Sentence Structure

Thank goodness for sentences and sentence structure!

Sentences are nice little packages of words that come together to express one complete thought.

They make it easy to understand ideas and learn information.

In order to be a complete sentences, a group of words needs to contain a subject and a verb, and it needs to express a complete thought.

If a group of words is missing any of that information, it is called a sentence fragment.

If you have a group of words that contains two or more independent clauses that are not properly punctuated, it is called a run-on sentence.

Structures

The structure of a sentence tells us how the basic parts of a sentence are arranged.

• A simple sentence has only one independent clause.
• A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction.
• A complex sentence has a subordinate clause joined to an independent clause with a subordinating conjunction.
• A compound-complex sentence has a two or more independent clauses and one or more subordinate clauses.

Diagramming

The great thing about diagramming sentences is that it shows how all of the parts of a sentence are related.

That is really good news for us, since we're talking about the structure of a sentence, which has to do with the parts of a sentence and how they are arranged.

Use these diagrams to help your understanding of simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

Simple Sentence:

Compound Sentence:

Complex Sentence:

I washed the dishes after I ate my oatmeal.

Compound-Complex Sentence:

I would have bought the doughnuts that you asked for,
but they were too expensive.

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Understand sentence structure? Learn about the types of sentences

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Learn Grammar the Easy Way: Diagramming Sentences