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The Structure of the English Sentence 
Present the grammatical units that form a hierarchical order: 
 
A text consists of one or more sentences 
A sentence consists of one or more clauses 
A clause consists of one or more phrases 
A phrase consists of one or more words 
A word consists of one or more morphemes 
 
In grammar, a clause is a pair of words or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some 
languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase. It may instead be marked on 
the verb (this is especially common in null subject languages.) 
The most basic kind of sentence consists of a single clause; more complicated sentences may contain multiple clauses, 
including clauses contained within clauses. 
 
Clauses are often contrasted with phrases. Traditionally, a clause was said to have both a finite verb and its subject, 
whereas a phrase either contained a finite verb but not its subject (in which case it is a verb phrase) or did not contain a 
finite verb. 
 
In the sentence "I didn't know that the dog ran through the yard," "that the dog ran through the yard" is a clause, as it is 
the sentence as a whole, while "the yard," "through the yard," "ran through the yard," and "the dog" are all phrases. 
In grammar, a phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. 
 
Phrases may be classified by the type of head taken by them: 
 
The house at the end of the street is a phrase. It acts like a noun. It contains the phrase at the end of the street , a 
prepositional phrase which acts like an adjective. Most phrases have a central word which defines the type of phrase. This 
word is called the head of the phrase. 
Setence 
A sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words, bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or 
follow it, often preceded and followed in speech by pauses, having one of a small number of characteristic intonation 
patterns, and typically expressing an independent statement, question, request, command, etc. 
 
Sentences are generally characterized in most languages by the presence of a finite verb, e.g. "The quick brown fox jumps 
over the lazy dog". 
Sentence elements are the groups of words that combine together to comprise the ‘building units’ of a well-formed 
sentence. A sentence element approach to grammar assumes a top-down methodology. In other words, it starts with the 
sentence as a whole and then divides it into its functional components. 
 
In the sentence every type of sentence element is present and is represented in this example by a single word. 
 
They elected him president yesterday. 
 
They (=subject), elected (=verb), him (=object), president (=predicative), yesterday (=adverbial) 
 
Subject and Predicate 
In English, the basic order is "Subject-Verb-Object;" this means that in a simple sentence, the first noun phrase is the 
subject, and the subsequent predicate includes the verb phrase and may contain an object. 
 
This allows English speakers to understand that in the sentence 
 
"The boy kicked the ball," 
 
The "boy" is the subject, and therefore the one doing the kicking, whereas the "ball" is the object being kicked. 
 
If someone wrote the sentence, "The ball kicked the boy," 
 
The meaning would be reversed somewhat strangely, and "Kicked the ball the boy," would immediately be recognized as a 
violation of basic syntactical order and read as nonsense. 
Every complete sentence contains two parts: a subject and a predicate. The subject is what (or whom) the sentence is 
about, while the predicate tells something about the subject. In the following sentences, the predicate is enclosed in braces 
({}), while the subject is highlighted. 
 
Judy {runs}. 
Judy and her dog {run on the beach every morning}. 
 
In order to determine the subject of a sentence, first isolate the verb and then make a question by placing “who?'' or 
“what?'' before it - the answer is the subject. 
The audience littered the theatre floor with torn wrappings and spilled popcorn. 
The verb in the above sentence is “littered.'' Who or what littered? The audience did. “The audience'' is the subject of the 
sentence. The predicate (which always includes the verb) goes on to relate something about the subject: what about the 
audience? It “littered the theatre floor with torn wrappings and spilled popcorn.'' 
The relation between a subject and its predicate is sometimes called a nexus. 
Types of Subject and Predicate 
Simple 
A piece of pepperoni pizza would satisfy his hunger. 
 
Compound 
Team pennants, rock posters and family photographs covered the boy's bedroom walls. 
 
Her uncle and she walked slowly through the Inuit art gallery and admired the powerful sculptures exhibited there. 
Simple 
A piece of pepperoni pizza would satisfy his hunger. 
 
Compound 
Her uncle and she walked slowly through the Inuit art gallery and admired the powerful sculptures exhibited there. 
A Verbal Predicate (Predicado Verbal) occurs when, in a sentence, the linking verb is followed by a noun or a pronoun. 
 
Example: They gave him his hat. 
 
