ACCRA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

ENGL 102

LECTURER:
The Sentence

SENTENCE WORD ORDER

 Basic word order: subject, verb, object (SVO)

Eg. Zinzin swept the hall.
S V O

 Adverbials usually come after verbs or objects

Eg. They went to work at 8:00 a.m.

 Time references are also placed at the beginning

Eg. Today, I will drink soup.
Excercise

Rewrite the following sentences to make sense

and mark Subject, Verb etc as S, V, etc:

a. John sing can Blues.

b. The cat-meat will the boys eat.
c. Love money much very John does.
Forms of Sentences
 A sentence can be

 Statement: John likes her.

 Question: Does John like her?
 Command: Eat the food.
 Exclamation: How beautiful she looks!

Exercise:

Write a sentence each to show examples of the forms

of sentences above.
Types of Sentences
 Simple: verbs with and without objects that express complete
thought/meaning. Sometimes the subjects may be hidden.
Eg. Open the door.= You, open the door.

 Transitive verbs always take objects (beat, contain, hit, touch)

 Intransitive verbs don’t take objects (faint, sleep, snow, come,

depart)

 Some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive (begin,

open, win, ring)
 Sentences with linking verbs (be, seem): don’t take
objects, only complements.
Eg. I am here. He seems lost.

 Complements may be:

Adjectives: John is tall.
Nouns: Paschal is a professor.
Adjective + noun: Paschal is a tall professor.
Pronouns: The anthology is mine.
Adverb of place/time: I am here. He was here at 2
p.m.
Prepositional phrase: He is on the roof.
Direct/indirect objects
 There can be two objects of a verb.

 Some verbs combine with TO (give, lend, tell)

Eg. Give me the pen. Give the pen to me.

 Some verbs combine with FOR (choose, buy)

Eg. Buy a pen for me. Buy me a pen.

 It and them can be placed after the verb

Eg. Give it to me. Give them to me.

Exceptions exist: explain, confess, propose, prove

Eg. He proved his intelligence to the class.
He proved the class his intelligence. (wrong)
Exercise

 Underline the indirect objects.

1. Kofi gave Ama a phone.

2. A phone was given to Ama by Kofi.
3. Buy me a telescope.
 Compound sentence
 When 2 or more simple sentences are joined.
 Conjunctions are used to join the sentences:
Addition: and
Continuation: and then
Contrast: but, yet
Choice: or
Result: so
Reason: for

 Place comma before conjuncts except before ‘and’

 Basic word order, SVO, is kept.

 Don’t repeat subjects that recur: John ate 10 plates of rice but (he) was not satisfied.

 The subject after ‘so’ is usually repeated: He was hungry, so he ate 30 bananas.

 Subject after ‘for’ must be repeated: He ate all the food, for he was hungry.
Complex sentences
 2 or more simple sentences can be joined to form complex
sentences

 The conjunctions are of different kinds.

 There is one ‘main’ idea (main clause) and 1/more ‘subordinate’

ideas (subordinate clauses).

Eg. We shall go hunting if Kofi comes.

If he returns from the trip, Edem, the intelligent boy in our

class, will represent the school in the national debate at the
Flagstaff House.
 Relative pronouns and clauses
 Relative pronouns: who, which, that

 Relative clauses: has relative pronoun as subject/object.

 They cannot be omitted

Relative clauses are clauses starting with the relative pronouns who*, that, which, whose, where,
when. They are most often used to define or identify the noun that precedes them. Here are
some examples

He is the professor who teaches robotics.

Who/that: usually used for humans as subjects.

Which/that: for non-human

This is the cat which eats pepper.

 Who(m)/that: used as objects. They can be omitted.

 There is a relative pronoun whom, which can
be used as the object of the relative clause.
For example: My science teacher is a person
whom I like very much. To many people the
word whom now sounds old-fashioned, and it
is rarely used in spoken English.
Preceding noun Relative pronoun Examples

- Do you know the girl who.

a person who(m)/that, whose - He was a man that..
- An orphan is a child whose parents.

- Do you have a computer which.

a thing which†/that, whose - The oak a tree that .
- This is a book whose author..
 Note 1: The relative pronoun whose is used in place of
the possessive pronoun. It must be followed by a noun.
 Example: There's a boy in grade 8 whose father is a
professional tennis player. (There's a boy in grade 8. His
father is a professional tennis player.)

 Note 2: The relative pronouns where and when are used

with place and time nouns.
 Examples: FIS is a school where children from more than
50 countries are educated. 2001 was the year when
terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York.
 Some relative clauses are not used to define
or identify the preceding noun but to give
extra information about it. Here are some
examples:
DEFINING AND NON DEFINING
CLAUSES
 Defining clauses: relative clauses that ‘define’ a person, thing etc. in a sentence.
 In such sentences, commas are not used.
 Commas are not also used where there is ‘that’ in the relative clause.

Eg. I like people who read and perform poetry.

He knows the guy that bought the new cat.

