Every sentence can be divided into certain compo­nents which are called parts of the sentence.

The principal parts of the sentence are subject and the predicate.

the subject is a person-modifier of the predicate (e.g. I love.The subject can be expressed in different ways:).

The predicate is the second principal part of the sen­tence and its organizing centre, as the object and nearly all adverbial modifiers are connected with, and dependent on, it.The predicate may be considered from the semantic or from the structural point of view.

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a noun in the common case (including substantivized adjectives and participles) (e.g. The fog is thinning.)

a nominal phrase with a noun (e.g. A great number of people were present.)

a noun in the genitive case (e.g. The grocer’s was full.)

a personal pronoun in the nominative case (e.g. She’s very beautiful.)

any other pronoun (e.g. Who told you this?)

a numeral or a nominative phrase with a numeral (e.g. The third was a young man with a dog.)

an infinitive, an infinitival phrase or an infinitive predicative complex (e.g. To understand is to forgive.)

a gerund, a gerundial phrase or a gerundial predicative complex (e.g. Talking mends no holes.)

words used as quotations (e.g. His “How do you do” never sounds cordial enough.)

a clause (e.g. What girls of her sort want is just a wedding ring.)

The formal subject neither denotes nor points out any person or non-person and is only a structural ele­ment of the sentence filling the position of the subject. Thus a formal subject functions only as a position-filler. In English there are two such position-fillers: it and there.

The notional subject denotes or points out a person (e.g. I know all about it.) or a non-person (e.g. To be a friend takes time.), that is, various kinds of concrete things, substances, abstract notions or happening.

The formal subject expressed by it is found in two patterns of sentences: those with impersonal it and those with introductory it.

The formal subject it is impersonal when it is used in sentences describing various states of nature, things in general, characteristics of the environment, or denoting time, distance, other measurements (e.g. It’s spring.).

The formal subject it is introductory (anticipatory) if it introduces the notional subject expressed by an infinitive, a gerund, an infinitive/gerundial phrase, a predicative complex, or a clause (e.g. It was no good coming there. Is there anybody there?). The sentence thus contains two sub­jects: the formal (introductory) subject it and the notional subject, which follows the predicate.

Structurally the predicate in English expressed by a fi­nite verb agrees with the subject in number and person. The only exception to this rule is a compound modal and a sim­ple nominal predicate, the latter having no verb form at all.


According to the meaning of its components, the predicate may denote an action, a state, a quality, or an atti­tude to some action or state ascribed to the subject. These different meanings find their expression in the structure of the predicate and the lexical meaning of its constituents.

From the structural point of view there are two main types of predicate: the simple predicate and the compound predicate. Both these types may be either nominal or verbal, which gives four sub-groups: simple verbal (e.g. He runs.), simple nominal (e.g. Me, a liar!), compound verbal, compound nominal. Compound verbal predicates may be further classified into phasal (e.g. She began to cry.), modal (e.g. You must do it.) and of double orientation (e.g. She is said to know him.). Compound nominal predicates may be classified into nominal proper (e.g. The girl looked tired.) and double nominal (e.g. The moon rose red.).

The object is a secondary part of the sentence refer­ring to some other part of the sentence and expressed by a verb, an adjective, a stative or, very seldom, an adverb completing, specifying, or restricting its meaning.The object can be expressed in different ways:

a noun in the common case or a nominal phrase (e.g. I saw the boys two hours ago.)

a pronoun (e.g. I don’t know anybody here.)

a substantivized adjective or participle (e.g. He hated the rich.)

a gerund or a gerundial phrase (e.g. He insists on coming.)

any part of speech used as a quotation (e.g. She called “Ann” never sounds cordial enough.)

an infinitive or an infinitive phrase (e.g. She was glad to see him.)

various predicative complexes (e.g. I want it done at once.)

a clause (e.g. I don’t know what it was.)

a numeral or a phrase with a numeral (e.g. I found two of them together.)

an indivisible group of words (e.g. He found a number of people at home.)

