Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence—which is a noble thing.
—Winston Churchill
In arriving at sentences, we have come to the heart of the craft of writing, to the place where writing differs from ordinary conversation. In the rush of daily life we often talk in phrases. If your spouse asks, Where’s my book? you can reply, On the table, and your meaning will be clear. But while such fragments have their place in speech, and even in some informal writing, they don’t allow us to make complete statements. And making complete statements is what sentence expertise is all about.
So, once we’ve learned how to choose words and combine them into phrases, we now have to master the choices available to us for gathering those words and phrases into sentences. If you studied grammar in school, you may think sentences are boring. But the truth is far different: Sentences are the key to making magic with writing. Sentences help us make our meaning clear, and—even more important—they give us tools to command the attention of our readers and to shape their experiences as they read our work. Writers who have mastered a wide range of sentence structures can choose just the right one for their purpose, whether it be to ratchet up (or down) the suspense, to make readers laugh, to surprise them, to make them cry, and much more. Mastery of sentence structures gives us a whole repertoire of techniques we can use to create the effects we want inside our readers.
Inexperienced or unskilled writers often don’t even know there are choices to make in composing sentences. So we begin our exploration of sentences by looking at some of our choices.
What do sentences do, anyway? A sentence can do one of four things:
You don’t need to remember the grammatical names for each kind of sentence, but your ability to make sentences will improve if you remember that you have these four kinds of sentences available to you when you write. You can do more than simply put down one declarative sentence after another. Professional writers make use of the four kinds of sentences: statement, question, command, exclamation. In the following example, from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, notice what each sentence is doing.
“… I wonder [said Alice to herself] if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
Experiment with making different kinds of sentences. Then write a passage using only declarative sentences. Rewrite substituting other kinds of sentences for some of the declarative ones. Read the two versions out loud. What do you notice?
Now that you have a feel for the different kinds of sentences available to you, let’s turn to investigating the type of sentence writers use most frequently: the declarative sentence. Why this one? Because most of the time, when we write, we are telling our readers things, and it is the declarative sentence that allows us to do that. The declarative sentence lets us tell them There was a black shadow upon the moon, or Beckett struck out ten in a row last night, or Jane wore a dress of green silk and a single strand of pearls. From now on, anytime I use the word “sentence,” I mean “declarative sentence.”
And now … let’s play with making sentences!
Write a very short noun phrase. Write a very short verb phrase that makes sense with your noun phrase. Combine the two. Do this a few times, just to get the feel of it.
And now (drum roll …): What have you just created?
Sentences!
Making a sentence, then, involves adding together two or more phrases (or, occasionally, two single words or a single word and a phrase). Remember that we created phrases out of single words added together; now we’re making sentences using that same principle of addition.
But we can’t use just any kind of phrase to make sentences, for sentences in English are constructed according to a certain basic pattern:
noun (or noun phrase) + verb (or verb phrase) = sentence
Notice that in making sentences in the last practice you added two phrases together. Notice that one of the two is a noun phrase and that one of them is a verb phrase that contains a finite verb. And notice that when you put them together, the noun phrase comes first.
I call your attention to these things because, if you are a native English speaker, composing sentences in this way probably comes so naturally to you that you may not be aware of what you are doing. You may never have realized that, when you write, speak, and read sentences, you are putting words together according to a particular pattern, one that has been part of the English language since its beginnings. Here’s the pattern again:
noun phrase (or single noun) + verb phrase (or single verb) = sentence
You may be more familiar with seeing the pattern expressed in these words:
subject + predicate = sentence
And here’s the amazing thing: All declarative sentences in English are constructed according to this basic sentence pattern, or one of its variations.
Just think about this for a moment: Every declarative sentence in English is built upon this one basic pattern (and its variations, which we’ll get to shortly). Just one single basic pattern for poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, professional writers and amateurs. One single basic pattern for best-selling authors and beginners, for Shakespeare and Stephen King, Benjamin Franklin and William Faulkner. Because we know this pattern, says one expert on language, we can “comprehend literally millions of spoken or written sentences we have never heard or seen before—simple sentences and complicated ones, fact and fiction, prose and poetry.”1… fact and fiction, prose and poetry. Virginia Tufte, Grammar as Style (Holt, Rinehart, 1971) p. iv. Because we know this pattern, we can write sentences that will dazzle and delight our readers, that will inform and entertain and move them.
So if we want to write well, one of our most important tools is a solid grasp of the basic sentence pattern.
