Learn English Grammar: The Sentence

3,478,333 views ・ 2014-06-20

Adam’s English Lessons


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Hi again. I'm Adam. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. Today I have a very important lesson, I think,
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for all of you that will help you very much with your reading, but especially your writing
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skills. Okay?
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Today we're going to look at the sentence. What is a sentence? Now, I know that all of
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you are saying: "Well, we know what a sentence is. We've learned this a thousand times before."
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Right? I know what you've learned and I know what you haven't learned, many of you; some
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of you have, of course. The sentence has a very basic structure, there's a very basic
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component that must be involved or included in a sentence, and a lot of grammar teachers,
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a lot of English teachers don't teach this. Okay? All of you, I'm sure have by now heard
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of "SVO", but have you heard of "SVsC"? Have you heard of "SVC"? Maybe yes, maybe no. But
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I'm sure a lot of you are going: "What? I've never heard of these things before." Well,
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we're going to talk about this in one second.
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Before we talk about a sentence, we have to talk about a clause. Now, what is a clause?
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I'm sure you've heard this word before as well, but just in case, a clause is any subject,
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verb combination. It's a group of words that must include a subject and a verb. Now, also
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very important to remember: it must be a tense verb, meaning that it must take a time; past,
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present, future. Okay? No base verb, no infinitive verb. So that is a clause. Now, there are
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two types of clauses. Okay? We have independent clauses and we have dependent clauses. The...
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These are sometimes called subordinate clauses. Now, every sentence in English to be a grammatically
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correct sentence must have an independent clause. It doesn't need a dependent clause,
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but it could have one. The independent clause could include a dependent clause as the subject
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or object. We'll talk about that after.
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So an independent clause has a subject and a verb, and it can stand by itself. It can
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contain a complete idea by itself. Okay? So, technically, the shortest sentence you can
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have in English will be a... Will be an independent clause with a subject and verb. What is the
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absolute shortest sentence that you can think of? Think of a sentence, the shortest you
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can possibly make it. Okay? Here's an example: "Go!" Is this a complete English sentence?
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Yes. Why? Because it contains an independent clause. Where? We have the implied subject:
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"you" and the tense verb: "go", the imperative tense "go". So this your basic English sentence.
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Now, we have three other types, three basic types and we can of course play with these
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after. Subject, verb, object. Some independent clauses must have an object, we'll talk about
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that in a second. Excuse me. Subject, verb, subject complement. Some sentences must have
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a subject complement. Subject, verb, complement. Okay? We're going to talk about each of these
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in a moment. I have the "A" here because quite often, this complement is actually an adverb
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phrase or an adverbial. We'll talk about that in a second.
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So your basic sentence can be any one of these three. Now, the reason we're looking at this...
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All these structures is because once you understand what must be contained in a sentence, then
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you can read any English sentence out there that is grammatically correct and be able
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to understand the main idea of that sentence. Okay? So let's start with "SVO".
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Okay, let's look at our "SVO" type of independent clause: subject, verb, object. Now, first,
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what is an object? Well, we have two types of objects to talk about. We have the direct
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object, we have the indirect object. Now, the thing to understand is that the object
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always answers a question about the verb, it completes the meaning of the verb by asking
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the questions: "What?" or: "Who?" Now, keep in mind that technically, it's: "Whom?" But
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if you say: "Who?" I'll let it go this time. Okay? Formal academic writing, "Whom?", "Whom?",
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"Whom?" IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, all that - "Whom?" not: "Who?" In the object position. But the
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direct object answers: "What?" or: "Who?" about the verb. Okay? We'll get back to that.
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An indirect object answers the question: "To what?" or: "For what?" or: "Whom?", "To what?",
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"For what?", "To whom?", "For whom?" Usually about the object, about the direct object.
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You will never see an indirect object without a direct object in the sentence as well. Now,
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again, before I get back to the objects, let me explain this word: "transitive verb". I
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don't care if you remember this word or not; it's not important, that's just a grammar
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word. Understand the meaning of this situation. A transitive verb must take an object, a direct
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object. Okay?
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Look at this sentence here: "I want." Is this a complete sentence? I have a subject and
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verb. Right? Should be okay. "Want" is a transitive verb. There's no such thing as wanting without
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wanting something. Okay? So this is not a complete sentence. This sentence or this clause
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must take an object. "I want candy." Now it's complete because it answers the question:
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"What?" about want. Not all verbs are transitive. Some are intransitive, means they don't take
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an object. Some are called ambitransitive, means in some situations, they take an object;
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in some situations, they don't take an object. But that's for a different lesson altogether.
