Basic Sentence Patterns

These sentence patterns help all writers, but especially English language learners. English sentences are based on the order of words rather than their endings (as happens in many languages), and the order of words in English differs from that in Spanish, German, Russian, or Chinese. Native English speakers will naturally put words in their correct order without thinking (or knowing why), but English language learners need to understand the sentence structures that work in this language. (Native speakers will also benefit from knowing the why behind their language choices.)

This page shows the basic sentence patterns for indicative sentences (statements). Interrogative sentences (questions) have a delayed subject, and imperative sentences (commands) have an implied subject, so those structures will be addressed separately.

English sentences are generally direct, going from subject to verb to something else in the predicate. An action verb (the first four examples) can simply say what the subject is doing (example 1) or can transfer action from a subject to a direct object, an indirect object, or an object complement (what the subject is doing to what, to whom, or for what, for whom).

A linking verb works like an =. It says that the subject = something else. Sometimes, the linking verb connects the subject to another noun or pronoun that renames it:

He is a doctor. (He = doctor.)

Sometimes, the linking verb connects the subject to an adjective or a phrase that functions as an adjective, describing the subject.

He is happy. (He = happy.)

He is at the hospital. (He = at the hospital.)

Sentence Agreement

Subjects have to agree with their verbs in number (singular or plural). Basically, there should be one s between the subject and the verb (boys play or boy plays). Students will be happy to find out that sentence agreement is an issue only in present-tense sentences, not in past tense (boys played or boy played) or future tense (boys will play or boy will play). This page and the one that follows focus on the tricky sentence agreement issues that arise.

Lead your students through the rules and examples on this page. Help them understand that and works like a + sign, which is why it makes subjects plural. An or does not add two subjects, but instead separates them, meaning that the verb must agree with the nearer subject.

Sentence Problems

This page and the one that follows detail problems that can derail sentences and make them hard for readers to understand.

To help students understand the problem of wordiness, tell them readers want a high meaning-to-word ratio. In other words, if you have one idea and use one word to express it, the idea is very strong:

Ferrari

If you express the same idea in two words, the idea has less strength:

sports car

If you express it in three words, the idea is further reduced.

fast sports car

Most students would agree that a Ferrari is much better than a fast sports car.

The other three issues on this page relate to pronouns. These little words are great for replacing nouns or other pronouns, but not when they are unneeded (double subject), don't agree with their antecedents (subject-verb agreement error), or do not clearly refer to a specific antecedent (unclear pronoun reference). Correcting these errors makes reading easy and understandable the first time through.