The Simple Sentence and Its Parts 1, 2, 3,

Sentence - is a group of words that express a complete meaning makes a sentence. In order to have a meaning, two elements are necessary: a subject, a person or thing to speak about, and a predicate, something to say about the person or thing.

The term part of speech refers to the job that a word does in a sentence - to its function or use. Since there are eight separate jobs, words are divided into eight classes or eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.

The simple sentence and its parts

SENTENCE 1. Subject, verb, object

Sentence 1: Mary makes music.

Contituents of a sentence: Subject [Mary] Predicate [makes music]

Sentence Analysis: S:noun [Mary] P:verb [makes] P:object: noun [music]


Sentence 1 shows that a sentence must have two main branches: the subject and the predicate. The subject is usually the 'doer', or the person/thing described. The predicate means 'the rest of the sentence' to put it crudely but simply.
The verb conveys an action or state. The object is the person/thing at the receiving end of the action, hence music is the object of the verb makes.
Noun, verb, noun are the constituents called word classes or parts of speech. Words are classed according to their grammatical properties.
In every sentence there must be a finite verb, i.e. a verb with a tense. A verb can change its form to show tense, e.g. make; made. The verb in sentence 1 is in the present tense.
In sentence 1 the subject and object are nouns. They could be pronouns: She makes it.

SENTENCE 2: Subject, verb

Sentence 2: Mary fell.

Constituents of a sentence: Subject [Mary] Predicate [fell]

Sentence Analysis: S:noun [Mary] P:verb [fell]

In sentence 2 there is no object. Mary didn't fall her body, etc. The verb to fall can't take an object; it is an intransitive verb. Other intransitive verbs are to cough, to hesitate, etc.
Verbs that must take an object are called transitive verbs. Other transitive verbs are to have, to afford, etc.

SENTENCE 3: Adjective, adverb

Sentence 3: Big dogs snore loudly.

Constituents of a sentence: Subject [Big dogs] Predicate [snore loudly]

Sentence Analysis: S:adj [Big] S:noun [dogs] P:verb [snore] P:adverb [loudly]

Sentence 3 reminds us that adjectives mostly come before the noun, and adverbs of manner often follow the verb [or verb + object].

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