Monday, April 27, 2009

session 1: Subject and Verb

Session 1 : Work On Your Sentence Grammar 1

To start this session, let's begin with the most basic subject. If one wants to improve one's Sentence Grammar, one should learn how to build a sentence and identify the elements within.

Sentence is the basic grammatical unit in English. The main element of a sentence are subject, verb or linking verb,direct or indirect object, and of course; complement. Of all the elements, only subject and verb that have to appear in every sentence you make.
On this session, I am going to point out subject and verb.

Let us now see what subject is. Subject is a noun, or a noun equivalent such as pronoun, gerund, infinitive, or noun clause in a sentence.
Confused? Dont be..
Let me explain the use of subject:
a. The porch is covered with dirt. ( subject as noun )
b. She arrived at the church. ( subject as pronoun )
c. What you did was terrible. ( subject as noun clause )
d. Running is good exercise. ( subject as gerund )
e. To breathe is to live. ( subject as infinitive )
Pretty simple, huh? You can identify a subject in a sentence with ease if you understand the usage.

Let's discuss verb now. Verb describes an action or a process in a sentence. There is another kind of verb, though; the one that expresses a condition. That kind of a verb is called a linking verb (linking a word in the predicate to the subject).
See the examples:
a. Joanne jumped off the plane. ( describes action )
b. Maria is excited. ( expresses condition )
See the differences? It is quite obvious, isn't it?

I will discuss the other elements in the next session, so look forward to it you guys..
In the meantime, why don't you try to do the exercise I have in the other post; session 1 : identifying subject and verb..

Until next time, Good Bye..