A Review on English Sentence Structure

I. Types of Sentences
1. Simple Sentence
President SBY sent The President of Malaysia a letter.
2. Compound Sentence
Almost all Indonesian people want to attack Malaysia, but the President does not
agree with them.
3. Complex sentence
If we want to play futsal, we have to pay the court.
4. Compound-complex sentence
Father Richy ate hamburger, but Joko just ate a slice of fried tempe because he had
just a little money.

II. Sentence
1. Subject: a. NP:The beautiful girl is a stewardess.
b. NC: What I said was just a joke.
c. Infinitive: To run fast needs more exercise.
d. Gerund: Plying a piano is not as easy as we see.
2. Predicate: a. Finite verbs
i. Full verb: Ms. Ndari asked us to complete this assignment.
ii. Aux. Verb to be: The manager is the man who was sitting at the
corner of the room.
iii. Aux. Verb do: My Mom did support me to study in Seminary.
iv. Aux. Verb modal: The best lecture can make the students follow his
instructions.
v. Linking verb be: The little baby is very beautiful.
vi. LV inchoative verb: Andy looked so cheerful when he won the game.
b. Object
i. NP: Mr. Satryo gave the red rose to Mrs. Satryo.
ii. NC: The must obey what the headmaster said last week.
iii. Infinitive: All the woman wants from his husband is to make her
happy.
iv. Gerund: When I met the innocent, she began talking about her lost
child.
c. Adverb: The thief walked quietly out of the room.
d. SCadj : The new building looks beautiful.
SCnoun: Susy’s sister is a waitress.
e. OCnoun: I consider my father a hero.
OCadj.: My Daddy painted the dog’s house brown.
OCpast participle: Sherley found the dog trapped in a hole.
III. Noun Phrase
a. Noun: Maggie bought me a bed cover.
b. Nominal Phrase:

1
 i. Head word: Many people came to attend the celebration.
Mama put too much sugar into my cup.
There are forty five students in my class.
ii. Pre-modifiers
1. Nouns: The headmaster called some of my school friends to
come to his office..
2. Adjective: My special intention is to learn from new
experience.
3. A lecturer should know each student well.
iii. Post modifier
1. Finite clause: The person whom the police looked for was not
found.
2. Non-finite cluause: The photo attached on the wall was sent by
my friend from England.
3. Prepositional phrase: The flower in the vase is a plastic
imitation.
4. Adjective: Having no dreams is like dying young.
c. Pronoun: Their recommendations were given by the rector of the university.
d. Pronominal Phrase:
i. Head word: The new bicycle was bought for my little brother.
ii. Post-modifier: The man in that picture is the main character of the
story.
IV. Finite Verb Phrase
a. Time Reference:
i. Present: They are listening to the professor now.
ii. Past : Ernest Hemingway made up his stories mostly based on his own
experiences many years ago.
iii. Future : She will wait for me in the cross road tomorrow.
b. Tense:
i. Present tense: She is finding out the meaning of my name.
ii. Past Tense: We did over our assignmenr, though we did not understand
it.
c. Aspect:
i. Simple: Our lecturer gives back the result of the test to us..
ii. Progressive: Other students are doing our best for the same
assignment.
iii. Perfective: He has tought over about the problem solving.
d. Tense and aspect
i. Simple present/past tense: Danny puts off his clothes carefully/Danny
put off his clothes carefully.
ii. Present/past progressive: My sister is cheering up my mother/ My sister
was cheering up my mother.
iii. Present/past pefect tense: She has given up answering the question/she
had given up answering the question.

2
 iv. Present/past perfect progressive: Peter has been waiting for his young
sister since 9 o’clock/Peter had been waiting for his young sister since
9 o’clock.
v. Present/past future: The President will go to Japan next year/ The
President would go to Japan.
vi. Future progressive: They will be hanging out when you come.
vii. Future perfect progressive: When you arrive, Sannia will have been
lookng for you for about 2 hours.
V. Voice
a. Active Voice : Melisya gives Harry the new novel.
b. Passive voice: The drama was written by Aswendo Atmowiloto.
VI. Basic Clause Type:
a. S-V: The rabbit runs away.
b. S-V-A : The old women smiles cheerfully.
c. S-V-O : Ms. Vannie is making a birthday cake.
d. S-V-iO-dO: Machel gives the boss his report.
e. S-V-O-A: Diana met John in the party.
f. S-V-O-C: I find Mr. Gun a humble lecturer.
VII. Clauses
a. Main Clause: The students go for picnic.
b. Subordinate clause:Although the weather is cloudy...
c. Matrix clause: If the restaurant opens at 6 o’clock, I will go there every
morning after coming back from the church.
VIII. "A matrix clause is often a main clause . . ., but it need not be: it can itself be a
subordinate clause. In the sentence The victim told police that the man who
attacked her had had a beard, the subordinate clause who attacked her is
contained within the subordinate clause that the man . . . had had a beard."
(R.L. Trask, Dictionary of English Grammar. Penguin, 2000)
IX. Finite Subordinate Clause
a. Nominal Clause: We remember that we have not done our assignment yet.
b. Adjective clause: Paul is the boy who won the youth badminton tournament.
c. Adverbial clause: We met each other when we were in Senior High School.
X. Non-finite Subordinate Clause
a. –ing clause: Before leaving the room, he looked at me and told the secret
again.
b. –ed clause:After elected as the capatainof the class, Joko becomes diligent.
c. Infinitive clause: He does not know where to go.
XI. Verbal
a. Vebal Noun: Dancing is one of my mother’s hobbies.
b. Verbal Adjective: Oppressed children will probabley experience mental
disorder.
c. Verbal adverb:
XII. Verbal
a. Gerund: Correcting symbols are usually used by writing lecturers.

3
b. Infinitive: Purwo always forgets to get the attendance list.
c. Participle:Restricted learning is not appropriate nowadays.