Kinds of Sentences
A sentence is a
sequence of words conveying complete meaning. Sentences are of four types.
- Assertive Sentences (.) / Declarative Sentences
- Interrogative Sentences (?)
- Imperative Sentences (.)
- Exclamatory Sentences (!)
1. Assertive Sentences
/ Declarative Sentences
An
assertive sentence contains a statement. Assertive sentences fall into two
divisions.
- Affirmative
- Negative
Sentences that contain negative words like no,not,neither..nor,scarcely,rarely,hardly,seldom,little,few
etc. are called Negative sentences. All other sentences are called Affirmative
Sentences.
Affirmative
|
Negative
|
She is Sitha
|
She is not Sitha
|
He will sing the
song
|
He will not sing
the song
|
I went to the
hospital yesterday
|
I did not go to
the hospital yesterday
|
Gupta plays for
our team
|
Gupta does not
play for our team
|
We may go to Kashmir this summer
|
We may not go to Kashmir
this summer.
|
Please remember
that ‘Not’ is a word that never stands alone but with an auxiliary
verb. Out of 12 verb forms in English language 10 tense forms contain at
least one auxiliary verb. Negative sentences are made by adding Not or No
to the auxiliary verb.
Eg. Rema is
singing a song ( present continuous ) ( Affirmative )
Rema is not
singing a song. ( present continuous ) ( Negative )
|
He has written a
book (Present Perfect) (Affirmative)
He has not written
a book (Present Perfect) (Negative)
If there are more
than one auxiliary verb in the verb phrase Not is added just after the
first auxiliary verb.
Eg. He will not
have been studying.
In the case of
simple present tense and simple past tense the auxiliary verbs are not
perceptible unless we split the verb.
Eg . Rama writes
books (Simple present - Subject Singular)
They write
books (Simple Present - Subject plural)
Sitha wrote
a letter. (Simple past)
See above verbs do
not have visible auxiliary verbs.
The above sentences
cannot be easily turned into negative because the negative word Not
requires an auxiliary to go with and here there are no auxiliary verbs to go
with.
In such cases we
need to split the verbs to get the auxiliary verb out. Verbs of this kind
(simple present and simple past) should be split like this below.
Writes – does +
write
Write – do + write
Wrote – did + write
Thus we get
Rama does not write
books. ( Simple present - Singular)
They do not write
books ( Simple present - Plural)
Sitha did not write
books. ( Simple past)
The words in
italics in the following sentences have a negative meaning.
I hardly see
any film.
There is scarcely
any water in the village well.
I seldom
visit my old school.
I rarely
attend the General Boby meeting.
He is a man of few
words.
We have little
information about this matter.
2. Interrogative
sentences
Interrogative
sentences are of three kinds.
- Those which demand the answer Yes or No ( Auxiliary question)
- Those which are meant to elicit some information ( Wh questions )
- Tag questions which form part of statements.
- Yes or No questions
Yes or No
questions are otherwise called auxiliary questions because they always
begin with an auxiliary. The answers to such questions always begin with Yes
or No.
Eg. Is
there a hostel attached to this school?
Are
they attending the wedding?
Do they
live in their own house?
Yes or
No questions are made by turning subject + Aux.verb pattern into Aux.verb +
subject pattern. A question mark is added at the end.
Eg.
She is
beautiful. (Assertive sentence - Subject + verb pattern)
Is she beautiful?
(Question - Verb + Subject pattern)
He
writes books
Does he
write books?
He
visited the place regularly.
Did he
visit the place regularly?
- Wh questions or Information questions
They
are called wh questions because they always begin with a wh word like
what,who,whom,which,where,when,why, and how.
They
are called information questions also because the answer to such questions
contains more information than a just a Yes or No
In
order to make a wh question we need to make a yes or no question first then put
the wh word before it.
Eg.
He
writes books.
(Make a
question for which the underlined word comes as the answer)
We need
to analyse the sentence thoroughly to get the wh word in question.
(Refer
2nd chapter (Parts of speech) of this blog to learn more about analyzing a
sentence.)
Subject
|
Verb
|
Direct Object (
What)
|
He
|
writes
|
books
|
In the
above sentence underlined word books is the Direct Object of the
verb writes because we get the underlined word as the answer by asking the
question what to the verb writes.
