How to find the grammatical basis of a sentence
Video: Basic Grammar Rules: English Sentence Structure 2024, July
In a sentence, as a unit of connected speech, all words differ in function and are divided into main and secondary. The main members express the key content of the statement and are its grammatical basis. Without them, the proposal does not make sense and cannot exist.
Instruction manual
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To highlight the grammatical basis of any sentence, it is necessary to find and emphasize its main members. These include subject and predicate.
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The subject is what is reported in the proposal. It always stands in the initial form (nominative or infinitive) and, as a rule, answers the questions: “who?”, “What?”. The subject is expressed by almost all parts of speech if they appear in the meaning of a noun in the nominative case. The very noun: "what?" truth does not always lie on the surface. Pronoun: "who?" I am not a supporter of drastic measures. Adjective or participle: "who?" a full hungry one does not understand; "Who?" vacationers were waiting for the bus. Numeral: "who?" three were responsible for cleaning the area. Infinitive (indefinite form of the verb): singing is her passion. Any word that has the meaning of a noun in the nominative case: "what?" oohs and aahs came from the street. Phraseologism: "who?" young and old came out into the field. Compound name: "what?" The Milky Way stretched a wide strip. Syntactically a single phrase: "who?" my grandmother and I went home.
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The predicate means what exactly is being reported about the subject, and answers the questions: “what does it do?”, “What is it?”, “What happens to it?” etc. Depending on the mode of expression, the predicate can be a simple verb; compound registered; compound verb and complex.
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A simple verb predicate is expressed by a verb in the form of one of the moods: the letter "what did?" came on time. A compound nominal predicate consists of two parts (a bunch and a nominal part): he "what did?" was a builder ("was a builder" - the predicate). A compound verb is composed of a connective and an infinitive: children "what have you done?" stopped quarreling. A complex predicate is a combination of elements of a compound nominal and compound verb predicate: my brother always "what did?" wanted to work as a lawyer. The last part of the sentence (“I wanted to work as a lawyer”) is a difficult predicate, because only all the words in the aggregate provide the necessary information about the subject.
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To determine the grammatical basis, read the whole sentence and determine whether it is simple or complex, consisting of two or more simple ones. If the sentence belongs to the first form, then it will have one grammatical basis, and if to the second - then several. It depends on the number of simple sentences that make up the complex. For example: we were late because it was raining. "We were late" and "it was pouring rain" - the grammatical foundations of a complex sentence.
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Find the subject in the sentence. To do this, ask the questions "who?", "What?" and identify the word or phrase that answers them. Then, from the subject found, ask the questions “What does he do?”, “What is he?” and find the predicate.
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If there is only one of the main members, then this is a one-piece proposal. Note that there is no need to refer to the context to understand and interpret it. In the Russian language there are five varieties of monosyllabic sentences: call letters (with subject) "Hot July Day"; definite personal, indefinite personal, generalized personal and impersonal (with a predicate). "Get busy." "They ask you." "You recognize a smart person right away." "Darker."
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In parsing, the subject is underlined by one line, and the predicate by two.
note
Be careful if the sentence contains the words "be, " "appear, " "appear." Emphasizing only them, it is easy to make a mistake and skip one more part of the predicate.
Useful advice
The words "can", "need", "cannot", "necessary" are included in the compound predicate.