Lesson #15
Classification of English Sentences
English sentence can be classified into two types: basics and transforms. The basic sentences are those fundamental or elementary sentences which all other kinds of sentences are derived from. The transformational sentences are those that are derived, with the help of the well-formed basic sentence, by applying the rules of transformation.
The following are examples of basic and transformational sentences.
Basic Transform
The girl is good. The good girl is there.
Samran smiles. Samran and Popthong smile.
The doctor punishes the nurse. The nurse is punished (by the doctor)
A man is here. Is a man here?
The boy is coming. The boy who is coming is small.
Sam smiles.
? Sam and Robert smile.
Robert smiles.
? The child who is bad.
The child is bad. ? The child bad.
? The bad child.
A woman is there.
? The woman who is good is there.
The woman is good.
Structures of Basic Sentence
Rewrite Rule
The basic rewrite rule of English basic sentences may be formulated as the followings:
S ? NP + VP
N
NP ?
Det + N
Nprop
Nindef.
N ? Npp.
Ncom.
Art
Det ? (pre – Art) + Demon + (Num)
VP ? Aux + MV
Aux ? Tense + (M) + (Aspect)
Aspect ? (have + participle) + (be + ing)
NP
be + Adj.
MV ? Adv - p
Verbals
VI
VT + NP
NP
Verbals ? Vb +
Adj.
Vs + Adj.
Vh + NP
Nprop. ? Robert, Samran, Amy, Thongpool, Phetchabun, Thailand etc.
Nidef. ? someone, anyone, everyone, no one, somebody, anybody,
nobody, something, anything, everything, nothing.
Npp ? I, you, we, they, he, she, it.
Ncom ? girl, boy, cat, dog, water, chair etc.
Pre-Art ? some of, any of, a few of, one of, a lot of, two of .. etc.
Art ? the, a, an, some, ?
Demon ? this, these, that, those.
Num ? one, two, three, first, second….
Tense ? present, past.
M ? can, will, shall, may, must.
Adj. ? good, beautiful, small, bigm etc.
Adv – p ? here, there, at home, in the class, etc.
VI ? occur, run, go, …
VT ? take, read, see, …
Vs ? seem, taste, look, feet, …
Vh ? have, cost, weigh, total, …
Vb ? become, remain, …
Notes
English basic sentences contain two main parts; a noun phrase and a verb phrase. So the simple rewrite rule may be : a sentence consists of (?) a noun phrase (NP) plus a verb phrase (VP).
S ? NP + VP
As the rule above, the NP functions as the subject of the basic sentence and comes before the VP. The VP functions as its predicate.
The following are examples of the English basic sentence consisting of two main parts: NP and VP.
Samran is here.
Someone is coming.
I have a note.
You must come.
That girl looks pretty.
Some of the girls sit down.
They throw away the magazines.
NP
The NP may be a noun (N) alone or a noun