Parts of Speech

Take the Quiz on Parts of Speech

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parts of Speech commonly known to English language learners are subject, verb and object. However, the most essential parts of speech can be expressed with only two concepts: subject and predicate. A most simple sentence must contain at least one subject and predicate.

Simple Subjects and Verbs: The simple sentence is the most basic, or simple, form of the complete sentence. It has at least one subject and predicate. Sentence is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate, and expresses a complete thought. The subject is whom or what the sentence is about.

The young husband bought two tickets to Biance's concert for Friday. This sentence is about the young husband. Therefore, the subject is the young husband.

The predicate of a sentence tells what the subject is or what it does. Everything in the sentence that is not part of the subject is part of the predicate. Can you find the predicate in the above example sentence? (Hint: What's the remaining portion of the sentence after the subject?)

Besides having a subject and predicate, a sentence must also express a complete thought. When you finish a sentence, you should not be asking questions such as Who did it? What is this about? What happened? So, as you see in the example above, a complete sentence contains a subject, predicate and a complete thought.

Parts of a Simple Sentence: The simple subject, verb, and object are parts of the simple sentence. The simple subject tells what or whom the sentence is about, but it does not include descriptive words that are part of the subject. Descriptive words are modifiers such as adjectives, adverbs or both adjectives and adverbs used together.

Examples:

A man was crying on the street. The subject is a man. No descriptive words are included in this subject.

A thin, tall man walked into the building. Here, 'A thin, tall man' is the subject. This subject includes descriptive words (adjectives) such as thin, tall about the subject. Descriptive words are part of the subject.

The Predicate: walked into the building. (The rest of the sentence.)

Compound Subject: If words like 'and', 'or' connect subject words, this type of subject is a compound subject. In the sentence of "My sister and her husband traveled to China last year." the compound subject is my sister and her husband.

Punctuations: Once you have written a complete sentence, be sure to punctuate it. All sentences begin with a capital and end with a punctuation.

A statement ends with a period.

Too much fat in your diet is unhealthy.

A question sentence ends with a question mark.

Are you coming to the party tonight?

A command ends with a period.

Turn on TV please.

An exclamation ends with an exclamation mark.

What a difficult child! What an interesting story!