A Nominal Predicate or Predicate Noun (Predicado Nominal) is a noun phrase that functions as the main predicate of a 
sentence (there is a linking verb). 
 
Example: George III is the king of England. 
 
An Adjective Predicate or Predicate Adjective (Predicado Nominal) is an adjective that functions as a predicate (there is a 
linking verb) 
 
Example: Jenny is attractive. 
 
So, as you can see there are two types of “Predicado Nominal” in English, one (Nominal Predicate) when the Predicate is a 
noun phrase and the other one (Adjective Predicate) when the predicate is an adjective. 
 
NOTE: In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an 
explicit subject. Such a clause then is said to have a null subject. This is the case of Portuguese. 
 
Other languages (sometimes called non-null-subject languages) require each sentence to include a subject: this is the case 
for English. 
 
"Bumped into George this morning." (I) 
"Agreed to have a snifter to catch up on old times." (We) 
"Told me what the two of you had been up to." (He) 
"Went down to Brighton for the weekend?" (You) 
Look at these subjectless sentences in Portuguese and their translation in English 
 
Tive um problema. - I had a problem. 
Está chovendo. - It's raining. 
Fez-se o possível. - We (they) did the best. 
Quebraram uma janela. - Somebody broke a window. 
Ontem caiu um avião. - An airplane crashed yesterday. 
Esses dias apareceu lá na companhia um vendedor. 
- A salesman came to the office the other day. 
 
Even in such non-null-subject languages as English, it is standard for clauses in the imperative mood to lack explicit 
subjects; for example: 
 
"Take a break; you're working too hard.“ 
"Shut up!” 
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Notional Agreement 
Agreement (or concord) of verbs with their subjects and of pronouns with their antecedent nouns on the basis of meaning 
rather than grammatical form. 
 
Examples and Observations: 
"I know that our Government are letting our troops down, big time." 
(Jacqui Janes to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, quoted by Philip Webster, "Emotional Gordon Brown on Defensive." The 
Times, Nov. 10, 2009) 
 
"None of them were in court to hear the judges uphold their appeal." 
(Steven Erlanger, "Terror Convictions Overturned in France." The New York Times, Feb. 24, 2009) 
 
"Over on England's south coast, the surfers of Bournemouth are just as keen as those in Cornwall, but suffer one big 
disadvantage: the coast gets very poor-quality waves. But Bournemouth borough council were not prepared to let this 
prevent them from encouraging surfers, and their wallets, to visit." 
(Alf Alderson, "Could the PerfectWave for Surfing Be Artificial--and in Bournemouth?" The Guardian, Nov. 9, 2009) 
"When mathematical equations are pronounced as English sentences, the verb is usually in the singular: Two plus two is (or 
equals) four. By the same token, subjects containing two noun phrases joined by plus are usually construed as singular: The 
construction slowdown plus the bad weather has made for a weak market. This observation has led some to argue that in 
these sentences, plus functions as a preposition meaning 'in addition to.' . . . It makes more sense to view plus in these uses 
as a conjunction that joins two subjects into a single entity requiring a single verb by notional agreement.“ 
 
(One Hundred Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses. Houghton, 2004) 
Also Known As: notional concord, semantic agreement, agreement ad sensum, logical agreement, synesis, constructio ad 
sensum 
Proximity Agreement 
 
For those who attended the second day of the annual meeting, there was an early morning panel and afternoon 
workshops. 
 
But as [Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage] cautions, 'Proximity agreement may pass in speech and other 
forms of unplanned discourse; in print it will be considered an error.'" 
 
(Amy Einsohn, The Copyeditor's Handbook. Univ. of California Press, 2006) 
 
Also Known As: proximity principle, agreement by proximity, attraction, blind agreement, principal of attraction. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Types of verbs 
Intransitive verbs (no object) 
 
Some verbs do not require any further elements to make their meaning complete: although there may be further elements 
in the sentence, these are not essential. 
 
This is called intransitive complementation. It involves verbs such as: appear, arrive, come, cough, decrease, die, disappear, 
drown, fall, go, happen, lie (tell an untruth), matter, rain, rise, sneeze, snow, stop, swim, work. 
 
Also note that the verb be, when followed by an adverbial expressing place or time, is used as an intransitive verb. 
 
