英语写作讲义

英语写作课讲义

Part One: Sentence Writing

Overview

1.Sentence Definition

Sentence: A sentence is a group of words that you use to communicate your ideas in writing or in speech. It is a complete, independent unit of thought and consists of two main parts: a subject and a predicate. It may contain one clause or more than one accordingly. The first letter of a sentence must be capitalized, and the sentence must end with a final punctuation mark in the form of a period (.), a question mark (?), or an exclamation point (!).

Subject: The subject is the part of a sentence that names the person, thing, place, or event that a sentence is about. It can be a noun, pronoun, or a phrase or clause that does the work of a noun. Predicate: The predicate is the part of a sentence that makes a statement about the subject. It consists of a verb and its modifiers or complements. The verb is the most important part of the predicate. It expresses action or a state of being.A complement is a word or words used to complete the meaning of a verb or a subject. Therefore there are subject complement and verb complement.

Students‟ Problems:Sentence Fragments (see p2-12 in the textbook)

2.Sentences and Clauses

Clause: A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a finite verb or predicate, forming a sentence or part of a sentence, and often doing the work of a noun, adjective or adverb. Clauses can be divided into two kinds: independent clause and dependent clause.

Independent Clause: An independent clause is a group of words that has a subject and a finite verb. It is used as a part of a sentence but is grammatically independent and could therefore stand alone.

Dependent clause: A dependent clause is a group of words that has a subject and a finite verb but its meaning is not complete and can be used only as part of an independent clause and therefore is often introduced with a subordinator such as that,when, while, if or before.

3.Sentence Classification

3.1.Functional Types

Functional types of sentences: People may make sentences for different purposes and therefore sentences may have different functions: to ask a question, to make a statement, a command, a request or an exclamation:

What is ecology? (question)

Ecology is the science of the relationships between organisms and their environments. (statement) Save the environment! (command)

Would you write a report on ecology and man? (request)

What a polluted lake that is! (exclamation)

3.2.Structural Types

Structural types of sentences:Sentences can be classified according to the number of clauses each contains and their relationships between each other. Basically we get four kinds of sentences in English: simple, compound, complex, and compound complex.

A. A simple sentence is an independent clause.

Examples: I enjoy playing tennis with my friends every weekend.

I enjoy playing tennis and look forward to it every weekend.

My friends and I play tennis and go bowling every weekend.

B. A compound sentence is two or more independent clauses joined together in any of three ways:

by a subordinating conjunction, by a sentence connector, or by a semicolon.

Examples: I enjoy playing tennis, but I hate playing golf.(by a coordinating conjunction)

I enjoy playing tennis; however, I hate playing golf.(by a sentence connector)

I enjoy playing tennis; I hate playing golf. (by a semicolon)

C. A complex sentence is the combination of one an independent clause and one or more

dependent clauses.

Example: Although I enjoy playing tennis, I hate golf. / I hate golf although I enjoy playing tennis.

D. A compound and complex sentence is a combination of two or more independent clauses and

one or more dependent clauses.

Example: I hate golf, but I enjoy playing tennis even though I am not very good at it.

Simple Sentences and their Extensions

1.Simple Sentence Patterns

The English sentence usually contains two parts: subject and a finite verb or predicate. The predicate verb is the most important part of the sentence and different types of verbs may produce different sentence patterns. But on the whole we can divide the English sentences into the following seven basic patterns:

Pattern One: S + V

Birds fly.

They disappeared.

He is studying.

He has gone.

The guests might have arrived.

Pattern Two: S + V + A

He is here.

They are in the dormitory.

She lives near the hospital.

The boy behaves very politely.

Pattern Three: S + V + C

He is a university student.

He is very brilliant.

His job is to fix the pipe.

The leaves turn yellow.