The simplest and shortest of all sentences are called kernels (also known as base clauses or core statements). Some kernels are made up of a single noun (with or without a determiner) and a single finite verb. Joe laughed is an example of a sentence kernel; so is The dog died. Kernels can also be made with very short and simple noun and verb phrases: The wolf chased the deer is a kernel sentence; so is The black sheep wandered away; so is All the boys were sick that day.
Kernels are the most basic declarative sentences we can make: simple, unadorned, and straightforward. Before we can make elaborate sentences, we need to know how to make kernels.
Write as many kernels as you can, first using single nouns and verbs and then very short noun and verb phrases. These sentences may sound silly to you; that’s okay. Concentrate, not on the words, but on the pattern: noun or short noun phrase + verb or short verb phrase.
What do you notice in doing this?
Practicing kernels gives us an opportunity to get the underlying rhythm of English sentences into our writer’s ear and our bones. It’s a duple rhythm, like the rhythm of walking: left-right, left-right. With kernels we can name this rhythm as noun phrase-verb phrase or as subject-predicate, subject-predicate. It’s crucial that we get to know this rhythm in our bodies, as well as our minds, for it is the ground rhythm of all English sentences.
Here are a few ways to play with this rhythm:
Start writing kernels again. Keep your sentences short and simple, and don’t try to make them perfect. Now, as you write, turn part of your attention to the rhythm of subject and predicate: subject—pause—predicate. Try to feel this rhythm in your body, as well as your mind. Left-right, left-right; subject-predicate, subject-predicate.
What do you notice in doing this?
Now read your sentences out loud, pausing between the subject and the predicate. Try to feel the rhythm: These-words-are-naming-the-subject/these-words-are-saying-something-about-the-subject. If you like, try this with a passage from a favorite writer or from a piece you are working on. What do you notice?
When we practice making kernels, we are training our brains in the basic pattern of English sentences, so I consider practice in making kernels to be an essential writing practice. The more we practice, the more easily we can make use of this pattern without conscious thought when we are writing, just as a catcher who practices throwing to second base a thousand times will be able to nail a base stealer during a game.
As with making things in any craft, the construction of sentences can be done with immense skill and subtlety. But we have to have the basic sentence pattern totally wired into our brains so that we can make use of it to write more elaborate sentences. So let’s consider this basic pattern more carefully.
Making use of the basic sentence pattern when we write enables us to do some essential things. First, it lets our sentences have purpose. A sentence written according to the basic pattern does two things:
To repeat: The subject of the sentence consists of a noun or a noun phrase; the verb or verb phrase that conveys the action is known as the predicate of the sentence.
Write a few more kernels, keeping your attention first on asking, “What am I naming?” then on asking, “What do I want to say about whatever I just named?” If you like, try writing longer sentences; sentences using concrete language; sentences using abstract language. Then read your sentences aloud. What do you hear?
What do you notice in doing this?
To construct sentences, as I've said, is to enter the realm of syntax. While that word may sound forbidding, its meaning is simple: It means the way we order our words and phrases in sentences. The basic sentence pattern provides us with a way to do this, with an established template. Imagine what would happen if we didn’t have this pattern, and writers could throw words onto the page in any old order: No one would be able to understand them!
A sentence is a particular way of ordering words and phrases to make sense. The key words here are “order” and “sense.” English is a language in which we make meaning, not only by the particular words we choose and the phrases or images we create, but also by the way we order those words and phrases.
Take, for instance, this sentence: The cat ate the cream. Now, what would happen if we took the same words and arranged them into different orders? We could write Ate the cat the cream. We could write The cream ate the cat.
Each of our three sentences uses exactly the same words; the only difference is the order in which we receive them. But what a difference that order makes!—quite literally the difference between sense and nonsense.
This example illustrates the basic reality that, in English, word order helps create meaning. Not all languages work this way, though. In Latin, for instance, there exists a group of endings, called inflections, that attach to words and enable them to play different roles in sentences. If we take, as an example, the ending -um, and if we decide that adding this ending to a noun will make it play the role of an object (that is, someone or something that receives an action), and if we then attach our -um to the end of the word cream in our third example, we’d get this:
The creamum ate the cat.
Because we know that, in our invented language, the ending -um turns the word cream into the receiver of the action, rather than the doer of the action, we know that what this sentence really means is The cat ate the cream, even though it’s not using that particular order of words.
