{"id":521,"date":"2018-05-03T07:21:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T07:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/?p=521"},"modified":"2018-05-08T15:02:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T15:02:01","slug":"the-simple-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/2018\/05\/03\/the-simple-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Simple Sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is a part of the <\/i>essential toolkit of grammar knowledge<\/b><\/i> I feel all kids should have. The following parts can be found here: <\/i>the subject<\/a><\/i>, <\/i>the predicate<\/a><\/i>, the simple sentence, the compound sentence<\/a>, the complex sentence<\/a>, sentence fragments<\/a>, and run-on sentences<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

The simple sentence is the simplest of sentences. One subject<\/a>. One predicate<\/a>. And one complete thought. Plus the requisite first word capital and closing punctuation. The simple sentence can be short, like, He <\/i>sleeps<\/i><\/span>. It also <\/i>can be ponderously and pompously overwrought with redundant description<\/i><\/span>. <\/i><\/p>\n

You do have to be a little careful because some subjects or predicates are combined. Like this one, where I’ve underlined the predicate.<\/p>\n

The Maple Leafs and Raptors <\/i>have not seen a lot of success<\/i><\/span>. <\/i><\/p>\n

Notice that there is one subject, in the grammatical sense, even though there are two entities within it. How can you tell it’s a single subject? Well, replace it with a pronoun. Who has not seen a lot success? They<\/b> have not seen a lot of success.<\/p>\n

Now look at this sentence.<\/p>\n

Abbu <\/i>loves playing Minecraft and watching Bleach.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

It’s still a simple sentence because there is only one subject, Abbu, and one verb, loves. Playing<\/i> and watching<\/i> both share loves<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Writing that just uses simple sentences is boring. We don’t want our students to remain at this stage in their writing. But if students can’t identify a simple sentence, they’ll likely be unable to repair a sentence fragment<\/b> or a run-on sentence<\/b>.<\/p>\n

So here’s the simple formula for writing a simple sentence:<\/p>\n

1 subject + 1 predicate<\/b><\/p>\n

But we will want to add a slight modifier to our formula. Here’s an example that shows us why.<\/p>\n

When I’<\/i>m tired<\/i><\/span>. <\/i><\/p>\n

This has one subject I’m <\/i>and one predicate tired, <\/i>but that pesky when<\/i> is killing the sentence. Try visualizing what it’s saying…You can’t. You want the sentence to continue, like this.<\/p>\n

When I’<\/i>m tired<\/i><\/span>, I’ll drink some coffee. <\/i><\/p>\n

This is no longer a simple sentence, but at least it’s a complete idea.<\/p>\n

So let’s amend our formula and write:<\/p>\n

1 subject + 1 predicate (plus a complete idea)<\/b><\/p>\n

If you want to practice identifying simple sentences, try these exercises over at Khan<\/a> Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There you have it. Let’s move onto compound sentences<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The simple sentence is the simplest of sentences. One subject. One predicate. And one complete thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"A succinct description of the simple sentence.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"two_page_speed":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50518565,1],"tags":[50518569,50518573,50518576,50518575,50518577,50518574,50518570],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","category-uncategorized","tag-grammar","tag-sentence","tag-simple","tag-simple-sentence","tag-students","tag-teaching","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018_0317_13530600.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9LLGe-8p","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grahamnoble.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}