Have you ever stared at a sentence and thought, “Why does this sound right?” or “Why does this feel wrong?” Well, this is one of the approaches to writing grammatically correct sentences. Although this works some of the time, or most of the time, it is not the best practice. It is best to know the technicalities, i.e., grammar, behind the structuring of the sentences. And to begin learning grammar, one of the initial steps is to understand sentence structure and parts of speech.
In this blog, which is the summary of the first live class of our English Speaking Mastery Program, we welcome you to the world of sentence structure and parts of speech. The grammar essentials that form the backbone of clear and effective communication.
Whether you’re writing an essay, delivering a presentation, or casually texting your friends, understanding how sentences are built can completely transform the way you express yourself. Let’s dive in and recap all the things we learned in our inaugural class. Before that, do not forget to check out our English Mastery Course Program if you haven’t already. You can enroll in our course, which will cost you zero rupees btw, by visiting the webpage.
What is a Sentence?
Simply put, a sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. We use words in a sentence, and we must combine them in a way that makes sense. The order of the words should be logical. Now, words are categorised into different parts, also known as parts of speech, which we shall understand in depth after learning the structure of a sentence. A sentence must have:
- A subject (who or what the sentence is about)
- A predicate (what the subject does or is)
Sounds simple, right? A sentence must have a subject, something that you are talking about, and a predicate, added information about that subject.
What are the Four Types of Sentences?
There’s always something more, right? Sentences have four kinds, namely:
- Assertive/Declarative
- Interrogative
- Exclamatory
- Imperative
Assertive or declarative sentences tell you some information, facts, or opinions. They are straightforward sentences that end with a full stop and express a complete thought. For example:
- I will be late tomorrow.
- I am going to visit Paris next year.
- Skopje is the capital of North Macedonia.
- Vincent Van Gogh is undoubtedly the greatest artist of all time.
As the term suggests, interrogative sentences imply a question. They are easily recognizable sentences, you just need to look out for a question mark at the end and interrogative words(Why, What, Where, When, Whom, Which, How) at the beginning. Let’s see some examples:
- Can you tell me the capital of North Macedonia?
- Who do you think is the greatest painter of all time?
- Are you going to visit Paris next year?
- Will you be late tomorrow?
Exclamatory sentences are sentences that reflect strong feelings. These sentences mostly imply heavy emotions like anger, joy, happiness, or sorrow. Let’s understand it better with the use of examples:
- I can’t believe you did that!
- That’s unbelievable!
- Wow, that was incredible!
- Oh no, I forgot my homework!
The last one on the list is imperative sentence. The most unique sentence type, which does not follow the orthodox sentence structure of having at least one subject. A simple verb can act as an imperative sentence. Fret not, examples will save the day.
- Go.
- Sit down.
- Run.
- Close the door.
When there’s danger and you yell ‘run’ so that your friends can escape, well, that’s an imperative sentence. The subject is not said, but is understood. Of course, you’re asking your friends to run.
Also Read: Mastering Articles in English Grammar: A, An & The Explained Simply
Parts of Speech: The Building Blocks of Language
There are a total of eight parts of speech, each of which has a role in structuring the sentences. Knowing all of them is essential in building a grammatically correct sentence.
- Noun
- Pronoun
- Verb
- Adverb
- Adjective
- Preposition
- Conjunction
- Interjection
Noun – Names a person, place, thing, or idea
Among other fundamental things, we all have studied nouns in our schools, and it is a relatively easier concept compared to other parts of speech. First things first, if you can think of an object in your mind, it is probably a noun; even if it is a notion or a thought, it can be a noun. It’s that simple. Nouns also have different types.
- Proper
- Common
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Abstract
- Concrete
- Collective
Proper nouns are nouns that are very specific in nature. A proper noun is a name that is given to something, and the best way to recognize them is that they always appear in capital letters. When you generalize a proper noun, it becomes a common noun. The best way to understand this is by an example.
- Where is Himanshu?
- He is swimming in the Ganga.
Let’s take a dog as an example. It is a common noun, but if you pet a dog and you give a name to your dog, let’s call him Fang, your dog becomes a proper noun. So any dog is just a common noun, but your specific dog, a.k.a. Fang, is a proper noun. Just like that, Himanshu and Ganga are proper nouns, and the common nouns that could be used in their place are written below.
