ENGL 157 - Lecture 4

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Kwame Nkrumah University of

Science & Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

Communication Skills
ENGL 157

SENTENCE
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this lesson, the students will be able to:
1. explain what a sentence is about.
2. describe the four traditional sentence types and their structural
distinctions.
3. distinguish between simple, compound and complex sentences.

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Introduction
• Every language has rules that govern its make up and usage and the
English language is no exception. The rank scale of English, also known
as the Units of Grammar is a structure that defines the various levels or
composition of the language.
Sentence clause phrase word morpheme
• The sentence is the highest unit of grammar while the morpheme is the
smallest.
• In order to communicate, we use words in an acceptable and meaningful
order. These groups of words are called sentence. We make sentences by
putting words together in a certain order.
• Every grammatically correct sentence has two main parts – the subject
and the predicate. The predicate part of the sentence has a verb which
says what the subject is, has, does, etc. The subject part of the sentence
has a noun or a pronoun (with or without others words going with it.)

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What is a sentence?

A sentence is a group of words which expresses a


complete thought.

A sentence has three main components:


• Subject
• Verb
• Meaning

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Types of Sentence 1- Structure

• Sentences are grouped into four main types according


to their structures.
- Simple sentence
- Compound sentence
- Complex sentence
- Compound complex compound

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Simple Sentence
A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause and
no subordinate or dependent clause. It is a sentence that has
only one subject and a finite verb.
The students always go to church.
The director of the company walked into the office.
In the above sentences, the subjects of the verb are underlined
and the verbs are written in boldface.

A simple sentence may have a compound subject as


exemplified in the following sentences.
The houses and the cars were damaged.
The teacher or his student pays for the book.

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Activity 1

Working with a partner or a group, identify the subjects in


the following sentences.

1. The house and the garden need attention.


2. Johnson and Mary are bargain hunters.
3. Not only the waiters but also the restaurant manager was
pleased with the new policy.

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Compare your answers with this:

1. The house and the garden need attention.


2. Johnson and Mary are bargain hunters.
3. Not only the waiters but also the restaurant manager
was pleased with the new policy.

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Compound Sentence
A compound sentence is a sentence that consists of two or
more independent clauses joined by a comma and a
coordinating conjunction such as: for, and, nor, but, or, yet,
so (FANBOYS)
1. John bought the book and (he) paid for it.
2. Kofi played the drum but Ama didn’t dance
3. Tom arrived at midnight and we met him at the
airport.
4. We woke up early and slept late, but all of us
enjoyed our camping.

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In the first sentence, the two independent clauses are
1. John bought the book.
2. John paid for it.
The two clauses are joined by the conjunction ‘and’.

In the second sentence the conjunction ‘but’ is used to


join the two independent clauses.

Note: You can avoid short and jerky sentences in your


writings by using compound sentences.

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Activity
Use an appropriate coordination conjunction to
join the following clauses together.

We didn’t understand the assignment.


We asked Michael to explain the assignment to us.

Martin found that his house had been broken into.


Martin returned home.

The students studied well for the examination.


The students wrote the examination well.
The students did not pass the examination well.
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Complex Sentence
A complex sentence has one independent clause and
one or more dependent clauses.

The dependent clauses usually begin with a relative


pronoun such as when, who, where or a subordinating
conjunction such as until, so that, because, while.

Such a clause might tell when something happens,


which person was involved, or where the event took
place. For example:

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Complex Sentence
1. When we visited Major Owusu, // he shared his
memories of working in the army during World War II.
2. When I heard her stories,// I enjoyed them // because
they are true to life.
3. Even though John worked hard,// he lost the election.

In the above sentences, the subordinate clauses are


introduced by the subordinate conjunctions- when,
because, and even though.

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Activity
Make one of the sentences a subordinate(dependent)
clause.
1. English is not our mother tongue. English has
gradually become the most important language in
Ghana.

2. The students are very serious this year. The students


will pass the exams.

3. The students are very serious this year. They can not
pass the exams
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Compound-complex Sentence
A compound-complex sentence as the name suggests, contains two
or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.
Consider the following:

1. Kofi played his best drum this morning but Ama didn’t dance
because Charles was not there.
2. When our school celebrated its Founder’s Day, we signed up for
environmental projects, which were targeted at cleaning the
environment, and we try to complete them all in one day.
3. Students have cleaned up the beaches, and they have planted
flowers in the parks so that the shores look inviting to visitors.

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Activity
Read the text carefully and identify (if any) the following: simple sentences,
compound sentences , complex sentences and compound complex
sentences.
She wore a dark striped dress reaching down to her shoe tops, and
an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks with a full packet:
all neat and tidy, but every time she took a step, she might have
fallen over her shoe lace, which dragged from unlaced shoe. She
looks straight ahead. Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a
pattern, all her own, of numberless branching wrinkles and as
though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead, but a
golden colour ran underneath, and the two knobs of her cheeks
were illumined by a yellow burning under the dark. Under the red
hair came down on her neck in the frailest of ringlets, still black,
and with an odor like copper.

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THANK YOU

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