My English Tutor

A  sentence is a group of words that makes a complete sense.   

eg: We often plan tour programmes for a refreshment

 In the above example  we can see seven words  without  ‘ a ‘ and it is grouped in a particular order  for making a complete sense.

That means only a group of words cannot make a sense, without a particular order of those words.

 So the order,  otherwise known as sentence structure,  is what that matters.

Before studying about the order, let’s ask some questions to the above given sentence

 Our first question is ‘ who plans the tour programmes ? ‘

 Of course, we know the answer, that is ‘ We ‘

That is,  the action  ‘ plan ‘ is done by the Do-er  ‘ We ‘

The term  ‘Do-er ‘ is called  Subject  in  Grammar.

 So  ‘ We ‘ is the subject here.

Then our second question is ” what do we do ?”

 As we know, the answer is ‘ plan ‘.  

That is,   ‘ plan ‘ is the action what the subject  ‘we ‘ does.  

In Grammar the term  ‘ action ‘ is called  Verb.

So the action ‘ plan ‘ is the verb here.

 The third question  is ” What we plan ? ”  

Without any delay, we can say the answer  is ‘ tour programmes ‘

That is,  when we ask the question ” What ?” , we get the answer ” tour programmes”

 Like this, if we get an answer, when we ask the question ” what ?’ or “whom ?”, the answer we get is called the  object .

eg: I saw him     ( Here, answer of “whom ?” is him)

Let’s  again ask the questions and answers briefly.

1 . Who ?     —-         Ans.  “We “  —-  named as “Subject”

 2.  Which action ? —– Ans. “Plan” —– named as “Verb”  

3.  What ?   ——-       Ans. ” tour programmes” — named as “Object”

4. Whom ?—-Ans. “him” —-named as ” Object”  

So we, now, are familiar with Subject, Verb and Object without any doubt.

#  Structure.

It denotes the  order of  placing   subject,  verb and  object .

Let’s bring here the first example in the topic to clear it.

• We ( S )  often  plan ( V )  tour programmes ( O )  for a refreshment.

Another example,

•   We (S)  study (V)   Grammar (O)  in a simple way

Here in the two examples  we can see the order that  the  subject is at first,  then verb  and  finally the object.

So  we can  understand that the general  structure  or  pattern  of a  sentence  is   S + V + O

# Complement

In the above two examples,  we can also see a group of words,  apart from subject, verb and object ,  that is,  “for a  refreshment”  and  ” in a simple way”

This type of group of words  is known as “complement” that gives  us a  complete  idea.

 So we have studied and understood what is subject, verb, object and complement and the general pattern  or  structure  as    Subject + Verb + Object ,  or  simply    S+V+O.

 #  Predicate.  

Here the word “Predicate“ is now strange to many of us .

Don’t worry,   it is just only a  part  including verb, object and complement.  And also it says  who or what the subject  ‘is’  or ‘does’

That means,  Predicate is a part of a sentence that  talks about  the subject ,  or   we  can  say  the part except  the subject.

eg ; John  is the eldest son of  Mary. 

Here John is the ‘subject’ and the underlined part is the ‘predicate’.

eg; Peter  has signed in an agreement with George.  

Here  Peter is  the ‘subject’ and  the underlined part is the ‘Predicate’.

So, we have studied  sentence and   sentence structure.

On the basis of  what we have studied and understood,  we can further modify the definition of  sentence  as  noted below. 

” A sentence is a group of words having a subject , verb, object, complement and also a complete meaning and a specific structure.

To know more  click here .