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Clause elements

The document provides an overview of clause elements and patterns in English grammar, highlighting the importance of clauses as structural units that express complete thoughts. It details five main types of clause elements: Subject, Verb element, Object, Complement, and Adverbial, along with their syntactic roles and examples. Additionally, it includes exercises for labeling clause elements and identifying clause patterns.

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CBCT1 Giáp Thị An
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19 views

Clause elements

The document provides an overview of clause elements and patterns in English grammar, highlighting the importance of clauses as structural units that express complete thoughts. It details five main types of clause elements: Subject, Verb element, Object, Complement, and Adverbial, along with their syntactic roles and examples. Additionally, it includes exercises for labeling clause elements and identifying clause patterns.

Uploaded by

CBCT1 Giáp Thị An
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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English Grammar 2 – Clause Elements and Clause Patterns

CLAUSE ELEMENTS AND CLAUSE PATTERNS

- The clause is the key structural unit of grammar that can occur independently. It is the
expression of a ‘complete thought’ - a complete description of an event or state of affairs.
- Clause elements are the major units within a clause with specific syntactic roles. These units
are often the phrases. Each type of phrases may have certain syntactic roles in the clause.
- There are five main types of clause elements: Subject (S), Verb element (V), Object (O),
Complement (C) and Adverbial (A). The central element of the clause is the Verb
element.

1. Verb element (V)


- is the essential part of a clause
- describes the action or state to which other clause elements relate
- is always expressed by a verb phrase

E.g.: I love ice-cream.


She can sing very well.
Come here!

2. Subject (S)
- generally indicates the ‘doer’ of the action or the main topic that the clause is about
- is often expressed by a noun phrase
- usually precedes the verb element

E.g.: She can sing very well.


Environmental problems are becoming more serious.

3. Object (O)
- is often expressed by a noun phrase
- usually follows the verb phrase
- only occurs with transitive verbs

 Direct object: (DO)


- generally indicates the entity affected by the action
E.g.: She likes chocolate very much.
Huong is watching a film on TV.

Your examples:

 Indirect object (IO)


- generally indicates the person receiving something or benefiting from the action of
the verb
E.g.: I gave her some chocolate.
IO DO
Show me the picture.
IO DO

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English Grammar 2 – Clause Elements and Clause Patterns

Your examples:

4. Complement
- describes the preceding noun phrase
- is often expressed by an adjective phrase, a noun phrase or a prepositional
phrase
- comes after copular verbs: be, seem, remain, become, turn, get, look, taste, feel,
sound, smell…

 Subject complement: (SC)


- describes/specifies the subject
- normally follows the verb

E.g.: Her brother is handsome.


She is my friend.
You are out of your mind!

Your examples:

 Object complement (OC)

- describes/specifies the direct object


- normally follows the direct object; occurs with only a few verbs: call, name,
consider, find, …

E.g.: I consider him my best friend.


V DO OC
We found the assignment very difficult.
V DO OC

Your examples:

5. Adverbial
- adds additional information to the clause: place, time, manner, frequency, condition,
attitude, etc.
- is often expressed by an adverb phrase, a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase

E.g.: She sings really well.


They are coming this afternoon.
The students are sitting in the classroom.

Your examples:
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English Grammar 2 – Clause Elements and Clause Patterns

Exercise 1: Labelling clause elements


In the following examples, brackets show phrase boundaries. Indicate the type of the phrases
(NP, AdjP, AdvP, VP, PP). Mark the phrases as clause elements: S, V, DO, IO, SC, OC, A.

1. [The students] [are doing] [an exercise].

2. [Taco] [is] [really] [a smart dog].

3. [Some people] [don’t like] [him] [because of his rudeness].

4. [Just] [give] [them] [hot chocolate].

5. [The gallery] [became] [a reality] [in June].

6. [He] [considered] [it] [a dumb question].

7. [The cheetah] [is] [the fastest animal in the world].

8. [During her short life], [her two sisters] [bought] [her] [a small teddy bear].

9. [The Portuguese] [named] [the place] [Bom Bahia] [for its harbour].

10. [She] [went] [crazy] [out in L.A.] [for a few months] [back in 1987].

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English Grammar 2 – Clause Elements and Clause Patterns

Exercise 2: Identifying clause patterns

• Identify the clause elements by bracketing them and labelling them (S, V, etc.).
Eg. 0. [You] S [still] A [haven’t answered] V [my question] DO

1. He is my best friend.

2. Our teacher often gives us a lot of homework.

3. I haven’t given Chris his gift yet.

4. We were at school all day.

5. The boy lives in Washington now.

6. He really told his father the truth.

7. I bought a new coat today.

8. I’d have called him a liar for sure.

9. Her mother made her this beautiful dress.

10. That success made her popular.

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