- Where is your friend?
- He is swimming in a river.
Countable and uncountable nouns are fairly simple to understand. Anything that you can count on your fingers or in your mind, or is countable in general, will fall under countable nouns and vice versa. We will again take the help of examples. Can you count milk? No, right? Air? Rice? Sugar? Hair? Hence, these will come under uncountable nouns. Whereas, stuff like dogs, books, apples, come under countable nouns.
An unusual trick to differentiate between countable and uncountable nouns is by observing whether the noun can take a plural form or not. For example, dog, book, and apple can be written as dogs, books, and apples; that is why they are countable nouns. However, milk, air, rice, and sugar cannot be spelled as milks, airs, rices, and sugars. Hence, they are uncountable nouns.
A common mistake we make when we say ‘Hairs’, some people say hairs, and it should be just hair, because it is an uncountable noun and it cannot take a plural form.
Just like there is a contrasting relation between proper and common nouns, countable and uncountable nouns, abstract and concrete nouns also follow the same pattern. The terms already define the nouns: concrete, something that has substance, and abstract, something that does not have a physical form and is only a part of your imagination.
Any concrete thing that you can touch or feel through your senses is called a concrete noun: your bike, your friend, the metro you take to school, the tree you eat fruits from, all come under the universe of concrete nouns.
On the contrary, things that you have an idea about, and you might have also experienced them, but it does not have a physical form, are usually abstract nouns. Love, freedom, courage, curiosity, beauty, compassion, enthusiasm, honesty, kindness, anger, among other things, you are aware of what these things are. These are abstract concepts, hence, they come under abstract nouns.
Pronoun – Replaces a noun
A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun. Well, that’s a pretty simple definition. To elaborate, just imagine any noun, and what other term you can use to identify that noun, brainstorm that. For example, instead of taking your name in a sentence, while talking to others, you simply say ‘I’, or ‘me’, or ‘myself’, or ‘mine’. There are many kinds of pronouns, and all of them are listed below. Make sure to learn their difference.
- Personal – refers to people or things – I, you, he, she, it, we, they
- Possessive – shows ownership – mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs
- Reflexive – refers back to the subject – myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself
- Demonstrative – points to specific things – this, that, these, those
- Relative – connects a clause to a noun – who, whom, whose, which, that
- Interrogative – used to ask questions – who, whom, whose, which, what
- Indefinite – refers to non-specific people or things – someone, everyone, nobody, few
Verb – Words that define action
Brace yourself, now the real adventure begins. Nouns and pronouns were the easy bits. Let’s conquer verbs now, these are words that tell us the action performed by the nouns in the sentences. Verbs are also the words that tell us the time of the action, as in, is it happening in the present, did the action occur in the past, or will it happen in the future.
Verb is the most important part of speech when you learn tenses. Therefore, make sure to pay extra attention here, because without knowing verbs, you cannot learn tenses.
I’ll tell you a fun way to establish which words are verbs. You must have noticed that you cannot add ‘ed’, ‘s’, ‘es’, or ‘ing’ at the end of every existing English word. However, certain words use ‘ed’ or ‘ing’ occasionally, depending on the context. These words are verbs, of course, there are a few exceptions, but let’s leave that for later.
Now you know if you add ‘ed’ after ‘call’ and it makes sense, then yes, ‘called’ is a verb. Got it? I’ll add some more examples for you.
- Talk – Talked – Talking
- Walk – Walked – Walking
- Cook – Cooked – Cooking
- Enjoy – Enjoyed – Enjoying
- Jum – Jumped – Jumping
- Hospital – Hospitaled – Hospitaling
- Beautiful – Beautifuled – Beautifulling
- Green – Greened – Greening
You can compare the first batch with the second, and see how the first batch makes total sense, and the second batch crosses the limits of stupidity. There’s no such thing as hospitaling or greened, right?
Umm, but there’s a twist in verbs, but you don’t need to panic, we’ve got you covered. Whatever you learned above, the concept of adding ‘ed’ only applies to one kind of verb, i.e., regular verbs. There is another set of verbs that do not follow the ‘ed’ rule; these notorious words are called irregular verbs.
