Level: elementary
Clause structure
All clauses in English have at least two parts, a noun phrase (subject) and a verb phrase:
| Noun phrase (subject) | Verb phrase |
|---|---|
| The children | laughed. |
| All the people in the bus | were watching. |
But most clauses have more than two parts:
| Noun phrase (subject) | Verb phrase | Object, complement or adverbial |
|---|---|---|
| John | wanted | a new bicycle. |
| All of the girls | are learning | English. |
| This soup | tastes | awful. |
| Mary and the family | were driving | to Madrid. |
| She | put | the flowers in a vase. |
The first noun phrase of a sentence is the subject. English clauses always have a subject:
His father has just retired. He was a teacher. (NOT
Was a teacher.)
I'm waiting for my wife. She is late. (NOTIs late.)
except for the imperative, which is used for orders, invitations and requests:
Stop!
Please come to dinner tomorrow.
Play it again, please.
If we have no other subject, we use there or it. We call this a dummy subject:
There were twenty people at the meeting.
There will be an eclipse of the moon tonight.
It's a lovely day.
It's nearly one o’clock.
- What's the subject?
Verb patterns
Different verbs have different patterns, so the structure of the clause depends on the verb.
Transitive and intransitive verbs
Most verbs in English are either transitive or intransitive. A transitive verb has the structure noun + verb + noun:
| Noun (subject) | Verb | Noun (object) |
|---|---|---|
| John | wanted | a new bicycle. |
Transitive verbs need an object. Common transitive verbs are:
| bring buy |
enjoy like |
make take |
want wear |
An intransitive verb has the structure noun + verb:
| Noun (subject) | Verb |
|---|---|
| John | smiled. |
Intransitive verbs do not have an object. Common intransitive verbs are:
| arrive cry |
die fall |
happen laugh |
smile work |
Some verbs can be either transitive or intransitive:
| She sang a wonderful aria. We were singing. |
Transitive: N + V + N Intransitive: N + V |
| We were playing football. We were just playing. |
Transitive: N + V + N Intransitive: N + V |
Common verbs like this are:
| draw follow |
help learn |
ride study |
watch write |
- Transitive or intransitive?
Other patterns
Some verbs are both transitive and intransitive, but the object when they are transitive is the same as the subject when they are intransitive:
| Peter closed the door. The door closed. |
Transitive: N + V + N Intransitive: N + V |
| I boiled some water. The water boiled. |
Transitive: N + V + N Intransitive: N + V |
These are called ergative verbs.
There are other kinds of verb patterns. For example:
- link verbs have the structure Noun + Verb + Adjective (She looks happy) or Noun + Verb + Noun (He became a teacher).
- some two-part verbs can have the structure Noun + Verb + Particle + Noun (She gave back the money) or Noun + Verb + Noun + Particle (She gave the money back).
- double object verbs have the structure: Noun + Verb + Noun + Noun (Peter sent his mother some flowers).
- verbs followed by the infinitive (We planned to take a holiday.)
- verbs followed by the -ing form (I love swimming.)
- verbs with that, wh- and if clauses (She said that …, He explained what …, He asked if … .) These are often reporting verbs.
- Verb patterns
_________, we couldn’t make out the gist of the passage.
B.Though carefully explained by Romeo
C.Carefully as Romeo explained
Hello, I've checked many sites and they all say the answer is 'B', but why isn't it 'C'?
Hello 343463,
In my opinion both of these are grammatically possible. You need to contact the author of the question if you want to know what they think.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Can I ask, in the sentence below what the subject of the gerund "committing" refers to?
It is the largest investment in grid resilience in the state's history and part of President Biden's biggest ever investment in the US electric grid, committing $3.46bn (£2.7bn) for 58 clean energy projects across 44 states.
Thank you for your reply.
Hello Shayan,
'Committing' here is not a gerund but a participle. Both of these are -ing forms but the gerund is the -ing form functioning as a noun, while the participle is a non-finite verb which does not have a tense or time* and which does not have a subject of its own but rather has the same subject as the main clause. Here, the subject in the first clause is 'it' (the first word), so you could rewrite the sentence as follows:
It is the largest investment in grid resilience in the state's history and part of President Biden's biggest ever investment in the US electric grid, and it commits $3.46bn (£2.7bn) for 58 clean energy projects across 44 states.
You can read more about participle clauses here:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/c1-grammar/participle-clauses
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
*participles have no tense of their own but the name is a little confusing. We call participles with -ing 'present participles' and participles with -ed 'past participles'. However, they do not refer to present and past but rather to any time. The names are confusing, which is why we prefer to just say '-ing form'.
Hello
Need a clarification for the following:
1.Air pollution is emerging as a global problem around/in the world.
Is it around or in?
2 .Tomorrow is my parents anniversary. I ought to/ should/need to wish them.
Is it ought to , should, need to,?
Kindly give the reason for the choice.
