Music swells Siblings squabble Owls hoot I am Grammar is And just like that two words can become a SENTENCE The information in a short sentence can be expanded by adding more words that give vivid descriptions or specific reactions Where should those words be placed How does a writer know what PUNCTUATION to use What does all of that mean anyway Words fall into place more easily when one has an understanding of grammar a system of rules that gives writers the foun dation for producing acceptable formal expression It is that acceptable form that appropriate grammar which helps readers comprehend what has been written But why do we call it a sentence Since the 12th century A D our vocabulary has been influenced by our Latin-speaking ancestors their word sentire means to feel be of the opinion Basic sentences have a subject someone or something and a PREDICATE or verb action or state of being Each complete thought means something because of the individual words that comprise it and the punctuation that defines its limits A sentence begins with a capital letter and concludes with an end mark which can be a period a question mark or an exclamation point The ending punc tuation mark indicates to the reader if a group of words conveys a statement a com 4
mand a question or an exclamation Other punctuation helps specify whether the sentences consist only of a MAIN CLAUSE or a combination of a main and one or more SUBORDINATE CLAUSES Does that sound complicated It doesn’t need to be Writers depend on end punc tuation marks as well as other symbols such as commas semicolons colons dash es hyphens apostrophes quotation marks and parentheses to help their writing make sense The word punctuation has its Latin root in punctuat meaning brought to a point That’s the goal to bring the reader to the conclusion the point that you want to make and punctuation gives you an accepted reliable way to communicate Knowing more about words helps you write bet ter sentences knowing more about sentences and punctuation helps you make your point most clearly 5
SENSIBLE SENTENCES K nowing the different kinds of sentences and how they function can help you decide what kind of sentence to an answer Interrogative sentences always end with a question mark as in What time will you get home from the dance An indirect write There are four basic types declarative question however is merely a statement and interrogative imperative and exclamatory should not be confused with the direct ques A declarative sentence makes a statement and ends with a period This is the most fre quently used sentence type and it states a fact or an argument without asking the reader to do anything about it Consider the following examples The previous sentences were declarative Using spell-check on a com puter doesn’t eliminate a writer’s need to carefully proofread Both are simple state ments of fact An interrogative sentence is different It tions posed by interrogative sentences In the sentence She asked what had happened to the containers with melted ice cream in them no one is doing the asking the event is just being recorded as a statement mak ing it a declarative sentence Like declarative sentences imperative sentences usually end with a period Unlike declarations though the subject you is understood and an impera tive gives a command or makes a request as in Read Chapter 17 for Tuesday’s quiz An asks a direct question of its reader expecting exclamatory sentence is a complete statement 6
a city girl who finds herself totally unprepared to teach the impoverished children of a small community in the Appalachian Mountains and of her interactions with residents such as the young local minister Mr Grantland Try to iden tify all four types of sentences in the following passage describing Christy’s first day at school with strong feeling that ends with an exclama tion point LuAnn scored five goals in the soccer game To emphasize a particularly strong feeling as in the PART OF SPEECH called an INTERJECTION you may also use an exclama tion point as in hey or oh Novelists such as American author Catherine Marshall 1914 83 use a variety of sentence types as Marshall’s 1967 book about a 19-year-old teacher named Christy Huddleston shows Christy tells the story of OH HEY 7
