Sentences
Subject and Predicates
•The subject tells whom or what thesentence or clause is about, and thepredicate tells something about thesubject.
•Bob, Jill’s uncle, wants to go to the store.
•Subject – Bob, Jill’s uncle
•Predicate – wants to go…
Complement
•Word or word group that completes themeaning of the verb
•Ex: Sandra Cisneros writes poetry andfiction.
Predicate Nominative
•Word or word group that is in the predicateand that identifies the subject or refers to it
•Ex: She is the next speaker.
Predicate adjective
•Is an adjective that’s in the predicate andthat modifies the subject of a sentence ora clause.
•Ex: When she left, Norma looked calm
Object of a verb
•Noun, pronoun or word group thatcompletes the meaning of a verb thatexpresses an action directed toward aperson, place, thing, or an idea.
•Example: I like pugs. Pugs is the objectbecause it is what I like. Like is the verb.
Direct object
•Noun, pronoun, or word group that tellswho or what receives the action of a verbor shows the result of the action. Answerswhom? or what?
•Ex: I took my sister to the movie Mulan.
Indirect Object
•Noun, pronoun, or word group thatappears in sentences containing directobjects. The indirect tells to whom or towhat or for whom or for what…
•Ex: I fed the horses some oats. Oats isthe direct object.
Subject-Verb Agreement
•A verb should always agree with itssubject. If the subject is plural, the verbshould be plural. The verb does not haveto agree with the predicate nominative,though.
•Example: Our favorite fruit is strawberries.
Pronoun and Antecedent
•The antecedent is the noun that thepronoun takes the place of.
•My dog likes its food. Dog is theantecedent.
•You must have an antecedent before youuse the pronoun. The only exception iswhen you use first person point of view.
Simple, Compound, ComplexSentences
•Simple – A sentence with one clause
•Compound – a sentence with twoindependent clauses
•Complex – a sentence with a dependentclause.
•See very short video for examples: