- What is a sentence?
- Sentence characteristics
- Parts of the sentence
- Subject and predicate
- Difference between sentence and phrase
- Types of sentences
We explain what a sentence is, its types, characteristics and parts that make it up. Also, what are the subject and the predicate.
A sentence constitutes an autonomous sentence.What is a sentence?
In grammar Y syntax, is called a sentence to an ordered and linear set of words, which express in their entirety a information complete and recognizable. It is the smallest unit in the speech, which constitutes an autonomous statement, that is, a logical proposition that even if we take it out of its context, will continue to express a piece of information.
Prayer is one of the structures of the language verbal that has been studied the most throughout the history of linguistics, from different approaches, both morphosyntactic, semantic and phonological, since it is a common structure to all languages. However, and of course, the form and intonation of sentences can vary significantly from one language to another.
Furthermore, just as the words together make up a sentence, usually in texts the sentences together make up a paragraph, which would be a much larger unit of meaning, encompassing a variable number of sentences.
Sentence characteristics
In general, sentences are characterized by:
- It is a linear, hierarchical structure, made up of a finite number of words.
- According to traditional grammar, it is normally composed of a subject (who performs or on whom the action falls) and a predicate (the action performed and its context). However, it is possible that in some cases the subject is not explicit.
- In most writing systems, it is usually recognized by starting with a capital letter and ending with a period, features that denote that it is a unit of meaning closed in itself.
Parts of the sentence
It is possible to identify in sentences, in general, nine different parts or types of components, which differ in their respective grammatical categories (or types of words):
- Nouns. They are the words used to name the world, since they have substance (hence their name). They may be own (that is, names, such as "Juan" or "France") or common (more general terms, such as "boy" or "stone").
- Adjectives. Words that accompany nouns and indicate some of their meaning features, expanding or narrowing their meaning. They can be adjectives that provide a specific meaning (qualifying), such as "ugly" or "blue"; or a sense of belonging (possessive), such as "yours" or "ours"; or that express a relationship (relational), such as "international" or "political"; or that they simply clarify who we are referring to (demonstrative), such as “that” or “that”, among others.
- Articles. Another type of companion to the noun, which also clarifies information about it, but in much simpler terms and of grammatical importance: gender, number and determination. Thus, there are nine articles in Spanish:
- The determinate articles. They are used when the noun is known or specific, and they are: the (masculine, singular), the (feminine, singular), the (neuter, singular), the (masculine, plural) and the (feminine, plural).
- Indeterminate articles. They are used when the noun is unknown or nonspecific, and they are: un (masculine, singular), una (feminine, singular), ones (masculine, plural) and unas (feminine, plural).
- Pronouns. They are grammatical wildcards that replace nouns and allow us not to have to repeat them constantly, making the language more effective. They can be of different types: personal (“I”, “you”, “we”, etc.), demonstrative (“that”, “those”, “this”, etc.), possessive (“mine”, “yours "," Yours ", etc.), among other possible categories.
- Verbs Words that express and describe actions, and that are always conjugated in sentences, that is, they are in agreement of person and number with the subject. In addition, they express a time and a way in which the action occurs, in such a way that we know by its structure what exactly we are talking about. Examples of verb "speak", "walk", "swim", "assume" or "was".
- Adverbs. They are modifier words for verbs (or other adverbs or adjectives), whose role is to modulate or characterize the way in which the actions of the sentence occur. Examples of adverbs are: "very", "well", "never" or "slowly".
- Conjunctions. Words that have a grammatical meaning only, and that serve to join other words or even sentences, building a logical bridge between them. For example: "and", "or", "but", "but".
- Prepositions Words endowed with a relational meaning, that is, they do not have a meaning in themselves, but rather express a relationship between other words, which can be more or less specific. Examples of prepositions are: "of", "for", "about", "against", "for", and so on.
Subject and predicate
The traditional approach to the sentence understands it as the sum of a subject, that is, someone who carries out or on whom the action expressed by the sentence falls, and a predicate, which is the action itself and its contexts and circumstances. Thus, every sentence is made up, no matter how complex, by these two structures, which divide it in two.
- The subject. That entity on which the action falls or that executes it, and that is usually found asking the verb "who?" or what?". It must have a nucleus, that is, the word on which the greatest load of meaning falls, and which will be a noun or a pronoun that takes its place. For example, in the sentence “Poor Juan sows beans in the garden”, our subject will be “Poor Juan” (and the nucleus will be “Juan”).
- The predicate. Once the subject is found, the rest of the sentence will be predicated. That is, the action described and all its contextual or grammatical accompaniments. Likewise, the predicate must have a nucleus, which in this case will be the main verb of the sentence. For example, in the sentence "Poor John sows beans in the garden", the predicate will be "sow beans in the garden" (and the kernel will be "sow").
We should note that this subject-predicate distinction does not always fit perfectly for all sentences. There are impersonal sentences, in which there is no logical subject, and there are others whose subject is tacit, that is, it exists, but is not explicit.
In addition, sentences with a more complex structure such as "What has Laura done to her hair?" they go against this exact order, since the subject is immersed in information from the predicate.
