Studying The Basic Sentence Patterns in English

Each group contains the same words, but the meaning of the groups is very different. The first group is not organized according to English word order, and the only meaning we get from it is the meanings of the individual words. In the second and third groups, the words are organized into English sentences, and in addition to the meanings of the individual words, we get the meaning supplied by the word order. Since the two sentences are made up of exactly the same words, the difference in meaning between them is entirely due to the difference in word order.

Not all languages use word order to convey meaning. Latin, for example, depends on word endings to signal grammatical relationships. Look at the example below:

Agricola puellam amat.

Agricola amat puellam.

Puellam amat agricola.

Amat agricola puellam.

The first sentence above represents the usual Latin word order; the other sentences vary in emphasis but not in basic meaning. No matter what order the words come in, the sentence means “The farmer loves the girl.” The fact that agricola (farmer) is the subject of the sentence is signaled—not by the word order—but by the ending –a. Similarly, puellam (girl) is the object of the verb because it ends in –am.

 

In English, the subject is indicated by its position preceding the verb; the object, by its position following the verb. We can change the meaning of a sentence by changing the word order:

The farmer loves the girl.

The girl loves the farmer.

To make the same change in meaning in a Latin sentence, however, we must change the word endings:

Agricola amat puellam.

Agricolam amat puella.

The Basic Sentence Patterns

If we examine the English sentences, looking at the different orders in which words occur, we find that the majority of English sentences are based on a few ways of putting form class words together. We call these different word orders the basic sentence patterns. We will discuss the most important of these patterns.

Pattern One

 

Noun               Verb                (Adverb)

The fans           cheered.

Benigno            struck               out.

It                      might rain.

Mrs. Aquino     is going by car.

That movie       ended               strangely.

The above sentences consist mostly of a noun followed by a verb. Frequently the pattern is completed by an adverb or an adverbial element, such as a prepositional phrase. Verbs that occur in Pattern One sentences are called intransitive verbs.

 

Pattern Two

 

Noun                           Verb                Adverb

The snowshoes ought to be       inside.

The firemen                  were                 in a hurry.

Mrs. Aquino                 will be              late.

Benigno                        is                      on the carpet.

The verb in Pattern Two sentences is always some form of be (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been). The adverbs and adverbial elements that occur in this pattern always refer to time or place; we never find adverbs of manner, such as strangely, eagerly, noisily, slowly.

 

Pattern Three

 

Noun                           Verb                Adjective

 

His mother                    seems               very young.

Those rocks                 are                   treacherous.

Mrs. Aquino                 is                      religious.

My overcoat                 has become      quite shabby.

Her story                      sounded           true.

That tree                       will grow          even taller.

Verbs that occur in Pattern Three sentences are called linking verbs. There are thousands of intransitive verbs in English, but only a few words are regularly used as linking verbs. The most important are be (and its various forms), seem, and become.

 

Pattern Four

 

Noun               Verb                Noun

 

His father          is                      a doctor.

Both books      have become    best sellers.

Pedro               remained          my friend.

Our street         is                      a thoroughfare.

Be, become, and remain are the verbs that usually appear in Pattern Four sentences. They are classed as linking verbs.

Pattern Five

 

Noun               Verb                Noun

 

The choir          sang                 several selections.

The pitcher       hit                     a home run.

The class          should elect      officers.

Mrs. Aquino     has given          the money.

Our team          has to win         every game.

Carelessness     causes              accidents.

Pattern Four and Pattern Five sentences have the same sequence: noun-verb-noun. We can tell them apart, however, because these two patterns contain different kinds of verbs. The verbs that occur in Pattern Five form a large class called transitive verbs. These verbs produce sentences in which the two nouns refer to different persons or things. The linking verbs that occur in Pattern Four, on the other hand, produce sentences in which the two nouns refer to the same person or thing. In each pair of sentences below, notice how the relationship between the nouns changes when we replace a linking verb with a transitive verb:

His father became a doctor.

His father needed a doctor.

Pedro remained my friend.

Pedro snubbed my friend.

Our street is a thoroughfare.

Our street intersects a thoroughfare.

The noun following the verb in a Pattern Four sentence is called a predicate noun; in Pattern Five sentences, it is called a direct object. Most of the thousands of transitive verbs in English occur only in Pattern Five sentences. There are, however, two small classes of transitive verbs that may occur in sentences that have two nouns following the verb. One of these groups occurs in Pattern Six sentences; the other group occurs in Pattern Seven.

Pattern Six

 

Noun               Verb                Noun               Noun

 

Mrs. Aquino     gave                 us                     the money.

He                    wrote               each aunt          a postcard.

Jimmy               should tell         his parents        our plans.

His uncle          got                   Frank               that job.

Pattern Seven

 

Noun               Verb                Noun               Noun

 

The class          elected             Jimmy               president.

Perseverance    made                him                   a millionaire.

Everyone          considers          him                   a hero.

The judge         declared           the plan            a fraud.

Both Pattern Six and Pattern Seven are noun-verb-noun-noun. We can tell them apart because the verbs that occur in Pattern Six sentences are followed by nouns that refer to different persons or things. The verbs in Pattern Seven sentences are followed by nouns that refer to the same person or thing. In Pattern Six the first noun following the verb is called the indirect object; the second noun is the direct object. In Pattern Seven the first noun is the direct object; the second noun is called the object complement. With some of the verbs that occur in Pattern Seven, an adjective can replace the second noun:

Everyone considers him heroic.

The judge declared the plan fraudulent.

English sentences are seldom as simple as the basic sentences listed above. In order to convey meaning adequately, we usually need to expand the basic patterns by adding modifiers and more complicated constructions. But no matter how complicated or how long a sentence becomes, it will always have one of the basic patterns as a foundation.

More About Structural Meaning

 

The meaning of an English sentence is a combination of lexical meaning and structural meaning. The lexical meaning is contained in the form class words. The structural meaning is represented by three different elements: (1) word endings, (2) structure words, and (3) word order.

Structural meaning can be seen most clearly if it is isolated from lexical meaning. We can do this by composing sentences that contain nonsense words instead of regular form class words. For example:

That boofical flugness has blanged many shmumps.

Since this sentence has no lexical meaning, we can see how the structural elements (word endings, structure words, and word order) work together to produce structural meaning. Thus, although we don’t know what flugness means, the structural meaning shows us that it is a noun, that it is something that can be boofical, and that it can blang. Similarly, we can tell that blang is a verb and that it is something that a boofical flugness can do to shmumps. Shmumps are obviously things that can be blanged by a flugness.

In this way, structural meaning shows important relationships—even between nonsense words. Suppose we replace the nonsense words with blanks:

That__________________has_________ed many __________s.

We now have a sentence pattern into which we can fit many different sets of form class words:

That long wait has annoyed many customers.

That Filipino acrobat has performed many feats.

That old car has traveled many miles.

That fat lady has tried many diets.

The lexical meaning of these sentences varies a great deal. But the structural meaning is the same because the form class words in each sentence have the same relationships with each other.