 Non-defining clauses: relative clauses that do not define anything in particular but give
general additional information.
 In such sentences, commas are used.
 If they are removed from the sentence, they won’t cause significant meaning changes.
Eg. The driver, whose car was stolen by the boys, came here yesterday.

Note: the use/non-use of commas could affect meaning:

His child, who is in Norway, will arrive on Monday. (his child is in Norway)

His child who is in Norway will arrive on Monday. (He has other child(ren) in other parts of the
world.)
 ‘whose’: used to replace possessive adjectives
(my, your, his etc.)
Eg. She is the woman whose house A.M.A.
pulled down at Zongo-Junction.

 Sometimes, it replaces ‘its’ to refer to non-

human.
Eg. This is the church whose walls were built of
gold.
 My ESL teacher, who came to Germany in 1986, likes to ride his mountain bike.
 The heavy rain, which was unusual for the time of year, destroyed most of the plants in
my garden.
 Einstein, who was born in Germany, is famous for his theory of relativity.
 The boy, whose parents both work as teachers at the school, started a fire in the
classroom.
 My mother's company, which makes mobile phones, is moving soon from Frankfurt to
London.

 In the summer I'm going to visit Italy, where my brother lives.

 Note 1: Relative clauses which give extra information, as in the example sentences
above, must be separated off by commas.

 Note 2: The relative pronoun that cannot be used to introduce an extra-information

(non-defining) clause about a person. Wrong: Neil Armstrong, that was born in 1930,
was the first man to stand on the moon. Correct: Neil Armstrong, who was born in 1930,
 There are two common occasions, particularly in spoken
English, when the relative pronoun is omitted:
 1. When the pronoun is the object of the relative clause.
In the following sentences the pronoun that can be left
out is enclosed in (brackets):
 Do you know the girl (who/m) he's talking to?
 Where's the pencil (which) I gave you yesterday?
 I haven't read any of the books (that) I got for Christmas.
 I didn't like that girl (that) you brought to the party.
 Did you find the money (which) you lost?
 Note: You cannot omit the relative pronoun
a.) if it starts a non-defining relative clause,
or, b.) if it is the subject of a defining relative
clause. For example, who is necessary in the
following sentence: What's the name of the
girl who won the tennis tournament?
 When the relative clause contains a present or past
participle and the auxiliary verb to be. In such cases both
relative pronoun and auxiliary can be left out:
 Who's that man (who is) standing by the gate?
 The family (that is) living in the next house comes from
Slovenia.
 She was wearing a dress (which was) covered in blue
flowers.
 Most of the parents (who were) invited to the conference
did not come.
 Anyone (that is) caught writing on the walls will be
expelled from school
 EXERCISE

1. We spent our holiday in Scotland last year. Scotland is in the north of Great Britain.
2. People live in Scotland. They are called Scots.

3. We first went to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland

4. Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh. He wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories.
5. Then we visited a lake. It is in the Highlands.
6. Loch Ness is 37 km long. People know it for its friendly monster.

7. There we met an old man. He told us that he had seen Nessie.

8. We then travelled to a mountain. The mountain is near the town of Fort William.

9. The mountain is the highest mountain in Great Britain. It is called Ben Nevis.

10. I sent you a postcard. It was written on the summit of Ben Nevis.
Exercise

 Write two defining and two non-defining

clauses. Give reasons for your answer.
Adverbial clauses of time, place,
manner
 Adverbial clause of time: answers ‘when’?
He came here when you were cooking.
 Future reference: after, as soon as, before

 Adverbial clause of place: answers ‘where’?

(where, wherever, anywhere, everywhere)

 Adverbial clause of manner: answers ‘how’?

(as, in the way, as if, as though)

Form a sentence each showing adverbial clauses of time, place,

manner.
Adverbial clause of reason and
contrast
 Reason: answers ‘why’? (because, as, seeing,
since)
Eg. I will eat since the food smells nice.

 Contrast: introduced with conjunctions such

as ‘although’, ‘even if’, ‘whereas’, ‘however’,
‘no matter’
Adverbial clauses of purpose, result,
comparison
 Purpose: ‘so that’, ‘in order that’, ‘to-infinitive’ (to study, to play, to
sing)
 ‘in case’: means ‘so as to be on the safe side’ and refers to the future.
We use the simple present or should after in case. (Read the notes in
case there should be a test.)

 Result: ‘so’, ‘so…that’, ‘such’, ‘such…that’

 So + adjective (that) = ‘as a result’
They were so tired that they dozed off.

 Such + noun (that) = ‘as a result’

He such a talented that he sings and plays keyboard at the same time.

 Comparison: ‘as…as’ eg. He works as hard as a horse.

 EXERCISE
Underline the adverbial clauses in the following sentences and indicate
the type of adverb as well

1. I do not believe her because I know she is a liar

2. The traveller went where the climate was very cold.
3. Whatever she did, she was never believed.
4. They wept as if they were really sad.
5. If he comes , I shall see him.
6. I have been here since I was ten years old.
7. Unless he repaid the money, I should be angry.
8. Although I was not tired, I went to bed.
9. I got up early so that I might see the sun rise.
10. However much he tried, he always failed.