There are four types of sentences for different purposes which are: declarative sentence, imperative sentence, interrogative sentence, and exclamatory sentence.
A sentence starts with a capital letter and provides a complete thought.
There are four different sentence structures which are: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.
We have already seen all these four different structures in a different lesson.
You can check it from here.
Sentence Types and Functions with examples:
Declarative sentences (simple sentences): declarative sentences are the most used and common among all the four types. We use them to make statements and state information. This type of sentences ends with a full stop (.).
- Examples:
- Positive: I like chocolate.
Grammar is really important for English learners
We went for a trip this morning.
Grammarlite.com is a good website to learn grammar.
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- Negative: I do not like chocolate.
I did not eat breakfast this morning.
We didn’t study grammar yesterday.
Imperative sentence: imperative sentences make a request or give a command. Is gives an order and tell us to do something. These types of sentences end with a full stop (.) or an exclamation mark (!).
- Examples:
- Positive: Go?
Run!
Give me the book.
Open the door.
Brush your teeth before going to sleep.
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- Negative: Don’t go!
Don’t stop!
Don’t open the door.
Interrogative sentence: interrogative sentences ask questions. These types of sentences end with a question mark (?).
- Examples:
- Positive: Do you like chocolate?
Do you love grammar?
Why did you go to the party?
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- Negative: Don’t you like chocolate?
Don’t you love grammar?
Why didn’t you go to the party?
Exclamative sentence: exclamative sentences make a statement with strong emotions or surprise. These types of sentences end with an exclamation mark (!).
- Examples:
What knowledge you have!
What a car!
I love this flavor!
The 4 Sentence Structures with examples:
Before learning about sentence structures, you have to be aware of clauses.
We have already seen a complete lesson about it.
You can check it from here.
Reminder: a clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb. A clause may be either:
An independent clause that provides a complete thought and it can stand by itself as a sentence or a dependent clause (subordinate clause) that can’t sand by itself or provide a complete thought and it’s occur as part of the sentence.
When we look at the sentence structure, we find that there are 4 sentence structures, which are: Simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex Sentence.
Simple sentences: a simple sentence consists of one independent clause.
Examples:
- I love grammar.
- English is the most popular language.
- Grammarlite.com is a good website to learn grammar.
Compound sentences: a compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction or a semicolon.
There are 7 coordinating conjunctions:
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.
You can easily remember them by the term (FAN BOYS).
Examples:
- I like grammar and john likes math.
- We work differently; We make it fun.
- We have to work smart or we are going to fail.
Complex sentences: a complex sentence consists of an independent clause and a dependent clause joined by a subordinating conjunction.
Common subordinating conjunctions: after, before, since, when, where, how, if, although, as, because, that …
Examples:
- I will get high marks because I prepared well.
- Since you did not prepare well, you can’t get good results.
- I met a nice person yesterday who was my childhood friend.
Compound-complex sentences: a compound-complex sentence consists of at least two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.
Examples:
- I like grammar because it’s really important, but john likes math.
- We have to work smart since we have time or we are going to fail.