The direct object is a non-prepositional one that fol­lows transitive verbs, adjectives, or statives and completes their meaning (e.g. I wrote a poem). Semantically it is usually a non-person which is affected by the action of the verb, though it may also be a person or a situation. The situation is expressed by a verbal, a verbal phrase, a complex/ or by a clause.

The indirect object also follows verbs, adjectives and statives. Unlike the direct object, however, it may be attached to intransitive verbs as well as to transitive ones. Besides, it may also be attached to adverbs, although this is very rare. From the point of view of their semantics and certain grammatical characteristics indirect objects fall into two types: the indirect recipient object and the indirect non-recipient object.

The indirect recipient object is attached only to ditransitive verbs. It is expressed by a noun or pronoun which as a rule denotes a person who is the addressee or recipient of the action of the verb. It is joined to the headword either without a preposition or by the preposition to (occasionally for), thus it can be non-prepositional (e.g. He gave me a book.) and prepositional (e.g. She didn’t tell it to me). The indirect recipient object is generally used with transitive verbs.

The indirect non-recipient object is attached to verbs, adjectives, statives and sometimes adverbs. It is usually a noun denoting an inanimate object, although it may be a gerund, a gerundial phrase or complex, an in­finitive complex or a clause. Its semantics varies, but it never denotes the addressee (recipient) of the action of the governing verb. The indirect non-recipient object can only be joined to its headword by means of a preposition (e.g. One must always hope for the best.).

The cognate object is a non-prepositional object which is attached to otherwise intransitive verbs and is always expressed by nouns derived from, or semantically related to, the root of the governing verb (e.g. He died the death of a hero).

The term "the retained object" is to be applied in case an active construction is transformed into a passive one and the indirect object of the active construction be­comes the subject of the passive construction (e.g. Mary was given the prize.). The second object, the direct one, may be retained in the transforma­tion, though the action of the predicate-verb is no more directed upon it. Therefore it is called a retained object.

The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence which characterizes person or non-person expressed by the head­word either qualitatively, quantitatively, or from the point of view of situation. An attribute forms a nominal phrase with its headword.


The attribute can either precede or follow the noun it modifies. Accordingly we use terms prepositive and postpositive attribute. The position of an attribute with respect to its head-word depends partly on the morphological peculiarities of the attribute itself, and partly on stylistic factors. The size of the prepositive attributive phrase can be large in ME. Whatever is included between the article and the noun, is apprehended as an attribute.

An opposition

An apposition is a part of the sentence expressed by a noun or nominal phrase and referring to another noun or nominal phrase (the headword), or sometimes to a clause.

The apposition may give another designation to, or description of, the person or non-person, or else put it in a certain class of persons or non-persons. In the latter case it is similar to an attribute, as it characterizes the person or non-person denoted by the headword.

Like the attribute, the apposition 'may be in preposi­tion or postposition. However, unlike the attribute, which is always subordinated to its headword and is usually connected with other parts in the sentence only through it, words in apposition are, at least syntactically, coordi-1 nated parts, that is, both the headword and the apposi­tion are constituents of the same level in the sentence.

From the point of view of their relation to the head­word, appositions, like attributes, are subdivided into non-detached (close) (e.g. Dr and Mrs Smith were left alone.) and detached (loose) ones (e.g. He knows about everything – a man of the world.).

The adverbial modifier (or the adverbial) is a secon­dary part of the sentence which modifies another part of the sentence expressed either by a verb (in a finite or non-finite form), or an adjective, or a stative, or an adverb.

Independent elements of the sentence are not grammatically dependent on any particular part of the sentence, they refer to the sentence as a whole. Only occa­sionally they may refer to a separate part of the sentence. The independent element may consist of a word or a phrase. Its position is more free than that of any other parts of the sentence and accordingly it may occur in different positions in the sentence.


There are several types of independent elements: the parenthetical enclosure, the addressing enclosure, the interjectional enclosure.