Basic sentence structure

Two-word sentences

At its most basic level, a sentence in English is comprised of two elements: a subject and a verb, which together convey a complete idea.

The subject indicates the person or thing performing the action and is always a noun or pronoun. The verb demonstrates the action taken or the state of being. This can either be an action verb, such as jump, or a state verb like appear.

To make sentences more informative, we can add an object. In the next section, we will look into the SVO pattern in English.

The Subject + Verb + Object (SVO) pattern in English

The SVO pattern is a common structure in English sentences. In the SVO structure, the sentences start with the subject (the person or thing doing the action), followed by the verb (the action itself), and finally the object (the person or thing receiving the action).

1. Subject (S): The subject is the person or thing that does the action in a sentence.
2. Verb (V): The verb is the action that the subject is doing.
3. Object (O): The object is the person or thing that is affected by the action of the verb.

Adding adjectives in sentences

To make our sentence more descriptive, we can add an adjective. An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun.

Once we are comfortable with these basic components, we can begin to create compound and complex sentences. We will look at them at a more advanced level in other chapters.