Sound Writing

In Standard American English (SAE), a basic sentence is composed of two parts: the subject and the predicate. The subject of a sentence is the person or entity that does an action or is the main focus of the sentence. The subject may be a noun, proper noun, personal pronoun, noun phrase, or different nouns linked by a conjunction. The predicate is the action or description of the subject. The predicate may be a verb, a verb accompanied by helping verbs, or an entire verb phrase. For instance, in the sentence “The first-year student waited in line for the Farm-to-Table special,” the noun phrase “the first-year student” would be the subject and “waited in line for the Farm-to-Table special” would be the predicate. An easy way to distinguish the subject and predicate of a sentence is to 1) ask yourself what is “being done” (predicate), and then 2) ask yourself “what” is doing that action (subject).

A complete sentence always has a subject and a predicate. A predicate can include both direct and indirect objects.

A direct object is the noun on which the action occurs. In the sentence, “You bought a present,” “the present” is the direct object because it is the noun on which the action “bought” occurs.

An indirect object is the secondary object, or the object secondarily affected by the action, which is to say that a sentence can only have an indirect object if it also has a direct object. An indirect object is either explicitly or implicitly prepositional. In the sentence, “You bought a present for me,” “me” is the indirect object because it is the recipient of the object originally acted on. In this case, it is marked by the preposition “for.” The sentence could also be constructed “You bought me a present.” Here, the direct and indirect objects are the same, only the indirect object is not indicated by the preposition “for.” An easy way to identify the direct and indirect object of a sentence is to ask yourself: On what is the action occurring? (This is the direct object.) And what is being affected by the action having already occurred on something else? (This is the indirect object.)

What do clauses and amino acids have in common? They’re both essential building blocks! Just as amino acids make life possible, clauses make sentences possible. As you read in the previous section, every clause is composed of a subject and a predicate, which also means that every clause has a noun and a verb. Unfortunately, like many things in English, there are far too many terms that make it difficult to keep the concepts straight.

An independent clause, also called a main clause, has a subject and a verb and conveys a complete thought.

The primary feature of a dependent clause is that it cannot stand alone because it does not form a complete thought. A dependent/subordinate clause (also called a dependent clause) is dependent on an independent/main clause to make sense. Subordinate clauses begin with a subordinating conjunction.

There are three types of dependent clauses: adjective, adverb, and noun clauses. Each of these types of clauses is named after a part of speech because, when used in dependent-clause form, these groups of words act as a single part of speech—that’s why they’re called dependent.

An adjective/relative clause acts as an adjective to modify a noun (the subject). Adjective clauses begin with a relative pronoun or a relative adverb (that, who, which, whose, whom, when, why, where). Adjective clauses answer questions like “Which one?” “How many?” and “What kind?”

An adverb clause acts as an adverb to modify the verb in a sentence. Adverb clauses begin with a subordinating conjunction (although, because, after, until, etc.).

A noun clause acts as a noun. Noun clauses begin with who, whom, which, that, when, how, why, and whatever, whoever, whenever, wherever, etc., and answer questions like “What?” or “Who?”

Phrases are to sentences what landscaping is to the university. Just as the university’s landscaping makes the campus beautiful, interesting, and informative, so too do phrases add beauty, interest, and information to sentences. Like clauses and almost everything else grammar related, though, there are far too many phrases with overly confusing names. To remember and understand each type of phrase, it might be helpful for you to review List 7.1.1. Since phrases function as single parts of speech, you can figure out which type of phrase a particular phrase is by identifying its role in a sentence.

A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that characterizes a noun and is typically used to add description or specificity to a sentence. You can identify the modifier in a sentence by asking yourself which or what kind of noun the sentence is highlighting. For example, in the sentence “The students gazed in awe at the towering sequoia tree,” the word “towering” is being used to modify or describe the sequoia tree. Therefore, to identify the modifier, you can ask yourself “Which sequoia tree?” and answer “The towering one.”

Sentence structure is important to keep in mind while you’re writing because strong writing typically employs sentences of varied type and length. Writers can also strategically use certain sentence structures to convey meaning to a reader beyond the meaning of the words alone. If you realize that you mostly utilize one or two sentence types, try mixing up your sentence structures a bit more!

Because each clause in a compound sentence is independent, neither one is obviously foregrounded in relation to the other (as in a complex sentence). That’s because the relation between the clauses of a compound sentence is only conveyed lexically (through the coordinating conjunction), as opposed to lexically and syntactically (in a complex sentence). Nonetheless, a compound sentence can serve various purposes. A compound sentence that conjoins clauses using “and” can provide extra information (“I want to go to the park and I want to search for Pokemon”). A compound sentence that conjoins clauses using “or” or “nor” can provide alternatives (“I want to go to the park or I want to stay home and play Pokemon”). A compound sentence that conjoins clauses using “so” or “for” can provide justification (“I want to go to the park so I can search for Pokemon; I want to go to the park for I love to search for Pokemon”).

As its name implies, a dependent/subordinate clause must always be subordinated to the independent/main clause independent clause in a complex sentence. The effect of this subordination is the backgrounding of the subordinate clause and the foregrounding of the independent clause. In the example “When the dining hall runs out of hummus, I want to cry,” the subordinate clause “When the dining hall runs out of hummus” is backgrounded in relation to the independent clause “I want to cry.” This relativization places different emphasis on the clauses. The independent clause “I want to cry” is more important than the subordinate clause “When the dining hall runs out of hummus” because it conveys a complete thought, while the subordinate clause only modifies that thought. As the backgrounded clause, the subordinate clause specifies the context (provides the background) of the independent clause. The picture would be coherent without the background, but not nearly as robust. When constructing a complex sentence, then, consider what the most important part of that sentence is and foreground it.