What Is A Sentence?

What does it take to make a sentence?  A sentence has (at least) three things:

1.                  a subject:  what we are talking about, usually a noun or pronoun

2.                  a verb:  tells that the subject does something or is something, and

3.                  a characteristic:  can stand alone, can be independent.

This is a sentence:            He called.

                                    He is the subject.            Called is the verb.

The following are not sentences, even though each has a subject and verb:

                                    Because he called

                                    When he called

                                    He calling

The items above lack the characteristic can stand alone.

            Of course, most sentences we speak or write have more than just a subject and verb, but to be complete, a sentence must have at least a subject and a verb and be able to stand alone.

            Sentences that are not complete are called sentence fragments, or fragment sentences, or just fragments.  Teachers often write “frag” of “SF” for this error.

            Remember that you should write in complete sentences.  Let us know if we can offer you more information or practice in writing complete sentences.