Sentenced for Life

By definition, a sentence has a subject and a predicate. The subject is the one taking
action, the simplest subject being a single noun. (it’s not the best identification, but
predicate = verb)
When there are two or more nouns, you have compound subjects, where the nouns
are joined by and. Then there are alternative subjects, where nouns are joined by or.
Ex. Danny and Squiggly ran. Danny or Squiggly ran.

A subject complement is a word or phrase (usually an adjective phrase, noun phrase,

or pronoun) that follows a linking verb and describes or renames the subject of the
sentence. Also called a subjective complement.
Ex. The light in the chapel was warm and soft.
Mrs. Rigney was my fourth-grade teacher.

A gerund is a verb that is turned into a noun by adding -ing to the end. They can also
be the subject of a sentence. Ex. Running makes me tired.
An infinitive can also act as a subject. Ex. To smile is an invaluable present.

Phrases are groups of words that make up a sentence but lack a subject, predicate, or
both. An example is a noun phrase, which can replace the subject of a sentence. This
replacement is called the complete subject. Any noun present in the complete subject
is further called the simple subject. A subject can include noun and adjective.
Ex. The glittering teal seashell shimmered. (Simple underlined, complete italicized.)

Clauses are groups of words that have a subject and predicate, they can also be the
subject of a sentence. Like with phrases, if a clause becomes the subject, there is a
complete subject (the whole clause) and the simple subject (the bare-bones clause).
When a clause acts like a noun that replaces the subject, it creates a noun clause.
Ex. Whoever thought of that idea is a genius. (Whoever is simple subject and Whoever
thought of that idea is complete subject).

The predicate is the part of a sentence that isn’t the subject. The simplest form of
predicate is a verb.
Ex. Danny studied.
The predicate can also have objects and adverbs in it.
Ex. Danny studied diligently.
When a linking verb, such as is is used, the parts after it becomes the predicate noun
and predicate adjective respectively.
Ex. The dress is in the suitcase.
Ex. Grammar is perplexing.

Predicate should include a verb at must and subject must include noun, but they can
have more.

Transitive verbs are verbs that require one or more objects.

Examples:
● She cut the cake.
● They climbed the mountain.
● He gave her a flower.
Just put a noun in front of the verb, to see if the verb makes sense with it.

By contrast, intransitive verbs do not require an object.

Examples:
● They run.
● He died.
● She slept.
● It snows.

Some verbs have an object as well as a subject. The object is the person or thing
affected by the verb:

Transitive verbs have direct and/or indirect objects

Direct objects are directly influenced by the verb.
Ex. Squiggly hates school. (Transitive verb in italics and direct object underlined.)
Indirect objects are needed when direct objects don’t tell the full story, indirect
receives the direct object. (Usually a possessive pronoun)
Ex. Danny endured HIS work. (transitive underlined, direct italicized, indirect
capitalized.)

Phrases:

A clause has a subject and predicate, but a phrase is missing something. Phrases are
flexible and act as almost any part of speech or sentence.
Modifier: adjective or adverb

Noun Phrase:
Noun + Optional Modifier(s)
It serves as a noun in sentence.
Ex. The teal seashell glimmers
The teal seashell glimmers in the light of the full moon. (as subject)
She bought a decent car. (as predicate)

Verb Phrase:
Auxiliary Verb(s) + Main Verb
Ex. Would have studied
Danny would have studied earlier if he knew how annoying grammar would be.
Auxiliary verb is a helping verb

Prepositional Phrase:
Preposition + Object of Preposition (Noun, Pronoun, Gerund, or Clause)
Ex. Past the due date
Danny might submit his summer assignment past the due date.
Adjective (describing noun) answers which one? And adverb (describing adjective, verb,
or adverb) answers How? When? Where?
After having a shower, I waited for Steven. (with gerund and as adjective)
He went for a walk in the dark woods (as adjective, it describe which walk the boy went
for)

Infinitive Phrase:
Infinitive + Modifier(s) + Object(s)
Infinitive phrase can act as an adverb, adjective or noun.
*begins with an infinitive [to + simple form of the verb].
Ex. To stop procrastinating
Danny has to stop procrastinating and get to work. (as adverb)
To think is an amazing ability. (as noun)
His idea to help them was kind. (as adjective)