For anyone who has grown up speaking and reading English, the idea of having to process sentences in this way is mind-boggling. In English we make sense through syntax, through the way we order our words in sentences.
So strong is the power of syntax to help make meaning that writers who know how to make use of the basic syntactic patterns of English sentences can make even nonsense at least partly intelligible. Listen to these lines from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the momeraths outgrabe.
We may not know what “slithy toves” are, but the syntax tells us that those words are the subject of the kernel “the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe” and that “did gyre and gimble in the wabe” make up the predicate. So we can guess that “slithy” is an adjective that modifies the noun “toves,” and that whoever or whatever “toves” are, they are doing some action conveyed by the words “gyre and gimble.”
Because the basic pattern gives us a structure for ordering our words and phrases, it helps us make meaning, as we’ve seen. The basic pattern also gives forward movement to our sentences. How does this movement happen?
It happens because English sentences have a characteristic movement built into their basic structure: They move “from known to unknown.” This movement of English sentences “from known to unknown” is an essential feature of the language. It has been described by one language expert as “probably one of the most important grammatical observations to be made about English prose style.”2… about English prose style. Dwight Bolinger, quoted by Virginia Tufte, Grammar as Style, p. 125.
A typical English sentence begins with the subject, then continues with a predicate that says something about that subject. So the reader now knows two things: what the subject of the sentence is, and what is said about it. To move from what is “known”—that is, what is known to the reader—to what is “unknown,” a skilled writer will repeat an element from her first sentence in the one that follows. Most often she will repeat the subject (Joe was hungry. He ate a banana.). Sometimes she will repeat a different sentence element (Joe ate a banana. It tasted delicious.). In writing her third sentence, and any following ones, she will use the same technique of repeating an element from a previous sentence: In this way her sentences will move the reader forward smoothly from one statement to the next, from what he already knows to what is unknown.
This movement of sentences from known to unknown can also enable our sentences to have drama. Within the limits imposed by the basic sentence structure, we can choose when we want to give our readers bits of information. We can use syntax to create suspense and anticipation, to keep our readers reading.
That’s because while we are, in a sense, ordering our words visually (whether from one side of the page to the other in prose, or in some other arrangement in poetry), what we are actually doing is ordering them in time. Our readers’ brains will not approach our writing as if it were a painting, whose many elements can be taken in almost simultaneously. Rather, they will come to those little black marks on the page in a way very similar to the way the brains of trained musicians come to a musical score: They will process one group of words, and then the next, and then the next … until they “get” our meaning. Through the way we arrange our words into sentences we can control how readers understand what we have to say. We can also manipulate their emotional reactions.
I want to stress this point, because to fully realize that writing (for the reader) unfolds in time is the gateway to getting a practical, rather than a merely mechanical or intellectual, understanding of syntax. Sentences are auditory patterns, which happen in time, so when in our sentences we give readers certain words is just as important as the specific words we choose. When we have a command of sentence patterns, we can make exactly the right choice to “get the spell right” and keep our readers enthralled from the beginning of a piece of writing to the end.
To explore syntactic possibilities does not necessarily involve writing long and complex sentences. It’s amazing how many possibilities simple kernels can give us to play with.
Once you’ve mastered the basic sentence pattern and can easily write simple sentences with clear subjects and predicates, you’re ready to refine your understanding of how sentences work and give yourself more possibilities to play with. The basic sentence pattern has four types, each making use of a different kind of verb in its predicate.
Remember that the subject of the sentence tells readers what the sentence is about. The verb tells what the subject is doing. Every sentence has an actor and an action.
Sometimes the action conveyed by the verb is indeed full of energy: He heaved the packages into the car. Other times the verb gives a state of being: Joe is sad. Or Sally appears happy.
The important things to remember are: 1) main verbs (also known as finite verbs) can convey different kinds of action or energy; and 2) main verbs are categorized by the amount of energy they convey.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at the four variations on the basic sentence pattern:
The noun or adjective constructions that follow be, or a linking verb, are known as the complement (or subject complement) of the verb.
Any of these patterns may also include an adverb or short adverb phrase, such as a prepositional phrase. (For example: John is happy at last.) The Type 4 kernel, using a transitive verb, can also include an indirect object or an object complement. (For example: Joe gave Mary the apple.) We’ll explore these options in more detail later in the chapter.
