Types of Sentences

1. Complete Sentence – A group of words that has a subject (noun or pronoun) and a verb; is a “complete
thought”
 Example: My dog runs in circles.
2. Independent Clause – A group of words that, by itself, is a complete sentence; this is the fancy term for
“complete sentence”
 Example: The teacher graded some papers.
3. Dependent Clause – A fancy term for a group of words that is not a complete sentence, but has subject
and verb in it usually
 Example: “Although it is raining, …”
 Example: “Because we worked, …”
(In each example, the group of words shown is NOT a sentence, and it
is usually because of the first word, which makes the whole thought
“conditional” and incomplete…a complete sentence is needed after
the comma in order to have a complete sentence)
4. Declarative Sentence – Any sentence that ends in a period; it is what we call a “statement”.
 Example: A cat purred.
5. Interrogative Sentence – A fancy term for a sentence that is a question and ends in a question mark (?)
 Example: Why must we do homework?
6. Exclamatory Sentence – A fancy term for a sentence that ends with an exclamation mark/point (!)
 Example: The fair is tomorrow!
7. Imperative Sentence – A fancy term for a sentence that is a “command”
 Example: Stop.
 Example: Wash the dishes.
 Example: Go away.
(In each example above, the sentence begins with a verb, and the subject of each of these is the word
“you”. “You” stay. “You” wash. “You” go. Think of a dog owner: “Sit.” “Stay.” “Fetch.” “Roll.”
In each case, a person is telling a dog, “You sit.” – “You stay.”, …)
Imperative Declarative = Command that ends with a period.
Imperative Exclamatory = Command that ends with an exclamation mark.
8. Compound Sentence – This is the term for “two complete sentences combined into one”; this final
product of joining sentences creates one final sentence.
 There are three (3) types: Comma-conjunction, Semicolon (;), and Semicolon-Comma (; … ,)
 Example: I fell in the river, but I got out fast.
 Example: You must listen carefully; there is important information.
 Example: We heard a noise; however, it was not really loud.
9. Complex Sentence – This is a sentence that begins with a dependent clause (often called an introductory
dependent clause) that is followed by a comma then a complete sentence
 Example: Because it rained, we got wet.
 Example: Although we are tired, we worked hard.
 Example: When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
10. Compound-complex Sentence – This is the most advanced sentence one can
write. It is a compound sentence where one (or both) of the sentences combined
together begins with an “introductory dependent clause” (IDC).
 Example: Since we lost, we were sad, but we didn’t cry.
 Example: My parents laughed, and because of this, I laughed.
 Example: Although I fell, I got up, but since I was late, I couldn’t compete.