Part 1: Sentence and Clause Structure
Sentences, Clauses, and Groups
Definition
Although you could describe any text as simply a collection of words chained together, like carriages on model train set, it is more helpful to think of the ways that words are grouped together in to meaningful units, like different sized blocks of Lego.
Sentences are formed by one or more clauses and are separated in writing with sentence-final punctuation (periods, exclamation points, or question marks).
Clauses contain groups of nouns and verbs that are connected together; for example, the simplest clause contains a subject and verb and sometimes an object.
The verb group (verb phrase in traditional grammar) contains the main verb in the clause and any auxiliary (“helping”) or modal verbs that are needed.
Noun groups (or noun phrases) start with a head noun and can be expanded by adding articles (a, an, the), adjectives, prepositional phrases and other modifiers.
Or, taken in the opposite direction, we can say that words are combined in groups that form clauses which may be connected into longer sentences.
Discovery
Form
In functional grammar, every clause is organized around the verb, or more technically, a verb group.
Clauses that have a subject and a verb are known as finite clauses; this includes imperatives (commands), which don’t have subjects (e.g. Sit down!).
Other clauses that have a verb without a subject are known as non-finite clauses (e.g., walking to school, overheard on the bus, leading to trouble).
Verb groups contain at least a main verb (e.g, eats, has been eating, may have eaten). Any other verbs in the group are known as auxiliary verbs, or more simply for learners, helping verbs (e.g. has been eating, may have eaten).
Noun groups contain at least a head noun. The head noun is the main “thing” in the group. You’ll find it after the pre-modifiers (e.g. articles, quantifiers, adjectives) and before any post-modifiers (prepositional phrases and relative clauses). For example, in the three noun groups below, the head noun is always pasta:
pasta
the cooked pasta
the delicious cooked pasta with sauce that I made last night
Careful!
In some traditional grammar books, the verb phrase is defined as the verb plus its object (e.g. the students read their books). This is also known as the predicate. Functional grammar does not use these definitions, but you may see them in other reference materials.
Functions
A sentence is traditionally explained as a complete thought. However, it’s worth noting that the concept of a sentence only makes sense in writing, particularly formal writing – consider what a “sentence” means in a text message! For this reason, it’s not accurate to criticize students for not “speaking in complete sentences.” It’s true that we usually speak in clauses, although single-word utterances or simple phrases or noun groups are appropriate in many situations (e.g., “No!” or “Because of the rain” or “After lunch”). The challenge for many MLLs is to expand their communicative repertoire by using more complex clauses and more expanded noun groups. So when we tell students to speak in “sentences,” we usually really want them to expand on their answers.
Within a clause, the verb group contains the process: it drives the clause with the meaning of doing, being, saying, thinking, feeling, or linking. The noun groups contain the participants in the process: the things, people, places, or concepts that are involved with the verb. Other information can be added to the clause (where? when? why? with what?), for instance with adverbs or prepositional phrases.
Clauses present a single process or idea, which is sufficient for very simple texts – if you teach younger grades or beginning language learners, you will may see texts that are nothing but simple sentences, or sentences with a single clause (e.g. subject-verb-object: “Jane saw the dog”). However, in order to express relationships and connections between ideas, it quickly becomes necessary to combine clauses into compound and complex sentences. In this way, a sentence can be considered a clause complex: just like an apartment complex, it contains several units (clauses), each of which has its own rooms (groups) and layout (grammatical structure).
Exercises
Other resources
- Review of parts of speech, or word classes (Englicious)
- Clause structure and verb patterns (British Council)
- Clause types: declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory (Englicious)
- Play this sentence building game with your students! (Englicious)
What next?
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Independent and dependent clauses
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Finite and non-finite clauses
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Compound sentences
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Complex sentences
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Auxiliary verbs
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Expanded noun groups
