Kinds of Sentences

Kinds of Sentences

A sentence is a sequence of words conveying complete meaning. Sentences are of four types.

1. Assertive Sentences (.) / Declarative Sentences
2. Interrogative Sentences (?)
3. Imperative Sentences (.)
4. Exclamatory Sentences (!)

1.    Assertive Sentences / Declarative Sentences

An assertive sentence contains a statement. Assertive sentences fall into two divisions.

1. Affirmative
2. Negative

Sentences that contain negative words like no,not,neither..nor,scarcely,rarely,hardly,seldom,little,few etc. are called Negative sentences. All other sentences are called Affirmative Sentences.

Affirmative	Negative
She is Sitha	She is not Sitha
He will sing the song	He will not sing the song
I went to the hospital yesterday	I did not go to the hospital yesterday
Gupta plays for our team	Gupta does not play for our team
We may go to Kashmir this summer	We may not go to Kashmir this summer.

Please remember that ‘Not’ is a word that never stands alone but with an auxiliary verb. Out of 12 verb forms in English language 10 tense forms contain at least one auxiliary verb. Negative sentences are made by adding Not or No to the auxiliary verb. Eg. Rema is singing a song ( present continuous ) ( Affirmative ) Rema is not singing a song. ( present continuous ) ( Negative )

He has written a book (Present Perfect) (Affirmative)

He has not written a book (Present Perfect) (Negative)

If there are more than one auxiliary verb in the verb phrase Not is added just after the first auxiliary verb.

Eg. He will not have been studying.

In the case of simple present tense and simple past tense the auxiliary verbs are not perceptible unless we split the verb.

Eg . Rama writesbooks (Simple present - Subject Singular)

They writebooks (Simple Present - Subject plural)

Sitha wrotea letter. (Simple past)

See above verbs do not have visible auxiliary verbs.

The above sentences cannot be easily turned into negative because the negative word Notrequires an auxiliary to go with and here there are no auxiliary verbs to go with.

In such cases we need to split the verbs to get the auxiliary verb out. Verbs of this kind (simple present and simple past) should be split like this below.

Writes – does + write

Write – do + write

Wrote – did + write

Thus we get

Rama does not write books. ( Simple present - Singular)

They do not write books  ( Simple present - Plural)

Sitha did not write books. ( Simple past)

The words in italics in the following sentences have a negative meaning.

I hardly see any film.

There is scarcelyany water in the village well.

I seldomvisit my old school.

I rarelyattend the General Boby meeting.

He is a man of fewwords.

We have littleinformation about this matter.

2. Interrogative sentences

Interrogative sentences are of three kinds.

1. Those which demand the answer Yes or No ( Auxiliary question)
2. Those which are meant to elicit some information ( Wh questions )
3. Tag questions which form part of statements.

1. Yes or No questions

Yes or Noquestions are otherwise called auxiliary questions because they always begin with an auxiliary. The answers to such questions always begin with Yesor No.

Eg. Is there a hostel attached to this school?

Are they attending the wedding?

Do they live in their own house?

Yes or No questions are made by turning subject + Aux.verb pattern into Aux.verb + subject pattern. A question mark is added at the end.

Eg.

She is beautiful. (Assertive sentence - Subject + verb pattern)

Is she beautiful? (Question - Verb + Subject pattern)

He writes books

Does he write books?

He visited the place regularly.

Did he visit the place regularly?

2. Wh questions or Information questions

They are called wh questions because they always begin with a wh word like what,who,whom,which,where,when,why, and how.

They are called information questions also because the answer to such questions contains more information than a just a Yes or No

In order to make a wh question we need to make a yes or no question first then put the wh word before it.

Eg.

He writes books.  

(Make a question for which the underlined word comes as the answer)

We need to analyse the sentence thoroughly to get the wh word in question.

(Refer 2nd chapter (Parts of speech) of this blog to learn more about analyzing a sentence.)

Subject	Verb	Direct Object ( What)
He	writes	books

In the above sentence underlined word books is the Direct Object of the verb writes because we get the underlined word as the answer by asking the question what to the verb writes.

