sentence structure

Formation of a sentence. Traditionally, a sentence can be divided into two parts: subject and predicate. In the sentence ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’, the subject is ‘Jack and Jill’, and the predicate is ‘went up the hill’, and the sentence structure is simple.

In more complex structures, the subject and predicate can be entwined, particularly in questions. In the question ‘What do you want?’ the subject is ‘you’. The subject can also be present only through implication, as in ‘Save me!’, in which the subject is ‘you’.

Where the subject is described by an adjective, adjectival clause, or adverb clause, they are included in the subject. The same rule applies to the predicate. In ‘The new teacher, getting off to a good start, told the class to listen quietly’, ‘The new teacher, getting off a good start,’ is the subject and ‘quietly’, which describes ‘listen’, is part of the predicate.