Grammar: the Sentence and Its Parts
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Syllabus topic 4.2, "Grammar", the foundation of the three labelled sub-topics
Pages 374 to 377 of 406
In one line
A sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought, built from a subject and a predicate, whose words belong to eight classes and whose groups are either phrases or clauses.
Parts of speech: the eight classes
Every word in English belongs to one of these, and the same word may belong to different ones in different sentences.
| Class | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | Names a person, place, thing or idea | advocate, Bombay, contract, justice |
| Pronoun | Stands for a noun | he, she, they, it, who, which |
| Adjective | Qualifies a noun | reasonable care, a written agreement |
| Verb | States action or being | files, is, was held |
| Adverb | Qualifies a verb, adjective or another adverb | promptly, very, quite clearly |
| Preposition | Shows the relation of a noun to another word | of, in, under, against, notwithstanding |
| Conjunction | Joins words, phrases or clauses | and, but, or, because, although |
| Interjection | Expresses sudden feeling | Alas! Oh! |
Kinds of noun, because MU's transformation questions use the names. Proper, naming a particular person or place, and always capitalised: Gandhi, Mumbai. Common, naming a class: judge, city. Collective, naming a group as one: jury, committee, bench. Abstract, naming a quality or state: honesty, negligence, possession. Material, naming a substance: gold, paper.
Kinds of pronoun. Personal (I, you, he), possessive (mine, theirs), reflexive (himself), demonstrative (this, those), relative (who, which, that), interrogative (who? what?), and indefinite (someone, each, none).
The one word class a law student must handle carefully: the preposition. In legal writing a preposition often carries the whole meaning. Compensation for an injury is not compensation of an injury; a right in a thing is not a right to a thing; an appeal against an order is not an appeal from a court in the same sense. Prepositions are learnt by use rather than by rule, and the list in the common errors chapter is worth memorising.
Subject and predicate
The subject is what the sentence is about, and the predicate is what is said about it.
| Sentence | Subject | Predicate |
|---|---|---|
| The court dismissed the appeal. | The court | dismissed the appeal |
| Soapy walked to Madison Square. | Soapy | walked to Madison Square |
| Justice delayed is justice denied. | Justice delayed | is justice denied |
| Under this Act, every landlord shall issue a receipt. | every landlord | shall issue a receipt |
How to find the subject with certainty. Find the verb first, then ask who or what is doing it. In the last example the sentence opens with a phrase, "Under this Act", which is not the subject, and candidates who take the first noun as the subject get it wrong. This is why the drill matters: voice and reported speech both begin by identifying the subject.
Object. What receives the action. A direct object answers "what?" or "whom?" after the verb: the court dismissed the appeal. An indirect object answers "to whom?" or "for whom?": the clerk gave the judge the file. A verb that takes an object is transitive; one that does not is intransitive. This matters more than it looks, because only a transitive verb can be turned into the passive.
Grammar: the Sentence and Its Parts
Complement. After verbs of being, the word completing the sense is not an object but a complement: he is an advocate; the agreement became void.
Phrase and clause
A phrase is a group of words without a subject and a finite verb, working as one part of speech.
- Noun phrase: The reasonable man of the law does not exist.
- Adjective phrase: A contract without consideration is void.
- Adverb phrase: The suit was filed within the period of limitation.
A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a finite verb.
Main clause, which makes sense standing alone: the appeal was dismissed because it was filed late.
Subordinate clause, which does not: the appeal was dismissed because it was filed late.
Three kinds of subordinate clause, and MU's transformation questions turn one into another.
| Kind | Works as | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun clause | A noun | The court held that the contract was void. |
| Adjective, or relative, clause | An adjective | The witness who signed the deed was not examined. |
| Adverb clause | An adverb | The suit failed because no notice was given. |
Kinds of sentence by structure
Simple. One subject and one finite verb; one clause. The court dismissed the appeal.
Compound. Two or more main clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction: and, but, or, so, for, yet. The court dismissed the appeal, but it made no order as to costs.
Complex. One main clause and one or more subordinate clauses. The court dismissed the appeal because it had been filed out of time.
Compound-complex. Two or more main clauses with at least one subordinate clause. The court dismissed the appeal because it was late, and it directed the appellant to pay costs.