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So we have "SVO" must have an object to the verb.
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Now, here: "She gave Mary a letter." We have our subject "she", we have our verb, "gave",
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past tense. "Mary", okay? She gave who? No. She gave what? A letter. We have our direct
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object to Mary, indirect object. She gave a letter to Mary. She gave Mary a letter.
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Okay? So we have: she gave what? Again, this is a transitive verb, it must take an object,
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a direct object. She gave a letter to Mary, our indirect object. This is a complete independent
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clause, a complete idea full of meaning, ready to be added on to.
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Now, what do you put before or what you put after, that's all complements basically. It's
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not important. You can have a lot more phrases, you can have other clauses, you can have subordinate
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clauses added to this. This is your main idea of the sentence, that's your independent clause.
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Let's look at the other type: the subject, verb, subject complement.
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Okay, so now we're going to look at the other type of sentence, the other type of independent
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clause you can have. Subject, verb, subject complement. Before we look at it, I want you
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to notice very carefully this "e" here. Okay? We don't have "compliment". "Compliment",
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"complement". This one means to complete something. This one means to say nice things about someone.
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"Oh, I look your shirt, it's very nice. It suits you." That's a compliment. "Complement",
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to complete. So a subject complement completes the meaning of something. Now, we had the
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object before. The object answered the question about the verb. Right? It completed the meaning
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of the verb. The subject complement completes the meaning or says something about the subject,
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not the verb. Okay? It also answers the question: "What?" about the subject. One way to think
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about this is think of the verb, the "be" verb-and it's always going to be a "be" verb-think
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of it as an equal sign. Subject = the subject complement.
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So, for example... And many students still ask me this, I'll say it again. "I am Canadian."
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So "I" equals "Canadian", Canadian completes the meaning of "I", same thing. Right? This
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is the completion of me.
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This sentence looks a little bit more complicated, but it's the exact same thing. "The weatherman
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must be wrong about today's forecast." I still have the "be" verb, this modal, "must" only
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tells me something about the degree of the "be" verb; it doesn't tell me anything about
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the subject or the complement. So the weatherman, wrong. The weatherman is wrong "about today's
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forecast." This is just an extra piece of information. It is a complement to "wrong".
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Wrong about what? That's... We're going to talk about different types of complements
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like this one. "Wrong" is a complement to "weatherman". "About today's forecast" is
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a complement to "wrong". A sentence can have many complements. Okay? An independent clause
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can only have one object, one subject, one verb. However, you can have many clauses in
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a sentence, you can only have one independent clause unless, of course, you have two independent
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clause joined by a conjunction; "and", "but", "or", etcetera. We'll talk about that in a
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little bit as well. So weatherman must be wrong about today's forecast. So this is your
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subject, verb... Subject, verb, subject complement. Now we're going to look at the last one: subject,
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verb, complement.
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Okay, let's look at our last one. We have "SVA". I put "A" because quite often when
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you have to have it, it's an adverbial, but technically, anything that's not an object
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or a subject complement is just a complement. It is necessary to... For the completion of
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the sentence. Now, an adverbial. Why do we call it an "adverbial"? Because it answers
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the questions: "Where?", "When?", "How?", "Why?" We saw that the object answers: "What?"
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or: "Who?" Adverbial answers the other questions. About what? About the subject? No. It's about
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the verb again. Okay?
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So, for example, if I say: "I went." Is this a complete sentence? No, because "go" means
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you have to go somewhere. Technically, in certain contexts, it could be an answer to
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another question. But as... By itself, it's not a complete sentence. I need to add something
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to it. "I went to the store." I went where? To the store. "To the store" is a complement,
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but it's acting as an adverb because it answers one of these questions. Remember: a complement,
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and I just want to explain it here, completes the meaning of something. It could... In this case, it
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completes the meaning of the verb, but complements can also complete the meanings of something
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else. We had "SVsC" completes the meaning of the subject. We can also have complements
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that complete the meaning of an object, or a preposition, or many other things. I'll
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give you a few examples soon.
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"Bill lives in Hawaii." Bill lives where? In Hawaii.
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Now, I want you to also look at this sentence: "Carl reads." Now, could this sent-... Could
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this clause-I should say, subject, verb-could this be a complete sentence? Sure. What does
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Carl do..? What does Carl do in his spare time? He reads. Now, what he reads, maybe
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not important; I want the action more than the thing he reads. However, I see Carl, he's
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reading all the time, and I think: "What? Is he in school?" No. "Carl reads for pleasure."
