Introduction to sentence patterns: Nominals and verbs are the skeletal parts of every sentence that produce the major pattern. Adjectivals and adverbials are extras that can usually be removed without affecting the main pattern or meaning.

The working verb (plus its auxiliaries and modifiers) establishes the tense. Use time-changers (yesterday, today, tomorrow) to find it or its auxiliaries. A nominal is a word (or group of words) that answers the questions "Who?" or "What?" The most common nominal is a noun. The subject of the verb, the object of the verb, and the indirect object of the verb are all nominals. Ask "Who/what [verb]" to find the subject of a sentence. Then ask "[subject-verb] who/what" to find out if there is an object. (Test to see whether that object is not an object but a complement by seeing if it renames the subject.)

There are three major kinds of verbs and each one produces a particular sentence pattern:

1. A transitive verb needs at least one object, so the pattern is SVO (subject-verb-object) (or SVOO).

2. An intransitive verb cannot have an object, so the pattern is SV (subject-verb).

3. A linking verb must be completed by a nominal or adjectival that renames or describes the subject, so the pattern is SVC (subject-verb-complement). This sentence is the only kind of sentence that can produce an adjective without a noun after the verb.

HOMEWORK QUESTIONS:

1. The bottom of the "Grammatical Summary" sheet has examples of each of the major patterns. Make up TWO examples of your own illustrating EACH of the three most common patterns: SV, SVO, SVC. (Make the first one simple and then add a bunch of modifiers to make the second.) (6 total sents.)

2. What is the "pattern" of each of the following nonsense sentences? The possibilities are SV, SVO, SVC. Use the test above to first find the working verb, then the subject, and then, possibly an object. (Actually label the part, so you know what part is S ,what part is V, etc. What you label as the subject is the noun with all its modifiers; same with the object, if there is one.)

Sample: The grumious gluf was slowly snurfing on the glob.

                        S                             V

A.         Some billyflaps were clining a somewhat dorgy snule.

B.         A dirty little moggen bloored the strene.

C.         You didn't flench that kabe very spoothly.

D.         You tribble the rimbits under the dallylags.

E.         That lobeful blint is a loofer.

F.         The strogs were fendous today.

G.         Those tubbles turgled around the building.

H.         His parklip seemed rather stacious.

 I.         Many nimsy moosles are gliffing today despite the ungy orks.

 J.         The dorkles will snark while crimming.