Sentences

Now that you have learned about types of words in Lesson 1, you can start to learn about the clauses and sentences that can be formed using those words.

Clauses are the building blocks of sentences. A clause must have at least two things:

• • • • • a subject
        • a verb

We've already talked about verbs, which are words that describe actions or being.

However, a subject isn't really a type of word. Instead, "subject" refers to the role a word plays in relation to a verb within a clause.

The subject is usually the person or thing doing an action or being described in the clause. Because the subject is often performing an action, subjects are often nouns and pronouns (i.e. people and things that can act).

e.g. the woman shrieked

e.g. Steve can't believe his luck

e.g. it is raining in Halifax, as usual

(In the last example, "it" isn't really the thing doing an action, but it's still the subject of the verb. We call this an expletive: we use this construction in English when there isn't really a subject—when we just want to state a condition or situation.)

Although clauses must have at least a subject and a verb, they usually contain a lot of other words as well, as the examples below show.

e.g. because some idiot had pulled the fire alarm

e.g. whenever I go to the bakery on Government Street