![]() ![]() “Is lovely, pale, luminescent lime green” does not magically transform this into a sentence. Clearly, this is a fragmentary thought, and that’s why such phrases are labeled “fragments.” Nor does it help to pile on more words. “Is green” doesn’t become a sentence even though it contains the noun “green,” because it doesn’t tell you what is green. Just sticking in a noun doesn’t make a string of words into a sentence, no matter how long the string of words becomes. So, to have a sentence, there must be a naming word (noun) that lets the reader know what the sentence is about. Of course, it certainly could form the subject of a different sentence, such as “Green is my favorite color.” While “green” is also a name (noun), it is not what the sentence is about so it cannot function as the subject of this sentence. “Ball” is a name (noun) for a round object. For example, take the sentence “The ball is green.” This sentence is about a ball. Other, less tangible things can also be nouns, such as emotions or ideas.Įvery sentence must be about something or, to put it another way, it must have a subject. “Woman” is the English name for a female human, while “lake” names a medium-sized body of non-flowing water and “car” names a type of vehicle. ![]() For example, “woman,” “lake,” and “car” are all nouns. “Noun” is the technical term for words that name something, most often a person, a place, or a thing. If you don’t have those ingredients, then you don’t have a sentence. It must express a complete thought, however brief. Well, you came to the right place for a simple, no-nonsense explanation.Įvery sentence must have a subject, as well as a verb which tells what the subject is doing or being. But how can you tell? What sets apart a real, honest-to-goodness sentence from a phrase or a fragment? Maybe your sentence wasn’t really a sentence, after all. Ask your instructor.Has your word processing program ever advised you to reconsider a sentence you just wrote? Have you ever sat and puzzled over it in frustration, wondering what it was so upset about? Perhaps your final research paper in English Composition is not the place to experiment - or, then again, maybe it is. In a New York minute.Īs long as you are clearly in control of the situation, this is permissible, but the freedom to exercise this stylistic license depends on the circumstances. ![]() Harrison Ford has said he would be more than willing to take on another Indiana Jones project. ![]() There are occasions when a sentence fragment can be stylistically effective, exactly what you want and no more. the more powerful speaker, he lost the case because he didn't understand the jury. We need an independent clause to follow up this dependent clause. This sentence fragment has a subject, he, and two verbs, had and was, but it cannot stand by itself because of the dependent word (subordinating conjunction) even though. It may even have a subject-verb relationship, but it has been subordinated to another idea by a dependent word and so cannot stand by itself: Even though he had the better arguments and was by far the more powerful speaker. Remember that an -ing verb form without an auxiliary form to accompany it can never be a verb. It may have most of the makings of a sentence but still be missing an important part of a verb string: Some of the students working in Professor Espinoza's laboratory last semester. It describes something, but there is no subject-verb relationship: Working far into the night in an effort to salvage her little boat.This is a verbal phrase that wants to modify something, the real subject of the sentence (about to come up), probably the she who was working so hard. This sentence accomplishes a great deal in terms of placing the reader in time and place, but there is no subject, no verb. It may locate something in time and place with a prepositional phrase or a series of such phrases, but it's still lacking a proper subject-verb relationship within an independent clause: In Japan, during the last war and just before the armistice. There are several reasons why a group of words may seem to act like a sentence but not have the wherewithal to make it as a complete thought. It does not contain even one independent clause. If your computer is equipped with PowerPoint, click on the PowerPoint icon to the right for a brief PowerPoint presentation on Sentence Fragments.Ī SENTENCE FRAGMENT fails to be a sentence in the sense that it cannot stand by itself. ![]()
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