FRAMING SENTENCES AND VOCABULARY

Course – B.Sc.Subject – English Communication and Life Skills

Unit - II

Framing Simple Sentences

•A sentence is a group of words that is used to say something, toask something, or to tell somebody to do something. It givesenough information for a person to form a complete idea in hismind of the message that is being communicated to him.

•A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop(.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!).

•The sentence is traditionally defined as a word or group ofwords that expresses a complete idea and that includes asubject and a verb. – Definition.

What is a sentence composed of?•A Sentence is composed of aSubject, verb and aPredicate.

•SENTENCE = SUBJECT + VERB + PREDICATE

What is a sentence composed of?

•A complete sentence has at least a subject and a main verbto state (declare/say) a complete thought. Short example:Walker walks. A subject is the noun that is doing the mainverb. The main verb is the verb that the subject is doing.

•A sentence is a set of words that contain a Subject and aPredicate. It is important that a sentence should express acomplete thought. There are two main parts of a Sentence.

•A Subject is what the sentence is about, the topic of thesentence.

•A Predicate is what is said about the subject. The Predicate ofa Sentence always consists of a Verb, in fact sometimes thepredicate is only a verb.

Definition:•Subject of a sentence:The subject is theperson, place, or thingthat acts, is acted on, oris described in thesentence.

•Predicate of a sentence:The predicate usuallyfollows the subject , it isthe action or descriptionthat occurs in thesentence.

Examples: Ram runs very fast.Come in.

Stand outside.The lamp is very beautiful.

Kinds of subject

• There are three kinds of Subject:

1) Simple Subject – a Noun or a Pronoun

•Example: He/She/Ram/Seeta

2) Complete Subject - a noun or a pronoun plus any modifiers

• Example: The black cat, The big mouse, The hungry lion, etc.

3) Compound Subject - two or more subjects joined by aconjunction.

•Example: She and I, Peter or Harry, A bat and a ball, etc.

Kinds of predicate

• A predicate may be one word or many words.

• There are three kinds of Predicate:

1) Simple Predicate– a complete verb (a verb and any helpingverbs)

•Example: stand, was singing, could have come, etc.

2) Complete Predicate - a simple predicate plus all modifiers

•Example: was singing sweetly, was reading loudly, etc.

3) Compound Predicate - two or more predicates with the samesubject.

•Example: was singing quietly and sweetly, play cards or watchtelevision, etc.

Kinds of sentences•Sentences are used in all languages. Sentences are used inboth speech and writing. There are five kinds of sentences:

•1) Declarative Sentences: Sentences that make statements.

•Example:

•- I have two brothers and one sister.

•- My name is Mary.

•2) Interrogative Sentences: Sentences used to ask questions.

•Example:

•- What are you doing?

•- Where will you go tomorrow?

•3) Imperative Sentences: Sentences that give commands or make requests.

•Example:

•- Come here.

•- Please, come here.

•5) Exclamatory Sentences: Sentences that are in the form of exclamations.

•Example:

•- Wow! How pretty it is!

- How marvelous!

•6) Optative Sentence: Optative sentences express wishes.

•Example:

•- May you live a long and happy life together.- God bless you!

PARTS OF SPEECH•There are thousands of words in any language. But not all words have thesame job. For example, some words express "action". Other words expressa "thing". Other words "join" one word to another word. These are the"building blocks" of the language. Think of them like the parts of a house.When we want to build a house, we use concrete to make the foundationsor base. We use bricks to make the walls. We use window frames to makethe windows, and door frames to make the doorways. And we use cementto join them all together. Each part of the house has its own job. Andwhen we want to build a sentence, we use the different types of word.Each type of word has its own job.

•We can categorize English words into 8 basic types or classes. Theseclasses are called "Parts Of Speech".

Eight parts of speech

PARTS OF SPEECH ROLE EXAMPLES

1) Noun Nouns are naming words. Monday, Christmas, etc.

2) Adjective An adjective describes anoun or pronoun.

Long, some, etc.

3) Pronoun Pronoun is used instead ofa noun.

He, she, It, etc.

4) Verb Verb is a doing word or aword which shows action.We can say that Verb is themotor that runs thesentence.

Walk, keep, write, etc.

PARTS OF SPEECH ROLE EXAMPLES

6) Conjunction Joining words, whichjoin two words orsentences.

and, or, thus, etc.

7) Preposition Relates one thing to theother.

at, on in, etc.

8) Interjection A word showingemotion or feeling.

Hooray, Hi!, Ouch! Oh! Alas! etc.

9) Article Definite or IndefiniteArticle – a, an, the.

A, an the.

Define: Parts Of speech

•A term in traditional grammarfor the eight categories intowhich words are classifiedaccording to their functions insentences. Example: Articles,Nouns, Verbs, etc.

Exercise: A – Sentence structure

• Identify every word of the sentence:

1) Mary and her brother look smart.