You may notice that the kernel types progress from a verb that expresses little action (be) to verbs that convey a great deal of action. Remember that all verbs are not created equal: Some can express only a state of being or a condition; others are full of energy and activity. If you know how to use all of these different kinds of verbs, you can choose the kind that best suits your purpose as you construct sentences. Suppose, for instance, the subject of your sentence is a frog. The frog, you might write, is on the rock. (He’s there; that’s all.) Or perhaps you’d rather write The frog remains on the rock. (A little more activity is implied here, perhaps; the frog seems to be deciding to stay on the rock.) Or this: The frog sits on the rock. (The frog still isn’t moving, but he is engaged in an activity: sitting there.) Or this one: The frog embraces the rock. (Can you feel the frog’s muscles moving now?)
Notice that the substitution of verbs in these examples is not just a matter of finding synonyms; it’s about considering the amount of activity each type of verb conveys. Knowing how to use all four types will expand enormously your options for making sentences.
Let’s look at each one of these a little more closely.
The be verb has taken a lot of abuse in recent years from those who give advice about writing: Many of them tell us we should never use this verb. Although, like any other word, forms of to be can be overused, in the hands of skilled writers, be is an important tool. Listen to this example:
Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. … To the careless eye the scene on the Main Street of a summer afternoon is one of deep and unbroken peace. The empty street sleeps in the sunshine. There is a horse and buggy tied to the hitching post in front of Glover’s hardware store. … But this quiet is mere appearance. In reality, and to those who know it, the place is a perfect hive of activity. …
— Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
In these sentences, the be verb becomes almost invisible, directing the reader’s attention to the nouns and noun phrases that bring Main Street alive. To use some form of be is not necessarily the mark of a poor writer; what’s important in such sentences is what lies on either side of the verb.
Here are four ways of using forms of to be in kernel sentences, which you may like to add to your repertoire of sentence-making techniques. As you practice these techniques, notice how familiar they are to you already.
We can use kernels with be:
Use the kernel pattern: noun or noun phrase + be verb + same noun or noun phrase (as complement):
Boys will be boys.
Manny is Manny.
A rose is a rose is a rose. (Gertrude Stein)
Use the kernel pattern: noun or noun phrase + be verb + new noun or noun phrase as complement.
Canadians are not Americans.
Jason Varitek is the Red Sox captain.
Hell is other people. (Jean-Paul Sartre)
You can also use this pattern to create metaphor and simile; for instance:
Ted Williams is God.
Time is a river.
Juliet is the sun. (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
The snow is like butterflies.
Note that all of these constructions are built on nouns.
Joe is cute.
Tomorrow will be fine.
All is well.
Joe is far away.
The apples are on the shelf.
You are in big trouble.
Write some kernels using various forms of the be verb. What do you notice?
The linking verbs include seem, appear, feel, become, look, turn, get, grow, remain. Remember that these are “state-of-being” or “condition” verbs, not action verbs. Kernels with linking verbs use one of two patterns:
1. subject + linking verb + noun or noun phrase as complement
Jennifer became a doctor.
Jonathan remains a judge.
2. subject + linking verb + adjective or adjectival phrase as complement
The monkey grew sad.
Everything became clear.
Susie looked very beautiful.
He appeared angry.
Make some kernels with linking verbs. What do you notice?
According to some experts on sentences, the most important information in a sentence tends to come at the end of the sentence, especially when the pattern is a kernel with be or a linking verb. That’s because we don’t usually write sentences in isolation, but one after another, and so the subject of a sentence often refers to a person or thing the reader is already familiar with. (See above for the discussion of moving from known to unknown.)
In the two patterns we’ve just played with, the kernels usually have little activity. To create more activity in a sentence, we need to use intransitive or transitive verbs.
Intransitive verbs are those that convey action, without requiring additional words to complete the action. The kernel pattern is subject + intransitive verb, possibly followed by an adverb or a short adverbial phrase.
Birds sing.
The boys laughed.
The dog barked loudly.
Susie giggled uncontrollably.
She skated with ease.
Make some kernels using the pattern for intransitive verbs. What do you notice?
Transitive verbs also convey action, but they require another word or phrase to complete the action. This word or phrase is known by grammarians as the direct object. The kernel pattern is subject + transitive verb + noun (or pronoun) or noun phrase as direct object.
Joe hated the woman. (Direct object = the woman)
The dog bit the postman.
Jeff read the newspaper.
Anna ate the spaghetti.
This pattern can also be varied as follows: subject + transitive verb + noun phrase (or pronoun) + adverb or prepositional phrase.
She threw the ball hard.
His question shattered the silence like glass.