Gerund Phrase:
Gerund + Modifier(s) + Object(s)
*begins with a gerund (verb ending in -ing)
*Gerund phrases look exactly like present participle phrases. But will always function as
a noun, becoming the subject, subject complements or objects, nothing else.
Ex. studying grammar
Studying grammar (subject) is simply exhausting (subject complement).
Participial Phrase:
Participle + Modifier(s) + Object(s)
Ex. Reading the packet Sentenced for Life
While reading the packet Sentenced for Life, Danny was slowly falling asleep in his
chair.
*A gerund phrase will always behave as a noun while a present participle phrase will act
as an adjective.
A participial phrase consists of verbals ending in -ing, -ed, or -en, or another irregular
form of a verb, and serves as an adjective

Participle vs. Gerund Phrase:

Walking on the beach, Delores dodged jellyfish that had washed ashore.
Walking on the beach = present participle phrase describing the noun Delores.
Walking on the beach is painful if jellyfish have washed ashore.
Walking on the beach = gerund phrase, the subject of the verb

Absolute Phrase:
Noun + Participle + Optional Modifier(s) and/or Object(s)
Absolute phrase acts as a modifier of a sentence
Ex. His tire changed
His tire changed, he continued on the race.
*always a noun with some type of verb that ends in -ing, -ed, etc.
Her arms folded across her chest, Professor Hill warned the class about the penalties of
plagiarism.
We devoured Aunt Lenora's carrot cake, our fingers scraping the leftover frosting
off the plates.

Modifier describes something else. We may have misplaced modifier, in which modifier
delivers unintended meaning.

Simple Misplaced Modifier:

Simple modifiers include only, the, a, most, etc.
Ex. Danny ate only chocolate. Here Danny ate a chocolate.
Danny ate chocolate only. Here the sentence implies Danny could have ate
something else other than a chocolate.
Put simple modifier before the word it modifies, here “only chocolate” will be the
correct use
 Dangling Phrases:
You can have a phrase that is misplaced.
Ex. Covered in wildflowers, Danny pondered the hillside’s beauty. Danny is not
“actually covered in wildflowers.” This is wrong.
Covered in wildflowers, the hillside appeared beautiful to Danny. The hillside is
“covered in flowers.” This is correct.
A dangling phrase always target the noun that directly follows it, so be careful
with the usage.

Squinting Phrases:
You can have phrase in the middle of the sentence that can a have multiple
meaning.
Ex. The boys who were running clumsily jumped aside. Did the boys run clumsily
then jumped, or did they run then jumped clumsily?
A comma added in between the phrase would make it better.
The boys, who were running, clumsily jumped aside.
Or
The boys, who were running clumsily, jumped aside.

Clauses:

If a clause stands on its own as a full sentence, its called a main clause or an
independent clause. Ex. Danny hates summer assignments.
When it can’t stand on its own as a sentence, it’s a dependent/subordinate clause.
These clauses usually start with words called subordinating conjunctions.
Examples of subordinating conjunctions: because, since, after, though, once, when, etc.

Dependant clauses therefore need a main clause somewhere there to ground it.
Ex. Because he hates summer assignments
Above example is dependant and cannot be a sentence, so you need to add in an
independant to fix it.
Ex. He doesn’t enjoy summer because he hates summer assignments.
A dependent clause on its own is known as sentence fragment.

Types of Sentences 1:

Declarative: these sentences make a statement. They usually represent the majority of
“normal” sentences, no tone, no underlying ideas.
Ex. Danny keeps writing sentence examples on here about his homework.
Exclamatory: these end with an exclamation point! Usually very preppy, or overly
declarative in a sense. It’s an excited version of declarative sentence.
Ex. I hate school!

Interrogative: they always end with a question mark…? Right? Think of interrogation.
Ex. Why do I have so much work left?

Imperative: Making a command or a request, think of like school requirements, or like

my mother’s everyday statements.
Ex. Go do your homework this instant.

Types of Sentences 2:

Simple sentences only have one main clause.

Ex. Danny is annoyed at squiggly’s name.

Compound sentences have two main clauses or two different things happening in
them. They can include the use of semicolons.
Ex. Danny fell asleep at his desk, but Squiggly kept on working.