2) The train will arrive at the station.

3) Look at your book.

4) I eat a small sandwich with tea.

5) Please, make green tea for me.

Exercise: ‘b’ – subject, verb and predicate

• Identify the Subject, verb and Predicate in the sentence:

1) Gopal drives very roughly.

2) I have a big balloon.

3) Sit outside.

4) I helped my mother.

5) Light the lamp.

EXERCISE ‘C’ COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING:

a) My brother ___________________________________.

b) Sometimes I _________________________________.

c) Our house ___________________________________.

d) The children _________________________________.

e) Many students _______________________________.

Follow the thumb rule:Subject + Verb + Predicate

WH questions

Which are the TYPES OF questions?

•There are two types of questions.

i) Yes-No Questions

ii) WH-Questions

•Question words are also called wh questions because theyinclude the letters 'W' and 'H'.

•There are eight wh-questions, which, what, who, whom,whose, when, where and why and to this list we usually add howas they are all used to elicit (bring about) particular kinds ofinformation.

USAGE AND MEANING OF WH-QUESTIONS

QUESTION WORDS MEANING & USAGE EXAMPLE

1) Who Person Who is that? It is Ram.

2) Where Place Where do you live?

3) Why Reason Why do you sleep early?

4) When Time When should I call you?

5) How Manner How do you go?0

6) What Object, idea or action What do you do?

7) Which Choice – used for things Which one do you prefer?

8) Whose To show possession Whose book is this?

9) Whom Used for persons Whom did you meet?

FRAMING SIMPLE QUESTIONS:1. If you ask about the subject of the sentence, simply add the

question word at the beginning:

•Example:

•James writes good poems. — Who writes good poems?

•Exercise ‘D’ make Questions:

1) Neha is my sister.

2) The bank opens at 8 o’clock.

3) He drank juice.

4) He discovered the truth.

5) Rohit likes to play Football.

EXERCISE ‘E’ – CHOOSE THE CORRECT OPTION

1. _____ are you?

2. _____ is your pen?

3. _____ are you crying?

4. _____ is the problem?

5. _____ will the train arrive?

When What Why Who

Which

SYNOMYMS

•Define: synonym - Synonyms are words that have the same orvery similar meaning.

•Synonyms are different words that have the same meaning, orabout the same. Many words have multiple synonymsdepending on the part of speech. Some words are used to meanspecific things, so their synonyms cannot always replace them.

•Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and thestate of being a synonym is called synonymy.

•Define: synonymy - The state of being a synonym is calledsynonymy.

Homophones, homographs, homonyms•Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation,

but different meanings. For example, 'witch' and 'which' arehomophones (because they are pronounced the same).

•Homographs are words that the same spelling, but havedifferent pronunciations. For example, ‘minute’, ‘tear’, ‘wind’,‘wound’, etc.

•Homonyms are words that have the same pronunciation andspelling, but have different meanings. For example, 'rose' (atype of flower) and 'rose' (past tense of "rise") are homonyms.

List of synonymsWORD SYNONYM SYNONYM SYNONYM

1) Scream Yell Shout Shriek

2) Start Begin Commence

3) Help Aid Assist Support

4) Important Essential Vital Significant

5) Rubbish Garbage Trash Litter

WORD SYNONYM SYNONYM SYNONYM

6) Strange Odd Weird

7) Fake Unnatural Counterfeit Forged

8) Find Locate Seek Search

9) Wealthy Rich Well off Well-to-do

10) Submerge Sink Drown Immerse

WORD SYNONYM SYNONYM SYNONYM

11) Difficult Hard Challenging Tough

12) See Observe Look Watch

13) Grand Magnificent Majestic Splendid

14) Understand Comprehend Interpret Follow

15) Large Vast Huge Enormous

WORD SYNONYM SYNONYM SYNONYM

16) Betray Deceive Cheat Fool

17) Dangerous Risky Unsafe

18) Glad Happy Merry Joy

19) Real Genuine Authentic Actual

20) Famous Well-known Popular Renowned

WORD SYNONYM SYNONYM SYNONYM

21) Bold Daring Fearless Brave

22) Brief Concise Short Abridged

23) Category Classification Division Kind

24) Polite Courteous Well-mannered Civil

25) Decay Decline Rot Deterioration

EXERCISE ‘f’ GIVE SYNONYMS:

1) Find –

2) Fake –

3) Important

4) Grand –

5) Shout -

EXERCISE ‘G’ replace the underlined word with a synonym:

1) I understand the speaker.

2) It was a grand function.

3) I met a large group of foreigners.

4) He belongs to a wealthy family.

5) My neighbor is strange.

Recourses/References

• www.learnenglish.de/grammar/sentencetext.html

• free-english-study.com/grammar/basic-sentence-structure.html

• Advanced English Grammar by Wren and Martine