Susie’s mother drove her to the party.
One additional variation of the pattern adds a noun or noun phrase serving as an indirect object. For example:
Jack gave Amanda a present. (Indirect object = Amanda)
Make some kernels with transitive verbs. What do you notice?
Take some time to practice each type of kernel in turn. Read your sentences out loud, and notice what you hear. Try rewriting a sentence using different kinds of verbs. It’s also fun to freewrite using one kind of kernel after another.
Using the kernel patterns in the order in which they are explained above, one at a time, tell a story. Your first sentence will use a Type 1 kernel, your second sentence a Type 2 kernel, and so on. When you've completed four sentences, write another four sentences using the kernel types in the same order. Continue until your story ends.
I hope you will notice how becoming aware of the different kinds of kernel patterns gives you more choices in how to say something. For instance, do you want to write Sam is strange, or Sam seems strange, or Sam acts strangely? Do you want to write That fly is annoying or That fly annoys me?
As you play with kernels I encourage you to try different ways of saying the same thing so that you build in your word mind a repertoire of sentence-structure possibilities.
Study writers you like for how they use kernels. Imitate what they do. Here are a few examples to consider.
“Don’t do anything daft, sons,” said one of the uniforms. But they were just words. Nobody was listening. The two teenagers were against the rails now, only ten feet or so from the crashed car. Rebus walked slowly forward, pointing with his finger, making it clear to them that he was going to the car. The impact had caused the trunk to spring open an inch. Rebus carefully lifted it and looked inside.
There was nobody inside.
—Ian Rankin, Let It Bleed
I’m one for routine. I like to get on with my job, and then when the day’s work’s over settle down to a paper and a smoke and a bit of music on the wireless, variety or something of the sort and then turn in early. I never had much use for girls …
—Daphne Du Maurier, “Kiss Me Again, Stranger”
He would have given up that hope [of vengeance] for Flavia’s sake, if she had come with him, because the quest for vengeance was a trail that no man should follow with a woman and a child dependent on him. But Flavia had not come.
—Rosemary Sutcliff, The Lantern Bearers
Now it was the twenty-fourth of December, and just such a morning. Christmas tomorrow. She was alone, and she would spend tomorrow alone. She did not mind. She and her house would keep each other company.
—Rosamunde Pilcher, “Miss Cameron at Christmas”
I could not help it. I burst into a shout of laugher as I looked at George’s wrathful face, I rolled in my chair, I very nearly fell on the floor. George never forgave me. But Tom often asks me to excellent dinners in his charming house in Mayfair, and if he occasionally borrows a trifle from me, that is merely from force of habit. It is never more than a sovereign.
—Somerset Maugham, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”
As the preceding examples demonstrate, kernels can create powerful effects. So they are an important part of every skilled writer’s sentence repertoire. You can, for instance, use kernels in the following ways:
Fool around with using kernels to create different effects, either by writing a few sentences or paragraphs on a subject of your choice, or by revising some of your own writing. What do you notice?
Contemporary writers make frequent use of sentence fragments to replicate how people talk, either in dialogue or in internal monologue. Such fragments differ from kernels in that they are not complete sentences: They lack subject or predicate, or both. Can you find the fragments in this example?
Badgworthy was in a seventh heaven. A murder! At Chimneys! Inspector Badgworthy in charge of the case. The police have a clue. Sensational arrest. Promotion and kudos for the aforementioned inspector.
—Agatha Christie, The Secret of Chimneys
Number of words is not a useful indicator of whether a given utterance is a sentence fragment or a kernel. Sometimes a sentence fragment can be longer than a kernel, as in the following example, spoken by a police officer (compare the second and third sentences):
“Basil Blake was at a party at the studios that night. You know the sort of thing. Starts at eight with cocktails and goes on and on until the air's too thick to see through and everyone passes out.”
—Agatha Christie, The Body in the Library
Write some kernels, remembering the basic subject-predicate rhythm. Now write some sentence fragments. Can you feel the difference? Experiment with combining kernels and fragments in the same passage. (You may find it helpful to use dialogue or internal monologue.)
Though kernels are short, they are an exceptionally useful writer’s tool. Beyond their ability to create effects, they are important because the more we practice them, the more we train our writer’s mind to get a solid grip on the basic structure of the English sentence. Naturally we’re not going to fill our pages only with kernels—that would bore us, and bore our readers. But when we have really learned, through practice, how kernels work, when we can write them with ease, then we can learn to elaborate them into more complicated structures. The sentences we write then will be longer, but they will always be grounded in the basic structure of the kernel—which is the fundamental structure of the English sentence, the structure our readers expect.
