4.1.2 Basic sentence patterns
- Subject-verb-adjective (S-V-Adj): This sentence pattern is similar to S-V-O except that the object is not a noun; it is an adjective. Since an object must be a noun or an entity that is being acted upon, when the verb acts as a state of being to set up a description of the subject, you get an S-V-Adj sentence. Here are a few examples of sentences that follow the subject-verb-adjective pattern:
- Mark is hungry.
- Maria was tired.
- The dog looks playful.
- Jimmy seems clumsy.
- Subject-verb-adverb (S-V-Adv): To the untrained eye, this sentence pattern is the same as the previous one, S-V-Adj. The difference between that pattern and this pattern, however, is that while that structure saw the object turning into an adjective, this one sees it turning into an adverb. In other words, the verb no longer acts as a state of being to set up a description of the subject, but rather the words following the verb act as modifiers to the verb. Here are a few examples of sentences that follow the subject-verb-adverb pattern:
- Mark ran quickly.
- Maria slept peacefully.
- The dog plays loudly.
- Jimmy fell disastrously.
- Subject-verb-noun (S-V-N): As you already know, the object of a pattern has to be a noun. Just because there is a noun following the verb, however, does not mean that it is the object of the sentence. In this sentence structure, the noun is not the object because, as with S-V-Adj, the words following the verb describe the subject. Here are a few examples of sentences that follow the subject-verb pattern:
- Mark is the store owner.
- Maria is a doctor.
- The dog was a corgi.
- Jimmy became a lawyer.
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