{"id":158,"date":"2013-12-12T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=158"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:47:32","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:47:32","slug":"how-to-make-a-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/how-to-make-a-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make a Sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve started getting some submissions to the writing activity (Woohoo! Keep them coming!), and I\u2019ve noticed that some people are having problems with run-on sentences and sentence fragments. If you did the activity a few weeks ago about finding your problem areas in grammar<\/a>, you\u2019ve already at least touched on this topic.<\/p>\n

First of all, let\u2019s review what a sentence is at the most basic level. In English, every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb. That\u2019s all. There are two exceptions to this\u2014interjections (\u201cOw!\u201d \u201cWhee!\u201d) and commands\/imperatives (\u201cGo!\u201d \u201cCome on!\u201d)\u2014but you probably won\u2019t use them on the TOEFL. The subject is a noun (dog, democracy), pronoun (I, you, we) or gerund (driving, sweeping). Of course, since this is English, your sentence will probably have more than two words, even if it\u2019s a very basic one, because you\u2019ll probably need an article and\/or a verb that is made of more than one word.<\/p>\n

Here are some of these very basic sentences:<\/p>\n

We dance.<\/p>\n

The dogs are howling.<\/p>\n

Now, not all verbs fit into such a simple sentence. Many verbs take direct objects and indirect objects.<\/p>\n

I <\/b>(subject) gave<\/b> (verb) Tony <\/b>(indirect object) a gift<\/b> (direct object).<\/b><\/p>\n

The possum<\/b> (subject) was eating<\/b> (verb) pasta<\/b> (direct object).<\/p>\n

You can further expand your sentences by adding prepositional phrases, adverbs, and adjectives.<\/p>\n

Prepositions are the words that show relationships between nouns; they often have to do with location or movement. To, on, for, toward, from,<\/i> aboard<\/i>, upon<\/i>, and besides<\/i> are all prepositions. A preposition always has a buddy: a noun, pronoun, or gerund. This buddy is called the \u201cobject of the preposition\u201d or the \u201cprepositional object.\u201d<\/p>\n

I <\/b>(subject) gave<\/b> (verb) Tony <\/b>(indirect object) a gift<\/b> (direct object) for<\/b> (preposition) his birthday<\/b> (object of the preposition).<\/b><\/p>\n

The possum<\/b> (subject) was eating<\/b> (verb) pasta<\/b> (direct object) with<\/b> (preposition) peppers<\/b> (object of the preposition).<\/p>\n

An adjective is any word that modifies, or adds information about, a noun. An adverb, confusingly, doesn\u2019t only modify verbs, although it can. In fact, adverbs can modify any non-noun word.<\/p>\n

The wild<\/b> (adjective) dogs <\/b>(subject) are howling<\/b> (verb) loudly<\/b> (adverb) at<\/b> (preposition) the full <\/b>(adjective) moon <\/b>(object of the preposition).<\/p>\n

Unbelievably<\/b> (adverb), we<\/b> (subject) dance<\/b> (verb) constantly<\/b> (adverb) until<\/b> (preposition) early<\/b> (adjective) morning<\/b> (object of the preposition).<\/p>\n

We could keep on doing this for a while (ok, forever), but not very easily. To reaaaaalllly <\/i>stretch your sentences, you need to start stringing them together with conjunctions like \u201cand,\u201d \u201cbut,\u201d and \u201cor.\u201d<\/p>\n

I gave Tony a gift for his birthday. He didn\u2019t give me anything for mine.<\/p>\n

I gave Tony a gift for his birthday, but <\/b>he didn\u2019t give me anything for mine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m wearing a silly hat. I don\u2019t want to go outside.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m wearing a silly hat, and<\/b> I don\u2019t want to go outside.<\/p>\n

As you can see, the first sentence in each of these examples is made of two complete sentences, or independent clauses.<\/b> They can be combined with a comma and a conjunction.<\/p>\n

You can turn an independent clause<\/b> into a dependent clause <\/b>by taking away the subject. For this to work, both clauses have to have the same subject.\u00a0 Take this example again: I\u2019m wearing a silly hat. I don\u2019t want to go outside.<\/p>\n

To turn the second sentence into a dependent clause, I simply remove \u201cI\u201d from it. I can combine my new dependent clause with the first sentence with a conjunction\u2014no punctuation needed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m wearing a silly hat and don\u2019t want to go outside.<\/p>\n

Tony got a gift from me for his birthday but didn\u2019t get me anything for mine.<\/p>\n

Those are the basics of making a grammatically correct sentence. Stay tuned for a look at what happens when you do it wrong, and how you can avoid it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve started getting some submissions to the writing activity (Woohoo! Keep them coming!), and I\u2019ve noticed that some people are having problems with run-on sentences and sentence fragments. If you did the activity a few weeks ago about finding your problem areas in grammar, you\u2019ve already at least touched on this topic. First of all, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13603],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13632],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Make a Sentence - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/how-to-make-a-sentence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Make a Sentence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve started getting some submissions to the writing activity (Woohoo! Keep them coming!), and I\u2019ve noticed that some people are having problems with run-on sentences and sentence fragments. If you did the activity a few weeks ago about finding your problem areas in grammar, you\u2019ve already at least touched on this topic. 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