Difference between sentence and phrase
Sentences and phrases should not be confused. The former have a verb and denote a complete, articulated action, while sentences are much simpler expressions, often incomplete, whose value depends more on the context than on what they say in themselves.
Thus, "Pedro is going to be late today" is a sentence, endowed with a recognizable subject and verb, and which in itself is a closed unit of information. It doesn't matter if we don't know who Pedro is or where he's going to be late, or when that “today” is. We know exactly what you mean. The same does not happen with the phrases "Good morning!" or "Please" that depend entirely on your context to mean something.
Types of sentences
There are multiple criteria for classifying sentences, depending on the point of view from which we analyze them. The most important of them are:
- According to its syntactic complexity. We can talk about two types of sentences: simple and compound.
- Simple sentences. Those that have a single main verb that acts as the core of the predicate. For example: "Martín loves soccer."
- Compound sentences. Those that integrate two or more simple sentences into one, through links and particles that act as a bridge. Depending on how the sentences are integrated, we can talk about:
- Coordinated sentences. In which the combined sentences are interchangeable and have the same level of importance. For example: "Luis buys and Maria sells" or "Some come, but others go."
- Juxtaposed sentences. In which there is no link acting as a bridge, but rather a punctuation mark that allows the sentences to be superimposed. For example: "Yesterday I fell, I did not hurt myself."
- Subordinate clauses. When one of the two (the subordinate) has greater hierarchy and importance than the other (the subordinate), and the latter acts as a part of the main sentence. For example: "My cousin, whom I told you about yesterday, is coming to the party."
- According to its syntactic structure. There can be two types of sentences: unimembres and bimembres.
- Single sentences. They are those that are composed of a single syntactic part, and cannot be divided into subject and predicate. For example: "It's raining."
- Bimembres prayers. Instead, they are those that have two clearly distinguishable parts, which are the subject and the predicate. For example: "Your father says it is raining."
- According to the form of the sentence subject. We can talk about two different types of prayer:
- Personal prayers. In which there is a recognizable subject. They are in turn divided into two:
- Explicit personals. When the subject is mentioned in the sentence. For example: "My family eats lentils on Thursdays."
- Implied personals. When the subject is recognizable but is not mentioned in the sentence, that is, it is unspoken. For example: "Here we eat lentils on Thursdays."
- Impersonal sentences. In which there is no recognizable subject. They usually refer to climatic events or events that nobody does. For example: "Today it's going to snow" or "It's very hot."
- Personal prayers. In which there is a recognizable subject. They are in turn divided into two:
- According to the intention of the person who enunciates the sentences. That is, according to what is proposed with them, we can classify them into different types:
- Declarative or declarative sentences. Those that express a reality It is concrete that can be judged as true or false, and that they are divided, depending on whether they have negative elements or not, into affirmative statements (“There is a civil war in Uganda”) or negative statements (“There are no more witnesses to the massacre”).
- Exhortative or imperative sentences. Those who seek to modify the conduct of the receiver in some way, whether through orders, requests, commands, etc. For example: "Pass me the salt" or "Leave me alone!"
- Exclamation sentences. Those that express a state of mind of the issuer, and is usually accompanied in writing with exclamation marks (!). For example: "What a stomach ache I have!" or "How many soldiers are in the street!"
- Interrogative sentences. Similar to exclamatory ones, they express a question to the receiver, and are usually written between question marks (¿?). For example: "When do you plan to come home?" or "Do you still love me?"
- Doubtful prayers. Those that express an assumption or a probability, and usually use verbs in the conditional or future indicative. For example: "She could use a drink" or "You'll be lucky if you get a ticket."
- Wishful prayers. Those that express a desire of the issuer, usually preceded by the adverb “hopefully”. For example: "I hope we arrive on time" or "I would like to have more money."
- According to the voice of the verb. We can distinguish passive sentences from active ones:
- Active voice sentences. In which the action of the subject is referred directly. For example: "Pedro threw the bait into the river."
- Passive voice sentences. In which the action of the subject refers from the point of view of the predicate. For example: "The bait was thrown into the river by Pedro."
- According to the type of predicate. Finally, we will have two main categories of prayer:
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- Copulative or attributive sentences. When its predicate is constituted by a noun phrase, that is, when they unite a subject and an attribute by means of a copulative verb. For example: “Juan is very handsome” or “María is very skinny”.
- Predicative sentences. Those that have a verbal predicate (that is, not nominal), which expresses actions and not attributes. These types of sentences can, in turn, be classified into:
- Transitives. When they require an object or direct object on which the action falls to be able to express itself completely. The direct object can be exchanged for "it." For example: “I bought a house"(You could say" I bought that”).
- Intransitive. When they do not require an object or direct object to express themselves completely. For example: “I live very well” (you cannot say “I live that”).
- Thoughtful. When the subject who performs the action is also the one who receives it. For example: "Yesterday I dressed in red."
- Reciprocal. When there are two subjects exchanging actions. For example: "Maria and Pedro love each other madly."