© 2019 Steve Campsall
© 2019 Steve Campsall
|
sentence structure and function (1) |
As well as giving a name to the type of a sentence, it can also be useful to label and discuss aspects of its grammatical structure and function. There are four basic sentence structures:
1. The declarative structure
This is the most commonly used kind of sentence.
In a declarative sentence the grammatical structure allows a statement to be made.
It generally tells of an action being performed or of a feeling or state.
(Confusingly, in speech and written dialogue, this grammatical structure can
sometimes be used to make a question - can you work out how? It's to do with
tone.):
e.g. ''You feel ill'; 'You feel ill?'
2. The interrogative structure
An interrogative sentence
uses a very different grammatical structure that requires the use of an
auxiliary verb ('do' or 'can', for example)
before the subject.
This grammatical structure is usually used to create a question: 'Can I sit down?'
3. The imperative structure
An imperative sentence has no
obvious subject. It is used to give a command or order (the subject, although missing, is
easily inferred as 'You' ):
e.g. 'Sit down!'
4. The exclamatory structure
An exclamatory sentence is a grammatical structure that uses a wh- word to create an exclamation:
e.g. 'What a racket in here!'