As we promised earlier, we’ve got you covered. There’s a table that contains most of the popular irregular verbs out there that you would need in your writing and speaking.
| Base Form | Past Simple | Past Participle |
| be | was/were | been |
| become | became | become |
| begin | began | begun |
| break | broke | broken |
| bring | brought | brought |
| build | built | built |
| buy | bought | bought |
| catch | caught | caught |
| choose | chose | chosen |
| come | came | come |
| do | did | done |
| drink | drank | drunk |
| drive | drove | driven |
| eat | ate | eaten |
| fall | fell | fallen |
| feel | felt | felt |
| find | found | found |
| fly | flew | flown |
| forget | forgot | forgotten |
| get | got | gotten/got* |
| give | gave | given |
| go | went | gone |
| have | had | had |
| hear | heard | heard |
| keep | kept | kept |
| know | knew | known |
| leave | left | left |
| lose | lost | lost |
| make | made | made |
| meet | met | met |
| pay | paid | paid |
| read | read | read (pronounced “red”) |
| ride | rode | ridden |
| run | ran | run |
| say | said | said |
| see | saw | seen |
| sell | sold | sold |
| send | sent | sent |
| sing | sang | sung |
| sit | sat | sat |
| sleep | slept | slept |
| speak | spoke | spoken |
| take | took | taken |
| teach | taught | taught |
| tell | told | told |
| think | thought | thought |
| understand | understood | understood |
| wear | wore | worn |
| write | wrote | written |
Thank us later!
Adverbs – Modifies verbs, adjectives, or adverbs
A very cool part of speech, these words will tell you a more in-depth analysis of the verb, adverb, or adjective used in a sentence. Feel like a tough one? Wait till you behold the examples.
- She sings beautifully. (modifies the verb sings – How?)
- He is very tall. (modifies the adjective tall – To what extent?)
- They arrived quite early. (modifies the adverb early – To what extent?)
Easy peasy? Now you know that adverbs do nothing but add more meaning to the verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. How does he walk? We know ‘walk’ is the verb in the question, and if you want to know more details about the verb that the person is referring to, you would use adverbs. He could walk slowly, confidently, quickly, or sluggishly, and these words are adverbs. Fun fact: Adverbs usually (not always) use ‘ly’ at their end.
- Slow – Slowly
- Quick – Quickly
- Confident – Confidently
- Sluggish – Sluggishly
Adjective – Modifies nouns or pronouns
Simply put, adjectives define the qualities of a noun or a pronoun. It is quite simple to find out a noun or a pronoun in a sentence, and if there’s a word that is referring to them and is implying their qualities, bam, that’s an adjective. Let’s summon some examples.
The red car is fast.
I want a big toy.
I have three dogs.
Adjectives can define:
- Size (big, small)
- Color (blue, green)
- Shape (round, square)
- Age (old, new)
- Emotion (angry, cheerful)
- Quantity (many, few)
- Opinion (beautiful, boring)
Conjunctions
Conjunctions join two parts of a sentence. Not rocket science, these are a set of words, which you can easily understand in a sentence.
- Coordinating – joins two equal parts of a sentence – FANBOYS
- Subordinating – joins an independent clause with a dependent clause – because, although, since, if, when
- Correlative – these come in pairs – either…or, neither…nor, both…and, not only…but also, whether…or
Interjections
Interjections are words or phrases expressing strong emotions, reactions, or feelings. These words can be used independently, or otherwise, they are used in exclamatory sentences.
| Interjection | Emotion Expressed | Example Sentence |
| Wow! | Surprise or amazement | Wow! That sunset is stunning! |
| Oh! | Realization or surprise | Oh! I forgot my phone. |
| Ouch! | Pain | Ouch! That really hurt. |
| Hey! | Attention or greeting | Hey! Look over here. |
| Yay! | Joy or excitement | Yay! We won the game! |
| Oops! | Mistake or accident | Oops! I dropped the glass. |
| Alas! | Sorrow or regret | Alas! The hero was too late. |
Final Words
Understanding parts of speech is essential when you are learning grammar, for most things stem from this concept. We understand that learning all these concepts in a day is not a walk in the park. And yes, these things take time. But continuous practice will make you better, and you will find yourself making sentences like a pro in no time.
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