A sentence is a linguistic unit consisting
of one or more words that are grammatically
linked.
A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully
to express a statement, question, exclamation,
request, command or suggestion.
A sentence is a set of words that in principle
tells a complete thought, although it may
make little sense taken in isolation out of
context.
Typically a sentence contains a subject and
predicate.
A sentence can also be defined purely in orthographic
terms, as a group of words starting with a
capital letter and ending in a full stop.
For instance, the opening of Charles Dickens'
novel Bleak House begins with the following
three sentences: A sentence is a linguistic
unit consisting of one or more words that
are grammatically linked.
A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully
to express a statement, question, exclamation,
request, command or suggestion.[
London.
Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord
Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall.
Implacable November weather.
The first sentence involves one word, a proper
noun.
The second sentence has only a non-finite
verb.
The third is a single nominal group.
Only an orthographic definition encompasses
this variation.
As with all language expressions, sentences
might contain function and content words and
contain properties distinct to natural language,
such as characteristic intonation and timing
patterns.
Sentences are generally characterized in most
languages by the inclusion of a finite verb,
e.g.
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".
Components of a sentence
Clauses
A clause typically contains at least a subject
noun phrase and a finite verb.
While the subject is usually a noun phrase,
other kinds of phrases work as well, and some
languages allow subjects to be omitted.
There are two types of clauses: independent
and subordinate.
An independent clause is a complete sentence
in itself, although it may not express a complete
thought: for example, They did it.
A subordinate clause is not a complete sentence:
for example, because I have no friends.
See also copula for the consequences of the
verb to be on the theory of sentence structure.
A simple complete sentence consists of a single
clause.
Other complete sentences consist of two or
more clauses.
Classification
By structure
One traditional scheme for classifying English
sentences is by clause structure, the number
and types of clauses in the sentence with
finite verbs.
A simple sentence consists of a single independent
clause with no dependent clauses.
A compound sentence consists of multiple independent
clauses with no dependent clauses.
These clauses are joined together using conjunctions,
punctuation, or both.
A complex sentence consists of one independent
clause and at least one dependent clause.
A complex-compound sentence consists of multiple
independent clauses, at least one of which
has at least one dependent clause.
By purpose
Sentences can also be classified based on
their purpose:
A declarative sentence or declaration, the
most common type, commonly makes a statement:
"I have to go to work."
An interrogative sentence or question is commonly
used to request information — "Do I have
to go to work?" — but sometimes not; see
rhetorical question.
An exclamatory sentence or exclamation is
generally a more emphatic form of statement
expressing emotion: "I have to go to work!"
An imperative sentence or command tells someone
to do something: "Go to work."
or "Go to work!"
Major and minor sentences
A major sentence is a regular sentence; it
has a subject and a predicate.
For example: "I have a ball."
In this sentence one can change the persons:
"We have a ball."
However, a minor sentence is an irregular
type of sentence.
It does not contain a main clause.
For example, "Mary!"
"Precisely so."
"Next Tuesday evening after it gets dark.".
Other examples of minor sentences are headings,
stereotyped expressions, emotional expressions,
proverbs, etc.
These can also include nominal sentences like
"The more, the merrier".
These mostly omit a main verb for the sake
of conciseness, but may also do so in order
to intensify the meaning around the nouns:
this type of sentence is often found in poetry
and catchphrases.
Sentences that comprise a single word are
called word sentences, and the words themselves
sentence words.
Sentence length
After a slump in interest, sentence length
came to be studied in the 1980s, mostly "with
respect to other syntactic phenomena".
One definition of the average sentence length
of a prose passage is the ratio of the number
of words to the number of sentences.
The textbook Mathematical linguistics, by
András Kornai, suggests that in "journalistic
prose the median sentence length is above
15 words".
The average length of a sentence generally
serves as a measure of sentence difficulty
or complexity.
In general, as the average sentence length
increases, the complexity of the sentences
also increases.
Another definition of "sentence length" is
the number of clauses in the sentence, while
the "clause length" is the number of phones.
Research by Erik Schils and Pieter de Haan
showed that two adjacent sentences are more
likely to have similar lengths than two non-adjacent
sentences, and almost certainly have similar
length when in a work of fiction.
This countered the theory that "authors may
aim at an alternation of long and short sentence".
Sentence length, as well as word difficulty,
are both factors in the readability of a sentence.
However, other factors, such as the presence
of conjunctions, have been said to "facilitate
comprehension considerably".
See also
Grammatical polarity
Inflectional phrase
Periodic sentence
Sentence arrangement
Sentence function
T-unit
References
External links
Basic Sentence Structures
The definition and meaning of the words "idea",
"thought" and "sentence".
Sentence Variety: Sentence Types
The Sentence: A Group of Words Expressing
a Meaning
"The Book-Length Sentence" and "The Art of
the Very Long Sentence", a history of very
long sentences.
Ed Park, New York Times Book Review, December
24, 2010 and January 3, 2011.
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