Parts of a sentence

A quick refresher regarding parts of a sentence:

• Subjects do the action or perform the verb of a sentence.
• Objects receive the action that the subject performs.
• Verbs are the action words or linking words, and they take different tenses to show time.

English has two basic ways of combining words into groups:

• Phrases
  • are groups of words without a subject and a verb
  • are centred around nouns (in the van, by early morning).
• Clauses
  • contain both a subject and a verb
  • are centred around verbs (she runs the marathon; when he saw the ruins)
  • have two types: independent and dependent.

Types of clauses

All sentences are constructed from two types of clauses.

1. The independent clause, which contains a subject and a verb, and expresses a complete thought:

She decided to walk to the park.  (subject=she; verb=decided)

1. The dependent clause, which also contains a subject and a verb but does not express a complete thought. Subordinate clauses often begin with words like since, while, although, despite, etc.:

Because it was a sunny day…  (subject=it; verb=was)

Combining clauses

Combining clauses is what sentence building is all about.

Joining a dependent clause to an independent clause requires only a comma:

Because it was a sunny day, she decided to walk to the park.

Difficulties arise when two independent clauses are joined together.

• If the writer places no punctuation between them, they become a run-on (or fused) sentence.
• If the writer places only a comma between them, they become a comma splice.

Both run-on sentences and comma splices are considered incorrect.

To join two independent clauses into one sentence, you’ll need one of the following options:

• place a semicolon between them

It was a sunny day; she decided to walk to the park.

• place one of the coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) between them

It was a sunny day and she decided to walk to the park.

• place one of the dependent conjunctions (although, since, it, whether, because…) before one of the independent clauses to turn it into a dependent clause; also place a comma between the clauses.

Because it was a sunny day, she decided to walk to the park.