+402.+ Now that we have finished the study of the various parts of
speech, we are ready for sentence building and for sentence analysis.
Sentence analysis is the breaking up of the sentence into its different
parts in order to find out how and why it is thus put together. To
analyze anything is to break it up or separate it into its different
parts. We speak of analyzing a sentence when we pick out the subject and
the predicate and their modifiers, because we thus unloosen them or
separate them from one another.
These parts of the sentence are called the elements of the sentence. The
elements of a sentence consist of the words, phrases and clauses used in
forming the sentence.
+403.+ Let us begin from the simplest beginning and build up our
sentences, using the various parts of speech as we have studied them.
Let us take the simplest form of sentence which we can consider. For
example:
Men work.
There are only three parts of speech which can be used to make a simple
sentence in this manner, and these are, either the noun and the verb, or
the pronoun and the verb. We might say instead of _Men work_, _They
work_, and have a complete sentence.
In the sentence _Men work_, _men_ is the subject and _work_ is the
predicate. The subject and the predicate are the two principal elements
in a sentence. No sentence can be formed without these two parts and
these two parts can express a thought without the help of other
elements. Now we may begin to enlarge the subject by adding modifiers.
You remember we have found that a noun may be modified by an adjective.
So we add the adjective _busy_, and we have:
Busy men work.
Our simple subject is still the noun _men_, but the complete subject is
the noun with its modifier, _busy men_. We may add other adjectives and
say:
The busy, industrious men with families work.
Here we have our simple subject _men_ modified by the adjectives, _the_,
_busy_ and _industrious_, and also by the adjective phrase, _with
families_. So the complete subject of the sentence now is, _the busy,
industrious men with families_.
Our predicate is still the single verb _work_. Let us now enlarge the
predicate. We have found that adverbs are used to modify verbs, and so
we may say:
The busy, industrious men with families work hard.
The busy, industrious men with families work hard in the factory.
Our simple predicate, _work_ is now enlarged. It is modified by the
adverb, _hard_ and the adverb phrase, _in the factory_. So our complete
predicate is now, _work hard in the factory_.
+404.+ These sentences with the simple subject and the simple predicate
and their modifying words and phrases form simple sentences.
+A simple sentence is one which expresses a single statement, question
or command.+
+405.+ A simple sentence, therefore, will contain but one subject and
one predicate. The subject may be a compound subject and the predicate
may be a compound predicate, but still the sentence expresses a single
thought. For example: _The boys sing_. This is a simple statement with a
simple subject and a simple predicate. Then we may say: _The boys sing
and play_. We still have a single statement, but a compound predicate,
_sing and play_.
Now we may make a compound subject, and say, _The boys and girls sing
and play_, but we have still a single statement, for both predicates are
asserted of both subjects. So, _The boys and girls sing and play_, is a
simple sentence.
If we say, _The boys sing and the girls play_, we have a compound
sentence, composed of two simple sentences, _The boys sing_, _The girls
play_.
If we say, _The boys sing while the girls play_, we have a complex
sentence formed of the simple sentence, _The boys sing_, and the
dependent clause, _while the girls play_.
+406.+ Now let us sum up our definitions:
+Every sentence must contain two parts, a subject and a predicate.+
+The subject of a sentence is that part about which something is said.+
+The predicate is that part which asserts something of the subject.+
+The simple subject of a sentence is a noun, or the word used in place
of a noun, without modifiers.+
+The simple predicate is the verb or verb phrase without its modifiers.+
+The complete subject of a sentence is the simple subject with all of
its modifiers.+
+The complete predicate of a sentence is the simple predicate with all
of its modifiers.+
+A simple sentence is one which expresses a single statement, question
or command.+
+A complex sentence is one containing an independent clause and one or
more dependent clauses.+
+A compound sentence is one containing two or more independent clauses.+
+A clause is a part of a sentence containing a subject and a predicate.+