How does sentence structure work

The be verb is also sometimes referred to as a copula or a linking verb. It links the subject, in this case "the movie," to the complement or the predicate of the sentence, in this case, "good. He reads many books in the library. English Sentence Structure The following statements are true about sentences in English: A new sentence begins with a capital letter. H e obtained his degree. A sentence ends with punctuation a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point.

He obtained his degree. A sentence contains a subject that is only given once. Smith he obtained his degree. A sentence contains a verb or a verb phrase. He subject obtained verb his degree object. A sentence must have a complete idea that stands alone. This is also called an independent clause. Simple Sentences A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb, and it may also have an object and modifiers. She completed her literature review.

He organized his sources by theme. They studied APA rules for many hours. Compound Sentences A compound sentence contains at least two independent clauses.

He organized his sources by theme ; then, he updated his reference list. They studied APA rules for many hours , but they realized there was still much to learn. Complex Sentences A complex sentence contains at least one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Note the comma in this sentence because it begins with a dependent clause. Because he organized his sources by theme , it was easier for his readers to follow. The type of sentence is determined by how many clauses, or subject—verb groups, are included in the sentence.

The subject is the person or thing taking an action or being described in the sentence. The verb is the action the subject takes. Different parts of speech can be added to expand the sentence. You can add elements to expand the sentence, such as an adjective e. As with the other sentence types, you can add words or phrases to expand on the sentence. Now that you know how to form sentences in English — based on your new knowledge of the basic English sentence structure, check out our article on Basic English punctuation to learn how to properly punctuate them.

You might not believe this, but you can do it again. You probably can't even explain what all the rules of your native language are , but you know when the rules are being broken. A linguist could tell you that English sentences typically follow the structure place-manner-time.

German uses time-manner-place , which is where your friend's mistake came from. You don't need the technical explanation though. If it does, all good. If not, it triggers an uncomfortable discord. If you're a native English speaker, this is how you learned English sentence structure as a child.

You might have never even thought about it until you read this article. Your brain just figured it out by listening to lots and lots of English. This isn't like learning to do long division. It's programmed deeply into our brains by over , years of evolution. It's part of our natural toolkit. It's simple: stop focussing on the why of sentence structure, and start focussing on the what.

It's not that you should never study the rules. Rules can still be helpful, but I suggest you leave them till later. Start by listening to and reading your target language as much as possible. Your brain will get to work behind the scenes figuring out the patterns.

The content you're taking in should always be a tiny smidgen outside your current level of understanding. If you understand it all perfectly, there's nothing for you to learn.

If you don't understand any of it, you won't learn anything either. After you're comfortable with this, it's time to go back to the grammar books and consult the rules. This will help cement what you've learned, and clean up any lingering mistakes in your understanding.