1. Chapter 16 General English / English 1
Simple Sentences
Chapter 16
General English / English 1

2. Parts of speech Noun A person, place, or thing
Common nouns refer to general people, places or things (ex. actor, small town, car) – usually not capitalized, however they can be (e.g. Ferris wheel, driving a Ford)
Proper nouns refer to specific people, places, or things (ex. Bruce Willis, Bardstown, Ford Mustang) – usually these will be capitalized
Remember, common is general, proper is specific

3. Pronouns
Used to replace nouns so that you don’t have to keep repeating the nouns
“John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith woke up this morning. John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith stretched and walked to the kitchen. John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith cooked eggs for breakfast.” Clearly, this would become tedious.
“John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith woke up this morning. He stretched and walked to the kitchen. He cooked eggs for breakfast.” This would be much less frustrating.

4. Pronouns (cont’d)
Subjective pronouns are used when the noun they are replacing is the subject of the sentence: I, you, we, he, she, it, they – often at the beginning of the sentence
“The Vice President and I ate dinner with the Prime Minister.”
Objective pronouns are used when the noun they are replacing is either the direct or indirect object: me, you, us, him, her, it, them - often at the end of the sentence
“The Prime Minister ate dinner with the Vice President and me.”

5. Pronouns (cont’d)
Possessive pronouns are used to show ownership or possession: my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs
Do not use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns – it changes their meanings
Relative pronouns are used to describe a noun or pronoun: who, whom, whomever, whose, which, that
The angry dog only wanted the bone that belonged to him to be returned.

6. Parts of speech Adjective
Describes a noun (beautiful, noisy, pungent, sour, soft)
Verb
An action or a state of being
A gerund is a verb being used as a noun (e.g. jogging)
Adverb
Describes a verb
Adverbs usually end with –ly (ex. slowly, menacingly)

7. Grammar Tip
“Good” is an adjective; “well” is an adverb. When someone inquires about your state of being (e.g. “How are you doing?”) the proper term to use is “well.” “I am doing good.” (You’re doing good what? Deeds? Business? Good describes a noun, remember.) “I am good.” (So you are the personification of goodness then?)

8. Grammar Tip
“I am doing well.” (“Doing” is a verb, and thus requires an adverb to describe it.) “I am well.” (Well is an adverb, and thus properly describes your state of being.)

9. Complete Sentences
In order for a sentence to be a true, complete sentence, the sentence must have both a subject and a verb phrase. The subject of the sentence will always be a noun. The verb phrase tells you what the subject is doing. The shortest sentence: “I am.” (‘I’ is the subject, ‘am’ is what ‘I’ is doing)

10. Complete Sentences Incomplete
“Going to bagpipe practice.” (Who is going to bagpipe practice?)
“All the pretty flowers.” (And?)
Without both subject and verb, the phrase is considered a sentence fragment – not a complete sentence
Complete
“I am going to bagpipe practice.”

11. Parts of a Sentence Outback Mack taught his son how to wrestle a bear.
The subject is who or what is performing the action
The predicate contains the verb, the direct object, and the indirect object
The verb is what the subject is doing
The direct object can be found by asking: subject + verb + what?
The indirect object receives the direct object

12. Complete and Simple subjects
The subject of a sentence is the person, place, or thing that is performing the action in the sentence. Bonnie bought both boats. (Who bought both boats? Bonnie did. Bonnie is the subject.)

13. Complete and Simple subjects
The simple subject of a sentence is subject by itself. The complete subject is the subject and all of the adjectives used to describe it. Beautiful Bonnie bought both boats. It doesn’t matter how many adjectives are added on, the rule remains. Beautiful, bubbly, brilliant, busy Bonnie bought both boats.

14. Complete and Simple subjects
Sometimes in a sentence, particularly in a command, the subject will be unstated; in these circumstances, the subject is understood to be “you.” Example: Go to the store and pick up some eggs. (If someone said this to you, you would understand that they were telling you to pick up eggs, and so they would not have to say “you.”)

15. Prepositions
A preposition describes position in time and space. Example: over, under, before, after, beside, in front of, behind, later, earlier “A preposition is anywhere a mouse can go.”

16. Prepositional phrases
A prepositional phrase tells you when and where the sentence is occurring. Before breakfast, beautiful, bubbly, brilliant, busy Bonnie bought both boats. A prepositional phrase is not an integral part of a sentence; it can be removed from the sentence, and the sentence will still make sense. The prepositional phrase only gives a sense of context to the sentence.

17. Prepositional phrases
If a prepositional phrase is at the beginning of a sentence, it will have a comma after it. If it is in the middle, there will be a comma before and after it. If it is at the end, it will not be separated by a comma. Before breakfast, beautiful, bubbly, brilliant, busy Bonnie bought, below blowing breezes, both boats by Blue Bay.