Chapter 7 – The grammar of the sentence in Standard English

Consider the following statements and click to reveal the answer.

1. What are three benefits of teaching children about grammar?

Answer:

Three benefits of teaching children about grammar are that having grammatical knowledge can help to put them more in control of their use of language; it can help them in their attempts to communicate and it makes them more effective language users.

2. What is a sentence?

Answer:

A sentence is a group of words containing a subject and a predicate that should express a thought that can stand by itself. The simplest definition often used with young children is that ‘A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop’.

3. Which of the following are sentence fragments and which are run-on sentences?

  1. Many of the women running in the fun-run last week.
  2. In Yorkshire, the cheese made in Wensleydale.
  3. The window catch is broken, it needs mending.
  4. Working far too late for his own good.
  5. The snow is falling, put on your boots.
  6. They shouldn’t need help, it is easy to find.

Answer:

a. Many of the women running in the fun-run last week. (Fragment)

b. In Yorkshire, the cheese made in Wensleydale. (Fragment)

c. The window catch is broken, it needs mending. (Run-on sentence)

d. Working far too late for his own good. (Fragment)

e. The snow is falling, put on your boots. (Run-on sentence)

f. They shouldn’t need help, it is easy to find. (Run-on sentence)

4. List four different possible functions of a sentence.

Answer:

Four different possible functions of a sentence are a statement, a question, a command and an exclamation.

5. Define these parts of a sentence:

  1. A subject
  2. A predicate
  3. An object

Answer:

a. A subject – what or whom the sentence is about

b. A predicate – tells us something about the subject and always includes the verb

c.  An object – may be needed to complete a verb’s meaning and can be direct or indirect

6. What is the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb?

Answer:

The difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb is that a transitive verb takes an object but an intransitive verb does not.

7. What is a clause?

Answer:

A clause is a group of related words containing a subject and a verb. They can be independent (i.e. they could stand by themselves as discrete sentences) or dependent (i.e. they cannot make sense by themselves).

8. How is a phrase different from a clause?

Answer:

A phrase is different from a clause because it is a group of related words but does not contain a subject and a verb.

9. Name four types of phrase.

Answer:

Four types of phrase are noun phrase, prepositional phrase, adjectival phrase and adverbial phrase.