Regards
Aparna
Hello Aparna Dinesh,
Generally speaking, we don't provide answers to tasks from elsewhere. This is for several reasons. First, if we did this we would end up doing people's homework for them, which is not our role! Second, the questions may well have problems. Here, for example, your second question is not fully grammatical as we do not use 'wish' in this way. Third, we have no guarantee that questions that we have not written actually suit the language being tested. More than one answer is possible in each of these examples, for instance. So for all of these reasons, the person to go to for your explanation is the person who prepared the questions.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello sir. I wonder which of the following is correct: "I'm open to meeting wherever/whenever is most convenient for you" or "I'm open to meeting wherever/whenever it is most convenient for you"? I personally prefer the latter, as I don't see "wherever" or "whenever" can serve as a pronoun and serve as a subject in the clause. By the way, is it a relative clause or an adverbial clause?
Thanks for your time.
Hello Radioheady,
You're right that wherever and whenever are used as adverbs or conjunctions rather than nouns. However, in certain expressions they are used as nouns with the meaning 'whatever time' or 'whatever place'. Your sentence is a good example of this. Another common example is this:
The clause here is an adverbial clause. You can read more about adverbial clauses here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_clause
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you for your clarification.
Hello LearnEnglish team,
Could you please help me clarify my confusion relating to sentence types?
Here it is,
1. Michael is going to the UK next week and thinking about having a chance to visit the Royal Palace. (is it a simple sentence or compound?)
2. Michael is going to the United Kingdom next week and thinking about having a chance to visit the Royal Palace, which is considered as one of the expensive buildings in the UK. (can we say it is a compound-complex sentence?)
I would really be grateful if you could respond to this.
Thank you.
Hi Basheer Ahmed,
You can consider the first one a simple sentence, containing a compound verb: Michael is going ... and thinking ... .In the same way, the second one is a complex sentence.
If we add the full clause elements, they are a compound and a compound-complex sentence, e.g. Michael is going to the UK next week, and he is thinking ... . (Often, a comma is put before the conjunction in a compound sentence.)
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Is the phrase "though good" a subordinate clause in the sentence: "Your report, though good, is still not up to our standards." ?
Thanks.
Hello AE42,
Yes. 'Though' can be an adverb or a subordinating conjunction. Here, it is the latter. The 'full' clause would be 'though it is good' but there is no need to repeat the verb.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello LE-team!
I apologize if I put my question in the wrong place. Here's a phrase I recently came across:
"Men don’t cheat because they’re scoundrels..." (i.e. it says here that men who cheat are not scoundrels - they cheat for other reasons).
Question: is it possible, without losing or changing the meaning (if it is grammatically correct at all?), to rewrite this sentence as follows: "Men cheat not because they are scoundrels ..." (i.e. this is a literal translation of the construction often used in my native language) . Is it correct to use "not because" the way I did, or should I necessarily put an object after the word "cheat"?
Thank you in advance for your response
Hi Swientoslaw,
Yes, your rephrasing is grammatically correct, and the meaning is the same! The verb cheat can be intransitive or transitive, so an object is not necessary (although you can of course add one).
From the point of view of clarity, I would also add that your sentence (Men cheat ...) might be more clearly worded than the original sentence. That's because in the original, by looking at the first few words of the sentence alone (Men don't cheat ... ), the meaning appears to be the opposite of the speaker/writer's actual meaning (i.e. that men do cheat, just not for this reason). Listeners or readers may feel momentarily confused, until they read or hear the rest of the sentence. Your rephrasing avoids this potential confusion.
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Thank you very much, Jonathan!
Hello.
I am confused about something and would really appreciate your help.
As we know, the difference between compound and complex sentences is that one is made up of independent clauses while the other includes dependent and independent clauses.
So if we discuss the following examples:
1. Sally was tired but she decided to work anyway. - a compound sentence with two independent clauses: Sally was tired. / She decided to work.
2. Although Sally was tired, she decided to work anyway. - a complex sentence.
My question is, in N2, if we take out “although” don’t we get two independent clauses? So why is N1 considered compound and N2 complex? Is it only because “but” is called a coordinative conjunction and “although” is subordinative?
Hi tutoring,
Yes, right. "Although" in 2 makes the clause subordinate. Taking out "although" changes the sentence structure, and the sentence is no longer grammatical unless another conjunction is added. The relationship between clauses is specified by the conjunction.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hello, Sir!
I wanted to know if the sentence below is compound-complex sentence.
Elon Musk has told Twitter staff that remote working will end and difficult times lie ahead.
Does "and" connect 2 dependent clauses: 1 that remote working will end & 2 that difficult times lie ahead?
Thank you for your time.
Best Wishes!
Hello Sokhom,
I'm afraid this is not something we deal with at LearnEnglish. I'd suggest you have a look at a site like grammarly, where they cover this sort of grammar quite extensively.
Sorry!
Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hello!
Could I ask you about the preposition in the sentence "All the people IN the bus were watching." Is it correct to say "on the bus"? If so, is there any difference? Can I also say "in the ship", "in the train", "in the plane"?
Thank you so much for your important work and help (I tell all my friends how helpful British Council teachers and team are) and I'm grateful for the answering this post beforehand!!!