Now we can easily make both the Yes or No question and Wh question.

Does he write books?   (Yes or No question)

What does he write? (Wh question)

What is added at the beginning of the yes or no question and the underlined word (books) is removed to make the wh question.

Now look at the sentence below

He saw a snake clearly in the grass yesterday.

Lets us analyse the sentence like below.

Subject	Verb	Direct Object (what?)	Adverb Manner (How?)	Adverb Place (where?)	Adverb Time (When?)
He	saw	a snake	clearly	in the grass	yesterday

Yes or No question to the above sentence is

Did he see a snake clearly in the grass yesterday?

By adding suitable wh word in front of the yes/no question we will get different kinds of wh questions depending upon the underlined word.

For eg if the underline word is a snake the wh question will be like this

What did he see clearly in the grass yesterday?

If the underline word is clearly the wh question will be like this

How did he see a snake in the grass yesterday?

If the underline word is in the grass the wh question will be like this

Where did he see a snake clearly yesterday?

If the underline word is yesterday the wh question will be like this

When did he see a snake clearly in the grass?

Adverb manner can be again divided into

How long, How tall, How old, How many,How often,How little etc

Eg.

My sister is five feet tall.

How tall is your sister?

My father is sixty years old

How old is your father?

3. Tag questions

Tag questions are tiny questions attached to a statement for emphasis and effect.

She is Sitha,isn’t she ?

The form of the question tag varies according to the verb in the sentences. Following are the rules governing the use of tag questions.

i)                    Affirmative statements have negative tags; negative sentences have positive tags.

ii)                  Auxiliary verbs are repeated in the tag.

Eg.

1. You are attending the dinner, aren’t you?
2. They went to a film, didn’t they?
3. He is not playing, is he?
4. Sunil plays well, doesn’t he?
5. She hadn’t seen the child, had she?
6. They don’t like it, do they?
7. I am late, aren’t I?

Imperative sentences (commands/requests) take the tag in the future tense. Will you? /won’t you?

Stop shouting, will you? (or won’t you?)

Stop smoking, won’t you? (or will you?)

Come in the evening, will you? (or won’t you?)

Note the changes in the use of question tags in the following examples.

There is a way to solve this problem, isn’t there?

There are two answers to this question, aren’t there?

Nothing was known about him, was it?

She hardly remembers anything, does she?

None of my friends has/have disowned me, have they?

Neither of the brothers knew the answer, did they?

Let’s start the work, shall we?

Let me read this for you, shall I?

Kindly let us have your views in a week, won’t you?

You had better take the exam again, hadn’t you?

You would rather go out, wouldn’t you?

I am older than you, aren’t I?

We used to play together, didn’t we?

3. Imperative sentences

Imperative sentences express command, request, prayer etc.

Stop writing.

Give me your pen.

Please grant me leave for a day.

Do not smoke.

O Lord, give us this day our daily bread.

The subject of these imperative sentences is you. It is implicit and not stated. But when you is specifically mentioned, it is for the sake of emphasis or to single out the subject.

You do this work.

You go to the canteen and get the coffee.

You type this letter. You go and post it. (Two different persons are ordered.)

Let also may be used in imperative sentences.

Let us finish this job soon.

Let him/her/them finish this job soon.

(Let is used with the First person or the Third Person only. It is not used with the Second Person. Let you finish this job soon = This is wrong)

4. Exclamatory sentences

Exclamatory sentences express a strong feeling such as wonder, surprise, shock or anger. They begin with how or what and the verb is often omitted. The mark of exclamation (!) is put at the end of the sentence.

What a splendid catch!

What a wonderful performance!

How nice of you!

An exclamatory sentence may be changed into an assertive sentence by using it.

It is a splendid catch.

It is a wonderful performance.

It is very nice of you.

If the exclamatory sentence includes a subject, it becomes the subject of the assertive sentence as well.

What a nice chap he is!

He is a very nice chap.

End

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