Why MU cares. "Do as directed" questions routinely say: change into a complex sentence; change into a simple sentence; combine into one sentence. The transformations are mechanical once the structure is visible.
| Direction | From | To |
|---|---|---|
| Simple to complex | Being late, the appeal was dismissed. | As the appeal was late, it was dismissed. |
| Complex to simple | As he was ill, he did not attend. | Being ill, he did not attend. |
| Simple to compound | Being late, the appeal was dismissed. | The appeal was late and so it was dismissed. |
| Compound to complex | He worked hard and so he succeeded. | Because he worked hard, he succeeded. |
Grammar: the Sentence and Its Parts
Kinds of sentence by function
| Kind | Does what | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Assertive or declarative | States | The contract is void. |
| Interrogative | Asks | Is the contract void? |
| Imperative | Commands or requests | File the reply within a week. |
| Exclamatory | Exclaims | How unjust the order was! |
| Optative | Wishes | May the court be pleased to allow the application. |
Note for the reported speech chapter. These five kinds have five different rules when converted into indirect speech, so the classification is not decorative.
Finite and non-finite verbs
A finite verb changes with the subject and the tense: he writes, they write, he wrote.
A non-finite verb does not, and there are three.
Infinitive, to plus the verb: he wanted to appeal. Participle, working as an adjective: the injured party; having heard counsel, the court reserved judgment. Gerund, the -ing form working as a noun: filing the reply is the first step.
Why it matters. A clause needs a finite verb. "Having heard counsel" is a phrase, not a clause, because "having heard" is non-finite. Candidates who cannot tell the two apart cannot distinguish a phrase from a clause, and the "do as directed" transformations depend on that distinction.
A worked answer
Question. "Identify the subject, the predicate and the kind of sentence: Although the notice was served on the defendant, he did not appear, and the suit proceeded ex parte."
Answer. The sentence is compound-complex. It contains one subordinate adverb clause of concession, "Although the notice was served on the defendant", and two main clauses joined by "and": "he did not appear" and "the suit proceeded ex parte". In the first main clause the subject is "he" and the predicate is "did not appear"; in the second the subject is "the suit" and the predicate is "proceeded ex parte". Within the subordinate clause the subject is "the notice" and the verb "was served" is in the passive voice.
Why this scores. It names the structure, identifies the clauses, gives the subject and predicate of each main clause, and notices the passive, which is the sort of observation that separates a full answer from a bare one.
Quick revision
Eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.
Subject and predicate: find the verb first, then ask who or what does it. The opening phrase is often not the subject.
Only transitive verbs, which take an object, can be made passive.
Phrase: no subject and finite verb. Clause: subject and finite verb. Subordinate clauses are noun, adjective or adverb.
By structure: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex. By function: assertive, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, optative.
Non-finite verbs are the infinitive, the participle and the gerund, and none of them can make a clause by itself.
Grammar: the Sentence and Its Parts
Test yourself
1. Find the subject: "Under section 10 of the Act, every agreement made without consideration is void." The subject is "every agreement made without consideration". The opening "Under section 10 of the Act" is an adverb phrase, and "void" is the complement after the verb "is".
2. Distinguish a phrase from a clause, with an example of each. A phrase has no subject and finite verb and works as a single part of speech: "within the period of limitation". A clause has both: "because no notice was given". "Having heard counsel" is a phrase, because "having heard" is a participle and therefore non-finite.
3. Name the three kinds of subordinate clause and give one example each. Noun clause, working as a noun: the court held that the contract was void. Adjective or relative clause, qualifying a noun: the witness who signed the deed was not examined. Adverb clause, qualifying the verb: the suit failed because no notice was given.
4. Why does the transitive-intransitive distinction matter? Because only a transitive verb, which takes an object, can be converted into the passive voice. A sentence with an intransitive verb, such as "the plaintiff appeared", has no object to become the subject of a passive sentence and therefore cannot be changed.
5. Classify: "He worked hard and so he succeeded", and change it into a complex sentence. It is a compound sentence, being two main clauses joined by the coordinating conjunction "and". As a complex sentence it becomes "Because he worked hard, he succeeded", where the first clause is now a subordinate adverb clause of reason.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.