9 Introduction
Have you ever had a thought? Of course you have! And have you ever communicated that thought to someone else? Again, I know you’ve done this too!
Perhaps you communicated your thought with a piece of art, or an interpretive dance move, or a sarcastic eye roll. But if you chose to communicate it with words — written or spoken — you probably did so in the form of a sentence, because that’s what a sentence is: A sentence is a group of words (even a single word, on rare occasions) that communicates a complete thought.
- Some sentences make a statement: This bread is very tasty.
- Some sentences ask a question: Is this bread free?
- Some sentences deliver a command: Bring me more of this free bread!
Does that mean any group of words is a sentence, as long as I can see a thought or idea in there somewhere? Well, the answer to that is complicated, so let’s simplify things. A sentence has three required components:
- It must contain at least one subject.
- It must contain at least one verb.
- It must express a complete thought.
Two other characteristics are often overlooked, but I think they’re important:
- A sentence begins with a capital/uppercase letter.
- A sentence ends with either a period, question mark, or exclamation point.
The subject can be thought of a few ways:
1. In a sentence with an action verb, the subject is the person or thing that does the action (it's the "doer").
2. In a sentence with a linking verb rather than an action verb, the subject is the focus of the sentence -- the thing being described.
Every verb in a sentence needs a subject.
Subjects are either nouns or pronouns.