Subject and Verbs Every complete sentence contains a subject and a verb.

Subject The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that the sentence is about. The subject is a noun or pronoun. The subject is the “who or what” word in the sentence. Ask yourself, “who or what is the sentence about?” “Who or what is doing something in this sentence?”

Examples People applauded. Gloria wrote the answers on the board.

Verbs Many verbs express action; they tell what the subject is doing. You can find an action verb by asking, “What does the subject do?” Examples: People applauded. Gloria wrote the answers on the board.

Linking Verbs Linking verbs do not show action. Linking Verbs: is, are, was, and were These words join (or link) the subject to something that is said about the subject. Example: Gloria is a teacher.

Verbs Some verbs consist of more than one word- a helping verb plus the main verb. Examples: Gloria has written the answer on the board. The verb is has written.

Verbs The balloons were drifting slowly to earth. The verb is were drifting. The verb of a sentence never begins with to. Example:

Examples Gloria is going to write the answer on the board. The verb of the sentence is is going. It is not write or to write. The balloons seemed to hang in the air. The verb of the sentence is seemed. It is not hang or to hang.

List of Helping Verbs Forms of be: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been Forms of have: have, has, had Forms of do: do, does, did Forms of do: do does, did Special Verbs: can, could, may, might, must, ought (to), shall, should, will, would

Practice Circle the subject and underline the verb. 1. Dogs at the animal shelter wait for a good home. 2. The frozen fish on the counter defrosted quickly. 3. Two young boys from the neighborhood were playing catch in the alley.

Further Practice 4. By the end of the day, we had sold between 350 and 400 tickets.

Prepositional Phrases A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with a noun. The subject of a sentence is never part of the prepositional phrase.

Common Prepositions About Above Across After Among Around At Before Behind Below Beneath Beside Between By Down During Except For From In Into Like Of Off On Over Since Through To Toward Under Up With without

Examples of Prepositional Phrases In the house Of the world From the bakery With your permission What is the subject in the following sentence? A bunch of green grapes fell onto the supermarket floor. The answer is bunch, but many people would be tempted to choose grapes. In this case, however, grapes is part of the prepositional phrase of green grapes, so it cannot be the subject.

Practice First, cross out the prepositional phrases in the following sentences. Then underline the subject. 1.The sick man, with the shaking hands, poured the pills from the brown bottle. 2. A student in the class fell asleep during the long lecture. 3. The blue berries in this pie are bitter.

Further Practice 4. Like her father, Abby adores basketball. 5. The dust under your bed contains tiny creatures. 6. From my bedroom window, I can watch my neighbor’s TV. One of my best friends is a computer programmer.

Preposition A word that connects a noun or a pronoun to another word in the sentence. Example: A man in the bus was snoring loudly. In is a preposition. It connects the noun bus to man.

Object of the Preposition The noun or pronoun that a preposition connects to another word in the sentence is called the object of the preposition.

Practice An ant was crawling up the teacher’s leg. What is the proposition? What is the prepositional phrase? What is it connecting? What is the object of the preposition?

Further Practice The man with he black mustache left the restaurant quickly. What is the preposition? What is the prepositional phrase? What is it connecting? What is the object of the preposition?

Further Practice The plant on the windowsill was a present from my mother. What are the prepositions? What are the prepositional phrases? What is being connected ? What are the objects?