Having seen too many different accounts in sentence structure analysis, today we will start by talking about the five most central basic sentence types (simple sentences) and laying the foundation of English sentence structure.
The five basic sentence patterns are abbreviated below:
S + V
S + V + C
S + V + O
S + V + O + O
S + V + O + C
The letters S, V, O, and C are common abbreviations used to indicate different components of a sentence, and these abbreviations help us understand the structure and function of a sentence more clearly.
But once translated, the various genres diverge and even cause confusion for beginners.
This paper specifically discusses:
- Meaning of "V", "O" and "C
- 2. Explanation of the structure of the five main sentence types
1. Meaning of S, V, O, C
Let's look at what each of these concepts represents individually.
S - Subject
The part of a sentence that performs the action or is described.
Example: She is reading. ("She" is the subject)
V - Verb
The action or state of being in a sentence.
Example: She is reading. ("is reading" is a verb in the present tense)
Here's where the disagreement begins, many traditional teachings will take this verb, and the refinement evolves into many classifications, such as what predicate verb, actual verb, transitive verb, intransitive verb, tethered verb...
In fact, the term predicate verb, which mixes predicates and verbs, is so confusing that if you can't accept it, here it is simply considered simply a verb.
As for the actual verb, usually refers to the actual meaning of the verb, can express a specific action or behavior, which is subdivided into transitive and intransitive verbs according to whether or not it can be directly followed by an object.
Tethered verbs, on the other hand, are used to describe the state and characteristics of the subject, so they need to be followed by an epithet/complement in order to be fully expressive, and they can be followed by adjectives, which is something that can't be done with real verbs.
It's actually fine to just talk about the various concepts of verbs and toss them in any way you want, but to mix them in when translating sentence structure drastically increases the confusion for beginners.
O - Object
The part of the sentence that receives the action is divided into Direct Object (DO) and Indirect Object (IO).
Example: She reads a book. ("book" is the direct object)
Example: She gave him a gift. ("him" is the indirect object, "gift" is the direct object)
The object here is actually the recipient of the verb.
Simply put, the subject sends out an action and the recipient of the action is the object.
Like in some places, it would be more figurative to translate this O as a receptive word.
But whether it's called a receptor or an object, it's just a different way of saying it, and it's not difficult to understand.
C - Complement
It is used to complement the part of the subject or object. Complements can be adjectives, nouns, etc.
Example: She is happy. ("happy" is the subject complement)
Example: They elected him president. ("president" is the object complement)
2. Explanation of the structure of the five sentence types
The five sentence types are basic sentence structures common in English, each with a different position and function for the subject (S), verb (V), object (O), and complement (C). Below is an explanation of each sentence type:
2.1 First sentence pattern: S + V
Explanation: This is the simplest type of sentence, with only a subject and a verb. The verb is usually an intransitive verb and does not need to be followed by an object.
Example:
The sun rises.
Birds fly.
When translating terms, there are usually either subject + verb, or subject + predicate.
Personally, I think it's good to go back to the source, depending on what you're used to, as long as you can actually understand it, even if you don't do the translation and just memorize the S+V.
2.2 Second sentence pattern: S + V + C
Explanation: In this sentence pattern, the verb is followed by a complement (C) which is used to describe the subject. This sentence pattern usually uses linking verbs (e.g. be, seem, become).
Example:
She is a teacher.
The soup tastes delicious.
The confusion is actually particularly high here, and it's easy to give an example, but doesn't this sentence pattern statement, S+V+C, which directly translates to subject+movement+complement, sound strange.
But after looking at the actual sentences, domestic students immediately correspond to the traditionally taught list of primary families.
As for the concept of "main system table", the word "system" is easy to understand, somewhat similar to the Chinese verb "is".
For example, "is", as in the above example, is a subdivided tense verb, which usually means "to be", and "tastes" in the second example sentence can also be translated as "tastes like".
However, "table" does not correspond to C, because C is translated as complementary. And the English word for "table" is "predictive", or P for short, so there is also S+V+P, isn't it dizzying?
Don't get hung up on this grammatical concept for the first time, it's OK to understand that S+V+C stands for this structure.
2.3 Third sentence pattern: S + V + O
Explanation: in this type of sentence, the verb is a transitive verb followed by an object (O) which is the recipient of the action.
Example:
He reads a book.
They built a house.
Main + verb + object, corresponding to the traditional teaching of main + predicate + object.
2.4 Fourth sentence pattern: S + V + O + O
Explanation: in this sentence pattern, the verb is followed by two objects: an indirect object (usually a person) and a direct object (usually an object).
Example:
She gave me a gift.
I sent him a letter.
Main+Motion+Bin+Bin, corresponding to the traditional teaching of Main+Predicate+Bin+Bin.
2.5 Fifth sentence pattern: S + V + O + C
Explanation: In this sentence pattern, the verb is followed by an object (O) and a complement (C), which is used to describe or explain the object. Verbs in this sentence pattern usually denote enablement or senses like make, consider, find, name etc.
Example:
They elected him president.
She made him angry.
Subject + motion + object + object complement, corresponding to the traditionally taught subject + predicate + object + object complement.
Here with the above S + V + O + O a lot of students can not distinguish between the feeling is the verb followed by two things, how to distinguish when it is a double object? When is it object + object complement?
I once heard an English teacher talk about this differentiation technique, which is to directly add the be verb in the middle of these two things to feel it, and if it makes sense it's Bin + Bin Complement, and vice versa it's Double Bin. Personally, I think it works very well, so you can try it.
Write it on the back.
Understanding these five basic sentence types helps lay the groundwork for analyzing and constructing English sentences, making our expressions clearer and more accurate.
This is an article that should be especially easy for everyone, as all the example sentences are not difficult in any way and can be easily read by elementary school students.
This is also due to the idea of wanting everyone to be able to familiarize themselves with a simple sentence structure through simple example sentences.
Later when I have time, I will continue to study and explore with you to see how the English sentence structure is variously modified on top of the five basic sentence types, and step by step becomes more complex.