He is in London at the moment. 
Transitive verbs (one object) (aka Monotransitive verb) 
 
Mr. Jenner breaks the windows. 
 
The verb to break is monotransitive, and requires one object. 
It would be ungrammatical to say Mr. Jenner breaks, unless the verb to break conveys a different meaning. 
 
NOTE: Most verbs can be used both as Transitive and as Intransitive verbs. It is, therefore, better to say that a verb is used 
Transitively or Intransitively rather than that it is Transitive or Intransitive.
 
Ditransitive verb (two objects) 
 
 According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be called direct and indirect, or primary and secondary. 
English has a number of generally ditransitive verbs, such as give and grant, and many transitive verbs that can take an 
additional argument (commonly a beneficiary or target of the action), such as pass, read, bake, etc.: 
 
He gave Mary ten dollars. 
He passed Paul the ball. 
Jean read him the books. 
She is baking him a cake. 
 
English grammar allows for these sentences to be written alternately with a preposition (to or for): 
 
He gave ten dollars to Mary. 
He passed the ball to Paul. 
Jean read the books to/for him. 
She is baking a cake for him., etc. 
The latter form is grammatically correct in every case, but in some dialects the former (without a preposition) is considered 
ungrammatical, or at least unnatural-sounding, when both objects are pronouns (as in He gave me it). 
 
Sometimes one of the forms is perceived as wrong for idiosyncratic reasons fixed in or the verb simply dictates one of the 
patterns and excludes the other: 
 
Give a break to me (grammatical, but always phrased Give me a break) 
He introduced Susan his brother (usually phrased He introduced his brother to Susan) 
Tritransitive verb 
 
It takes four arguments; one of it is a prepositional phrase: I’ll trade you this bicycle for your binoculars. 
 
Or a “that clause”: I bet you a pound that he has forgotten. 
Subject + two objects + that clause or prepositional clause. 
Ambitransitive verbs (one or no object) 
 
Miss Gold eats a banana every morning. 
 
The verb to eat is ambitransitive and permits, but do not requires, an object. The sentence Miss Gold eats every morning is 
grammatically correct. 
Circumstantial verbs (an object and an adverb) 
 
John put the book on the shelf. 
 
The verb to put requires an object and an adverb. Neither John put on the shelf, nor John put the book are grammatical 
sentences, at least in English. 
Linking verbs 
 
A linking verb connects a subject to a predicate complement (predicative): 
Example: Some of us thought that the play was very good. 
 
NOTE: COMMON TEST PREP POINTS 
 
It is extremely important to be able to understand whether a verb is transitive or intransitive. For many verbs in class, if 
your teacher thinks that the verb is hard to understand, we will ask something like this: 
 
T: Do we cry or do we cry something? Then, the student should respond something like this: 
S: Just cry. 
 
In this case, we would say that cry is intransitive. 
BE CAREFUL! 
 
One reason that understanding this point is so important is that it is very easy to become confused about whether a verb is 
transitive or intransitive. Consider the following example: 
 
I went to the store yesterday. (Is went transitive or intransitive?) 
Many people, including native speakers, will tell you that went is transitive since we have many words after went. 
However: To say that went is transitive would be a BIG mistake! 
 
So, what are all those other words after went? Well, first of all, to the store is a prepositional phrase. Second, yesterday is 
an adverb. 
One more thing: just to make life easier, instead of saying transitive and intransitive all the time, we will say vi (since that's 
what most dictionaries say) if the verb is intransitive and vt (again, since that's what most dictionaries say) if the verb is 
transitive. 
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Some verbs may be linking or not, depending on the context. Let’s have a look at some of them: 
 
 
 
 
Some verbs may be linking or not, depending on the context. Let’s have a look at some of them: 
 
 
Other Considerations 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Take a look at the following site to learn more about the differences between TO and FOR: 
Videos 
Note: Other Kinds of Objects 
COGNATE OBJECT OR COGNATE ACCUSATIVE. 
Intransitive Verbs sometimes take after them an Object akin or similar in meaning to the Verb. Such an Object is called the 
Cognate Object or Cognate Accusative. (Latin Cognatus, akin.) 
 
