Parts of a Sentence

If you know the parts of a sentence, you understand the sentence better.

A sentence is not simply some words randomly thrown together. It is something built from words and phrases (i.e. groups of words) according to some system.

How does a sentence work?

As I said, according to some system...

What is a system?

Not as difficult as it sounds...

A system is something in which...

• there are parts,


• all the parts do different tasks,


• so that the purpose of the whole is fulfilled.

A sentence too is a system. So, the important questions are...

1. What are the different parts of a sentence and
   what jobs do these sentence parts do?


2. How do these parts inter-relate so that a grammatically correct sentence is created?

What are the Different Sentence Parts?

As we learn about the parts of a sentence, we shall hear more about these different names.

• Subject
  (For a detailed treatment of this part, click here)


• Predicate


• Finite Verb (Transitive, Intransitive, or Linking)


• The Object (Direct or Indirect)


• Complement (Subjective or Objective)


• Adverbial

Subject and Predicate

Traditionally, a sentence is divided into two parts:

1. The Subject—tells us which person, animal, place or thing we are talking about;


2. the Predicate—tells us what we are saying about that subject.

Have a look at these sentences...

• Mohan ate those mangoes.
• Cricket is played in India.
• His sister is a teacher in Delhi.

The bold-faced part is the subject and the remaining part is the predicate in each of the three sentences above.

This division of the sentence into Subject and Predicate is clearly according to meaning.

There is a more sophisticated explanation of these two sentence parts. Read here a detailed explanation about the Subject.

Finite Verb

A finite verb is a one-word, two-word, three-word or four-word verb, which acts as a single meaningful sentence part and is essential (necessary) for the existence of the sentence.

Examples of finite verbs are:

• eat
• is eating
• has been eaten
• will have been eating

Read more about finite verbs here.

The Object

This is usually a noun phrase, i.e. a group of words built around a noun or a pronoun. The object answers the question:

• finite verb + whom?
  or
• finite verb + what?

as in these examples:

• The teacher praised the student. (praised whom?—Answer: the student)
• Mohan eats mangoes. (eats what?—Answer: mangoes)

The student and mangoes are the objects in the above sentences.

Adverbial

Sentences may contain words or phrases of information about when, where, how or why some action took place or something is in existence. Such words or phrases are called Adverbials.

Here are some examples...

• in the morning—She completed the story in the morning.


• at the railway station—I met him at the railway station.


• brilliantly—She played the piano brilliantly.


• for permission to go home—You should meet me for permission to go home.

Complement

As the name suggests, a complement is something that completes something.

What does it complete?

A complement completes...

• sometimes the meaning of the Subject (subject complement or subjective complement)
  and
• sometimes that of the Object (object complement or objective complement).

How does the Complement Complete?

The Complement completes either by renaming the subject or object or by describing them.

Here are some examples:

• Peter is a student.—the phrase a student renames the subject Peter. (Subject Complement)


• That girl is clever.—the word clever describes the subject that girl. (Subject Complement)


• We made Mohan monitor of the class.—the word monitor renames the object Mohan. (Object Complement)


• The people found Susanna innocent.—the word innocent describes the object Susanna. (Object Complement)

What next?

The answer to the second question, which is...

How do the various parts of a sentence (which I have listed and explained above) interplay to form a sentence? This is the subject-matter of this page on sentence structure.

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