So I hope you will not disdain kernels as “too simple.” In the next chapter we’ll begin our exploration of ways to elaborate and extend them into more complex sentences. Having a solid grip on kernels will enable you to take in this new material more easily.
If you feel ready to take on the making of more complex sentences, proceed to the next chapter. But if you'd like to play with kernels a while longer, here’s another way to understand the basic patterns of English sentences.
“And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning,”4… which we call meaning. Anthony Burgess, Enderby (Penguin, 1982), p. 406. writes British author Anthony Burgess. These “slots ordained by syntax” are, in an English sentence, the subject and the predicate: what is named, and what we say about what is named. If you are a visually minded person, you might find this notion of “syntactic slots” helpful in visualizing how syntax works.
Into the subject “slot” can go nouns or pronouns, or noun phrases (that is, any group of words functioning as a noun) and any words or phrases modifying the noun. Into the predicate “slot” go the main verb of the sentence and any words or phrases serving to modify that verb, as well as any complements or objects. You may find it helpful to create a mental image of these slots, so that, as you produce sentences, one after another, you keep in mind that first you must fill the subject slot, then the predicate slot. As you begin your next sentence, you must fill the subject slot again, and then the predicate slot, and so on.
If you like this idea, here are some practices to try.
Write sentence kernels, using a mental image of the subject and predicate “slots,” and fill them with the appropriate words. Read your kernels out loud. What do you notice?
Do some freewriting, trying to keep the mental image of the subject and predicate “slots” alive in one part of your mind. What happens when you do this? Afterwards read your sentences aloud. What do you notice?
Revise some of your writing by reading it out loud and trying, at the same time, to keep in mind the mental image of the syntactic “slots.”
If you find it helpful to visualize the “slots” words must slide into, here is a more detailed picture of the basic English sentence: The subject takes up only one “slot,” while the predicate can contain from one to three slots. How can that be? It all depends on what kind of verb is being used. Be or a linking verb will require two slots for the predicate: the verb and the complement. (George// is/ sad.) An intransitive verb requires only one slot for the predicate. (Philip// laughed.) A transitive verb will require two slots for the predicate: the verb and the direct object. (Melissa// read/ the book.) A transitive verb will require three slots for the predicate when there’s an indirect object (Mary// gave/ Alice/ a book.): subject (slot 1) + verb (slot 2) + indirect object (slot 3) + direct object (slot 4): slots 2-4 make up the predicate. A transitive verb will also require three slots for the predicate when there’s an object complement. (Joe// considers/ my brother/ a friend.)
With any kind of verb, the predicate can include an adverb or adverb phrase. For example:
Rebecca is sleepy in the morning.
Joe laughed loudly.
| Slot 1 | Slot 2 | Slot 3 | Slot 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1A. Subject | Be | Subject Complement | |
| 1B. Subject | Be | Adverbial | |
| 2. Subject | Linking Verb | Subject Complement | |
| 3. Subject | Intransitive Verb | ||
| 4A. Subject | Transitive Verb | Direct Object | |
| 4B. Subject | Transitive Verb | Indirect Object | Direct Object |
| 4C. Subject | Transitive Verb | Direct Object | Object Complement |
| 4D. Subject | Any Verb | Complement/Object, if necessary | Adverbial (optional) |
Using the information in the sidebar, play with writing different kinds of kernels.
Notice the kinds of verbs you are using and the particular part of speech you are sliding into each slot.
The more we practice sentence patterns—like a musician practicing scales and intervals—the more options we have at our command when we are in the midst of composition and revision. I encourage you to play as much as you can with these basic patterns, and, if you like, to invent your own practices.
What have you learned from this chapter? What sections (if any) might you need to revisit? What practices do you want to make a part of your practice repertoire?
1… fact and fiction, prose and poetry. Virginia Tufte, Grammar as Style (Holt, Rinehart, 1971) p. iv.
2… about English prose style. Dwight Bolinger, quoted by Virginia Tufte, Grammar as Style, p. 125.
3… or a near-kernel. Virginia Tufte, Artful Sentences, p. 24. I am indebted to Tufte for her explanation of kernels.
4… which we call meaning. Anthony Burgess, Enderby (Penguin, 1982), p. 406.
5Summary of the Basic Sentence Patterns, adapted from Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar, p. 16.