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I need this piece of information to complete the idea, to complete the meaning of this
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sentence. "Carl reads books." and: "Carl reads for pleasure." are two completely different
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sentences; they have completely different meanings. If I want to specify a particular
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meaning, I want to tell you why he reads, then I have to add this complement, I have
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to add this adverbial to complete the meaning of this verb. "He reads newspapers.", "He
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reads comic books.", "He reads obituaries." Do you know what an "obituary" is? In the
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newspaper, sometimes they put little notices of people who died. Some people like to read
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these things, I don't know why, but some people do. But Carl, he reads for pleasure; he enjoys
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it, it's fun for him. But this completes the meaning of that.
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So there you have the three types. Now, the thing to remember is that you can mix all
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of these. You can have "SVAO". Well, no, you can't have "SVA". You can "SVOA", you can
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have "SVOC", you can have "SVAAC", etcetera. You can mix them. I'm going to give you a
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couple of examples here to see what I'm talking about.
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Okay, let's look at some examples here. I want... Keep in mind this is very basic stuff.
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You're going to see very, very complicated sentences in your readings, especially once
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you get into academic readings. But: "I went to the store to buy bread for breakfast this
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morning." Now, this might seem like a bit of a complicated sentence, but it's actually
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a simple sentence and it only has "SV", lots of "C's". Okay? "I went", subject, verb. Where?
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"To the store". This is an adverbial. Where? "To buy bread". Why? Why did I go to the store?
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"For breakfast". "Bread", for what? At the store, I bought bread. I bought bread for
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breakfast. When? "This morning". This goes back to "went". Okay? All of these are complements
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to the... to each other and to the verb: "went". You can have many complements. You don't want
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to have too, too many because then your sentence becomes long, and a little bit boring, and
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a little bit in danger of being run-on. Okay? But you can add as many as you want. Now,
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the complements could be anything; could be infinitive phrase, or participle phrase, or
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a clause, or a gerund, or noun phrase. Anything. Okay? As long as it's grammatically correct.
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Here's another sentence. Now, this one also looks a little complicated, it's not either.
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"What Sharon forgot to mention was that her husband was the CEO of Microsoft and makes
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a lot of money, which is why she can afford all of her holidays." Sorry, I forgot the
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comma there. Okay. Now you're thinking: "Oh, wow. I have no idea." First thing, remember
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what I said: you have to find your independent clause first. Now, keep in mind a subject
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can be a subordinate clause as well. What is the subject of this entire sentence? Is
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it Sharon? No. Is it CEO, is it her husband, is it Microsoft? No. What we have here is
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a noun clause subject. This is your subject, a subject which is an independent clau-...
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A dependent clause-sorry-this is called a noun clause. It has its own subject and verb.
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Remember a dependent clause also has a subject and verb. Forgot what? "To mention", it has
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an object to "forgot". Now, here's your verb: "was". Okay? "Her husband", "that her husband
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was the CEO of Microsoft and makes a lot of money". Sharon forg-... This is the subject,
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this is the subject complement because we have a "be" verb. This is also a noun clause
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with its own subject and verb. "That her husband was the CEO" and that he "makes a lot of money."
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Okay? "Which is why she can afford all of her holidays." We were wondering: "Sharon
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goes away on holiday all the time, but she doesn't work. How does she do that? She's
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never told us that she inherited money. Oh, what she forgot to mention last time she explained
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was that", blah, blah, blah. Okay? So this is a complement.
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Now, of course, this doesn't look too easy. Remember: a subject could be anything, an
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object could be anything. Not anything, but there's all kinds of subjects and objects.
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We'll discuss that another time. Find your subject, your main subject, find your main
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verb, find your object, complement, etcetera.
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Now, remember I said: every sentence must have at least one independent clause. It could
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have two, it could have three, as long as you have a coordinating conjunction, "and",
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"but", "or". "John loves Kate", John loves who? Kate. "and Kate loves John." Subject,
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verb, object. Subject, verb, object. Two independent clauses, one sentence, conjunction. Okay?
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This might seem a little bit difficult, but there's a quiz on www.engvid.com, go to it,
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check it out. And remember: this is all very good for your writing skills and your reading
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skills. But if you need a little bit more help, check out my website: www.writetotop.com,
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a lot more information there to help you out. And come again soon.
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