LESSON TWO: ELEMENTS OF THE SENTENCE

LESSON TWO: ELEMENTS OF THE SENTENCE

Introduction

Spoken or written communication is made up of one or more units called sentences. In writing, the beginning of a sentence is indicated by a capital letter and ended by a full stop or a question mark.           A sentence could comprise a sing clause or an unspecified number of clauses.

Elements of a sentence

Elements of a sentence are Subjects, Verb, Objects, Complement and Adjunct. These are shown in the table below:-

SUBJECT	VERB	COMPLEMENT	OBJECT	ADJUNCT
Tosin	likes	herself		too much.
Everybody	is	Selfish.
Most Nigerians	are	Bilingual.
The Policeman	shot		that thief	Yesterday.

1.      Subject

Subject refers to the person or thing being talked about in the sentence. He/She/it is the performer of the action. Whatever answers the question “what” or “who” before the verb is the subject. Consider the following table below:-

SUBJECT	VERB	OBJECT/COMPLEMENT	ADJUNCT
All	is	Well.
Mama Ada	turned	seventy	last Monday.
The man in red cap	owns	that black car.
I	saw	the man who was killed by the Police.
That his son failed his exam again	annoyed	the chief.
Andrew and John	are	identical twins.
Swimming	is	Abraham’s hobby.

As we have observed in the above table, words or group of words that can function as subject in a sentence belong to several classifications. The following are the commonest examples:-

1.      Pronouns: Almost all classes of pronouns can function as Subject. Examples include personal pronouns I, me, you: indefinite pronouns all, neither, none, everything: demonstratives this or that; and possessives mine, yours.

2.      Nouns: A single or compound word can function alone as Subject. Examples include proper nouns Mr. Mbanefo Eke, UNILAG, plural nouns girls, men, women, dogs, and sheep.

3.      Gerunds: Gerunds are verbs that function as noun. Examples include singing, dancing, advertising, running and swimming.

4.      Noun Phrases: Noun phrase is a group of words headed by a noun. Examples of noun phrases that can function as subject include: the boy in black jeans. Ada’s bag, our country.

5.      Clauses: Clauses that function as Subject are often referred to as noun clauses: that his son failed his exam again, what I said.

2. Verb Phrase

This is the only obligatory part of the sentence. It reveals the state/condition or action of the Subject. This part of the sentence should consist of a main verb which may or may not be preceded by one or more auxiliary verb. This is illustrated in the table below:

SUBJECT	VERB	OBJECT	ADJUNCT
Ebere	sells	fish	today
Ebere	is selling	fish	today
Ebere	has sold	fish	today
Ebere	has not been selling	fish	today
Ebere	could not have been selling	fish	today
Ebere	has been selling	fish	today

3.      Object

The Object is the receiver of the action performed by the Subject. Like the subject, the Object could be pronoun, a noun, a noun phrase or a clause. The Object could be subdivided into two parts Object (direct) and Object (indirect). These are shown in the table below:-

SUBJECT	VERB	OBECT (INDIRECT)	OBJECT (DIRECT)	ADJUNCT
Andrew	is	a good boy.
Bola	loves	Him.
Anthony	gave	Judith	a diamond ring	Today.
Funke	stole	Sade’s	wristwatch.

Object (direct) refers to the party directly affected by the action while Object (indirect) refers to the party that benefits from the action.

4.      Complement

The word is derived from the verb “complete”, hence complement is that part of the sentence that is mandatory to make the sentence complete. A distinction is often made between Subject and Object Complement, but we shall concern ourselves with Subject Complement/ Consider the table below:-

SUBJECT	VERB	COMPLEMENT
Ebere	is	very pretty.
Mark	appears	quite nice.
The old road linking Umugasi	is	dilapidated
Basket mouth	is	very humorous

The most prominent words or group of words that function in this element include the following:-

·         Adjectives: Examples of adjectives include good, nice and pretty.

·         Adjectival Phrases: An adjectival phrase is a group of words headed by an adjective. Examples are quite nice, very beautiful, and very humorous.

·         Noun Phrases:-  For example, General Gowon is the best president Nigeria ever had; Yabatech was the first institution of higher learning in Nigeria.

·         Pronouns: For example, It is I, or It is you

·         Prepositional Phrases:- Examples are (I, am) at home, (Olu is) in the house, on the mountain top; in the valley; on the wall. A propositional phrase can be regarded as the complement of a sentence if it is linked t the subject by a linking verb such as “be “ in such a manner that without it the sentence will not be complete.

5. Adjunct

The adjunct is that part of the sentence that gives circumstances details about the action of the verb. It provides information such as time, place and manner of the action, hence we adjunct of time, manner, place etc. Some examples are shown in the following table:-

SUBJECT	VERB	OBJECT/COMPLEMENT	ADJUNCT
Monday	hides	(the dog­)	in the hostel
Monday	wants	(the dog­)	urgently
Monday	feeds	(the dog)	daily
Monday	studies	(the dog)	always

Although the adjunct normally comes last in the sentence structure, it can feauture elsewhere especially where the speaker wants to make emphasis.

For example:

·         Madam Anne always eats pounded yam at breakfast/

·         Yesterday was Emeka’s birthday.

·         Kalu has never returned home after midnight.

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