Hi howtosay_,
Typically, "on" is used for all of those forms of transport, but people do occasionally say "in". The meaning is the same.
We are very glad to hear your kind comments. Thank you! We hope you continue to enjoy using the site.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Thank you Sir, but,is this use of the verb considered to be correct in formal writing?
I read in a text book that verbs like "love"."hate", "like"...can be followed by ing form or to infinitive and verbs like "want", "need","ask"... are followed by to infinitive.Is this grammatically correct to use them like the previous comment?
Hi Sajatadib,
Yes, it is considered grammatically correct, although the Cambridge Dictionary adds that it is usually used in informal situations. You may be interested in this page for more explanation: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/want (see the Want meaning ‘need’ section).
Want and need can be followed by an -ing form verb (they both have the "need" meaning), but not "ask".
I hope that helps!
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hello Sir,
The verb after "want" and "need" should be to infinitive,right?
But I heard this sentence : I don't want you telling me what to do.
Could you help me understand the ing form after want?
Thank you.
Hi Sajatadib,
"Want" can be followed by an -ing verb too. Here are some more examples.
The meaning of "want" here is more like "need" or "it is necessary". The sentence that you mentioned means something like "I don't need you to tell me what to do" or "It's not necessary for you to tell me what to do". It's stronger than the regular meaning of "want".
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hello!
Could you please answer the following questions:
Is that grammatically correct to say "Twenty people were at the meeting". And can I say " I went with my friend to the cinema yesterday" or "With my friend I went to the cinema yesterday" or am I to use cleft sentences for emphasis because these ones aren't correct? I went to the cinema with my friend yesterday sounds correct to me (I hope it is), but I have doubts concerning the other two sentences.
Thank you very much for your precious contribution to our knowledge, and thank you beforehand for answering this post!!!
Hello howtosay_,
The first sentence ('Twenty people...') is fine and a perfectly natural phrasing.
The other sentences are possible but sound very clumsy. Although it is possible to move prepositional phrases such as 'with my friend' around it is rarely done and tends to produce constructions which are distracting rather than emphatic. You could use a cleft sentence construction (It was with my friend that...) if you really needed to, but I find it hard to think of a situation where you would want to put such heavy emphasis on this and could not do it through, for example, using your voice or a contrasting phrase (...with my friend, not my wife).
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, Peter!
Thank you, I'm very very grateful to you!!! Could I ask you to clarify if "I went to the cinema with my friend yesterday" (as an ordinary sentence without any emphasis) sounds clumsy too? And if so, how do you say it correctly?
Hello again howtosay_,
That sentence is fine. Generally speaking, prepositional phrases come at the end of the clause, so both 'yesterday' and 'with my friend' come at the end of this sentence. It doesn't matter in which order.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, Peter!
Thank you very much for your answers!!! I've been trying to find this kind of information on my own for a long time, but I couldn't. So, I very appreciate your help!
Hello Kirk,
I'm having doubts about the deconstructed sentence below, in particular the object of the (main) verb. Could you check?
Best,
Paul
You can’t stop people doing what they want.
You = subject
Can’t = modal verb, finite verb
Stop = transitive verb, main verb, bare infinitive
Can’t stop = verb phrase
People doing what they want = noun phrase (or zero that-clause?), direct object
People = noun
Doing what they want = gerund phrase, complement of noun phrase
Doing = gerund, verbal, non-finite verb
What they want = wh-clause, noun clause, object of gerund phrase, gerund complement
They = subject (pronoun)
Want = (transitive) verb
Hello Dr Paul,
Please note that this level of syntactical analysis isn't something I'm that all that familiar with, but yes, that looks correct to me.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have been deconstructing three sentences (see below). Could you tell me whether the names behind the separate parts are correct?
Kinds regards,
Paul
I believe that he is dangerous
I = subject = personal pronoun (subject form)
Believe = transitive verb, active verb, finite verb, reporting verb
That he is dangerous = that-clause = direct object
He = subject = personal pronoun (subject form)
Is = linking verb and finite verb
Dangerous = modifier = adjective = subject complement
He is believed to be dangerous
He = subject = personal pronoun (subject form)
Is = finite verb
Believed = non-finite verb, past participle, transitive verb, reporting verb
Is believed = passive verb
To be dangerous = infinitve phrase = noun phrase = direct object
To be = infinitve = verbal (= non-finite verb) and functions as a noun
Dangerous = modifier = adjective
They believe him to be dangerous
They = subject = personal pronoun (subject form)
Believe = finite verb, active verb, transitive verb, reporting verb
Him = indirect object = personal pronoun (object form)
To be dangerous = see above
To be = see above
Dangerous = see above
Hello Dr Paul,
Yes, I'd say that all looks good. Well done!
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Much appreciated, Kirk.
Unfortunately I used the wrong tense. I should have written 'I have deconstructed three sentences' (present perfect simple) in stead of 'I have been deconstructing three sentences' (present perfect continuous), because we don't use the latter if we're talking about how much or how many (in this case: three sentences).
Best,
Paul