• I have fought a good fight. 
• He laughed a hearty laugh. 
• I dreamt a strange dream. 
• He sleeps the sleep of the just. 
• Let me die the death of the righteous. 
• She sighed a deep sigh. 
• She sang a sweet song. 
• He ran a race. 
• Aurangzeb lived the life of an ascetic. 
 
Notice that while in Portuguese these verbs are transitive, in English they remain intransitive. 
ADVERBIAL OBJECT OR ADVERBIAL ACCUSATIVE 
 
A noun used adverbially to modify a verb, an adjective, or an adverb denoting time, place, distance, weight, value etc, is 
called an Adverbial Object or Adverbial Accusative, and is said to be in the Accusative Case adverbially; as, 
 
• He held the post ten years. 
• I can't wait a moment longer. 
• He swam a mile. 
• He weighs seven stone. 
• The watch cost fifty rupees. 
Predicative (Aka Predicate Complement- Subject Complements and Object Complements) 
In addition to the transitive verb and the intransitive verb, there is a third kind of verb called a linking verb (copula). The 
word (or phrase) which follows a linking verb is called not an object, but a predicative. 
 
The predicate can be: 
 
subject complement (predicativo do sujeito) 
object complement (predicativo do objeto) 
 
Predicative(Aka Predicate Complement- Subject Complements and Object Complements) 
 
 
 
Kinds Of Adverbs 
 
 
Videos 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Verbs 
 
 
 
Verb rap song 
 
Past tenses 
 
 
 
 
 
Future tenses 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Mood is the expression of modality of an action or state. Modality is the expression of possibility, necessity, and 
contingency. Modality can be expressed through modal verbs as well as through grammatical mood in English. 
 
 
 
 
 
Lexical Verbs And Auxiliary Verb 
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Modal Properties 
 
 
English Quasi – Modal Verbs 
 
 
Videos 
 
 
Multiple Auxiliaries 
 
 
The particle to is included in the verb catena because its use is often required with certain infinitives. The hierarchy of 
functional categories is always the same. 
 
The verbs expressing modality appear immediately above the verbs expressing aspect, and the verbs expressing aspect 
appear immediately above the verbs expressing voice. 
DIAGNOSTICS FOR IDENTIFYING AUXILIARY VERBS IN ENGLISH 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE PRESENT TENSE VERBS 
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REMEMBER: PRONUNCIATION OF PRESENT TENSE VERBS (THIRD PERSONS) 
 
 
 
 
 
REMEMBER Non-Continuous Verbs 
 
 
 
 
 
SOME VERBS CAN BE BOTH STATIVE AND DYNAMIC: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Say this in English: 
 
 
 COMMON TIME EXPRESSIONS
 
THE PRESENT PERFECT SIMPLE 
Is a tricky grammar topic as it can be regarded as both a present and past tense. As a present tense, it signifies that an 
action started in the past and continues up to present time, in which it is completed. 
 
CHECK OUT FOR THE DIFFERENCES 
 
 
COMMON TIME EXPRESSIONS 
 
 Present Perfect X Simple Past
 
THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH SENTENCE 
We use the simple past for past events or actions which have no connection to the present. We use the present perfect for 
actions which started in the past and are still happening now OR for finished actions which have a connection to the 
present. We CAN'T use the present perfect with a finished time word: NOT: I've been to the museum yesterday. 
Videos 
THE PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE 
 
COMMON TIME EXPRESSIONS 
 
PRESENT PERFECT X PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Past Tense Verbs 
 
 
 
Watch out! 
 
1 - When we say that the time is definite, it does not mean that it has to be a point in the past. In English, definite time in 
the past means any phrase that answer the question: When? I lived in Paris when I was young. When did you live in Paris? 
When I was young (Still we don’t know when he/she was young). 
 
2 - Details of news – when we are telling something, the first verb may be in the present perfect if the time is not definite. 
Example: I’ve hurt my leg. From now on whatever is related to that action is definite: I fell off a ladder when I was painting 
my bedroom. 
 
3 - If the action occurred in the past, but is still true (I have been teaching grammar for 10 years.) or happened at an 
undefined time in the past (I have seen some good French movies recently.), you need the Present Perfect tenses. 
 
 
 
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Watch out! 
 
We never use the past perfect alone, but always in relation to some other past tense situation or action, stated or implied.