Now we
can easily make both the Yes or No question and Wh question.
Does he
write books? (Yes or No question)
What
does he write? (Wh question)
What is
added at the beginning of the yes or no question and the underlined word
(books) is removed to make the wh question.
Now
look at the sentence below
He saw
a snake clearly in the grass yesterday.
Lets us
analyse the sentence like below.
Subject
|
Verb
|
Direct Object (what?)
|
Adverb Manner
(How?)
|
Adverb Place
(where?)
|
Adverb Time
(When?)
|
He
|
saw
|
a snake
|
clearly
|
in the grass
|
yesterday
|
Yes or
No question to the above sentence is
Did he
see a snake clearly in the grass yesterday?
By
adding suitable wh word in front of the yes/no question we will get different
kinds of wh questions depending upon the underlined word.
For eg
if the underline word is a snake the wh question will be like this
What
did he see clearly in the grass yesterday?
If the
underline word is clearly the wh question will be like this
How did
he see a snake in the grass yesterday?
If the
underline word is in the grass the wh question will be like this
Where
did he see a snake clearly yesterday?
If the
underline word is yesterday the wh question will be like this
When
did he see a snake clearly in the grass?
Adverb
manner can be again divided into
How
long, How tall, How old, How many,How often,How little etc
Eg.
My
sister is five feet tall.
How
tall is your sister?
My
father is sixty years old
How old
is your father?
- Tag questions
Tag
questions are tiny questions attached to a statement for emphasis and effect.
She is
Sitha,isn’t she ?
The
form of the question tag varies according to the verb in the sentences.
Following are the rules governing the use of tag questions.
i)
Affirmative statements have negative tags; negative
sentences have positive tags.
ii)
Auxiliary verbs are repeated in the tag.
Eg.
- You are attending the dinner, aren’t you?
- They went to a film, didn’t they?
- He is not playing, is he?
- Sunil plays well, doesn’t he?
- She hadn’t seen the child, had she?
- They don’t like it, do they?
- I am late, aren’t I?
Imperative
sentences (commands/requests) take the tag in the future tense. Will you?
/won’t you?
Stop shouting,
will you? (or won’t you?)
Stop smoking,
won’t you? (or will you?)
Come in
the evening, will you? (or won’t you?)
Note
the changes in the use of question tags in the following examples.
There
is a way to solve this problem, isn’t there?
There
are two answers to this question, aren’t there?
Nothing
was known about him, was it?
She
hardly remembers anything, does she?
None of
my friends has/have disowned me, have they?
Neither
of the brothers knew the answer, did they?
Let’s
start the work, shall we?
Let me
read this for you, shall I?
Kindly
let us have your views in a week, won’t you?
You had
better take the exam again, hadn’t you?
You
would rather go out, wouldn’t you?
I am
older than you, aren’t I?
We used
to play together, didn’t we?
3.
Imperative sentences
Imperative
sentences express command, request, prayer etc.
Stop
writing.
Give me
your pen.
Please
grant me leave for a day.
Do not
smoke.
O Lord,
give us this day our daily bread.
The
subject of these imperative sentences is you. It is implicit and not
stated. But when you is specifically mentioned, it is for the sake of emphasis
or to single out the subject.
You do
this work.
You go
to the canteen and get the coffee.
You
type this letter. You go and post it. (Two different persons are ordered.)
Let
also may be used in imperative sentences.
Let us
finish this job soon.
Let
him/her/them finish this job soon.
(Let is
used with the First person or the Third Person only. It is not used with the
Second Person. Let you finish this job soon = This is wrong)
4. Exclamatory
sentences
Exclamatory
sentences express a strong feeling such as wonder, surprise, shock or anger.
They begin with how or what and the verb is often omitted. The mark of
exclamation (!) is put at the end of the sentence.
What a
splendid catch!
What a
wonderful performance!
How
nice of you!
An
exclamatory sentence may be changed into an assertive sentence by using it.
It is a
splendid catch.
It is a
wonderful performance.
It is
very nice of you.
If the
exclamatory sentence includes a subject, it becomes the subject of the
assertive sentence as well.
What a
nice chap he is!
He is a
very nice chap.
End