Complex sentences have one main clause and one dependant clause. (back to when
discussing clauses, we see that since dependant can’t stand on its own, it becomes a
complex sentence at the least)
Ex. This packet is onerous because of the immense time I spend reading.

Compound-complex sentences are really long, non-run-on sentences, that have two
main clauses and at least one dependant clause.
Ex. Danny hates homework because of the work he has to do, and he dislikes the
subject of grammar too.

Subject/Verb Agreement:

When conjunctions are added to a sentence, such as and, they subject might become
plural, making the verb plural.
Ex. Danny and his fingers are aching from typing this much.
When the words or or nor are used, verb is singular because it’s one or the other.
Ex. Danny or his fingers ache from typing this much.

In the case that the two different “entities” are considered plural on its own, then using
the word or still makes the verb plural.
Ex. The mothers or the fathers are scolding their children.

It gets tricky though, if one part is singular, and the other is plural, make the verb match
the part that’s closest to it.
Ex. Danny or the mothers are eating. (The mothers is plural so are)
Ex. The mothers or Danny is eating. (Danny is singular so is)
Usually the plural noun goes to the last part, except for “I” which always goes last.

Indefinite pronouns refer to vague people or things like everyone or anybody.

Any pronouns starting with any-, every-, no-, and some- are singular. Some pronouns
like both, few, several, others, and many are always plural.
Some indefinite pronouns depend on the context of the sentence such as all, any, more,
most, none, and some.
Ex. Twelve boys played and none are tired. Of all lessons, none is more important than
this one.

Collective nouns describes a group such as team, family, orchestra, and band. They
are all generally singular noun. However, if the collective noun has people individuality,
they become plural, such as couple.

To see if the verb is plural or not, see the noun. Sometimes, there are phrases added
such as accompanied by and along with, but these don’t function as conjunction

Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement:

The pronoun must agree with the noun, which we call the antecedent.
Ex. He is Danny.
Here, he is the pronoun, and Danny is the noun.
With pronoun/antecedent agreement, the correct pronoun must be used in
correspondence to the noun. So if I said “She is Danny” they do not agree because
Danny is a male. (3rd-person talk--yay)

When there are multiple nouns in a sentence, you have to be careful to not cause
confusion. You need to know what noun the pronoun is connected to. (Don’t use it!)
Ex. Danny ate so much that he retained a double chin. It was big, imposing, and it was
annoying to look at.
or
Danny ate to the point of where he got a double chin, which was imposing and gaining
prominence on his face.
Either have a pronoun directly follow its antecedent, or do not use too many pronouns.
Always put the word I later on in a sentence
Ex. Me, myself, and I—
Same goes for the word me
Ex. Danny gave me some much needed sleep.

Other than the words I and me, pronouns such as she, you, him, etc. can be placed first
if needed.

Not on the Quiz

Starting the sentence with coordinate conjunctions such as FANBOYS is to

emphasize a point, otherwise it’s usually informal.
Ex. I couldn’t find the answer in my library. And I have a lot of books.

Subordinating conjunctions join dependent to other clauses. In order for a dependent

clause with a subordinating conjunction to avoid sentence fragment, it needs a main
clause. (e.g. after, although, as, how, that, while, etc.)

An adverb can describe an entire sentence.

Ex. Hopefully, Frank picked up some chocolate
Be careful with the intention of adverb, it may confuse the audience. Here, the adverb
honestly could have been added to show Frank picked up the chocolate with hopeful
disposition, or someone is hopeful that he picked it up.

It is recommended to not start a sentence with a numerical value, unless it is a noun like
3M and 76ers.

Parenthetical expressions are phrases that give extra information. They can be put in
parentheses, commas, or dashes.
Ex. My friend, Danny, like to watch TV.

Appositives are a special type of parenthetical expression but you must put a noun or noun
phrase that adds extra information about another noun or noun phrase. Above example has an
appositive.

Sentences contain restrictive elements and nonrestrictive elements. Restrictive elements

are absolute because they specify something.
Ex. I need a dessert that contain chocolate. Here “that contain chocolate” is a restrictive
element, or else you mean any dessert.
Nonrestrictive elements contain information that can be taken out.
Ex. Diamonds, which are expensive, can be found anywhere. The clause “which are expensive”
is unnecessary.