct object. The indirect object always comes before the direct object in a sentence. Verbs often have more than one part. They may be made up of a main verb plus one or more auxiliary, or helping verbs. A direct object is a word group of words that tells who or what receives the action of the verb in a sentence.

As a writer, you must be sure to give your readers all the pieces of a sentence. If your sentences do not express complete thoughts, your reader will be confused and frustrated. You will not have communicated the whole picture.

Avoid sentence fragments. A group of words that does not express a complete thought is a sentence fragment. Many sentence fragments lack a subject or a verb, or both.

To correct a fragment, add the missing part or parts. For example: Fragment: Announced their intentions to the crowd. (Who or what announced their intentions? The subject is missing.) Sentence: The election candidates announced their intentions to the crowd. Fragment: A group of students, who had waited all day for the lecturer. (What did the students do? The predicate is missing.) Sentence; A group of students, who had waited all day for the lecturer, discussed the forthcoming topic.

Fragment: Onto the stage. (Both the subject and the predicate are missing.) Sentence – The actor jumped onto the stage. A quick tip: “If you want to locate sentence fragments in your own writing, try reading your work aloud. If a sentence does not sound right, you might discover that the subject or predicate is missing. Asking who or what, will help you decide what to add in order to complete the sentence.

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