Education

Framing Sentences in the English Language

Unlike many other languages, the English language has many characteristics that will make you wonder at the beauty and intricacies of the language. Starting with words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings, and words that have different meanings and/or pronunciations to words that can play the role of more than one part of speech, the language will amaze you every step of the way. 

Once you start forming sentences, you will notice that sometimes, the same sentence can be structured in many different ways. You will see that phrases and clauses in a sentence can be placed in the beginning, middle or end of the sentence based on what the sentence is trying to convey. Phrases are of various types, such as adverbial phrases, noun phrases, adverbial phrases, participle phrases, gerund phrases and so on. Clauses are also divided into types based on their behaviour, and they are independent clauses and dependent clauses. 

The various ways in which a sentence can be framed are described below.

  • A phrase followed by a clause
  • A dependent clause followed by an independent clause
  • An independent clause followed by an independent clause
  • An independent clause followed by a phrase
  • A phrase in between clauses
  • A subject and a predicate
  • Compound subject/noun phrase followed by a predicate
  • A subject followed by a compound predicate

It is up to the writer to frame their sentences in whatever way they think appropriate, and their audience would appreciate it best. It is also important that you use alternative sentence structures every now and then, at least so that your writing does not look or sound monotonous. It will also help your audience stay focussed. Writing short and crisp sentences is your key, but also feel free to use more than one or two phrases and clauses in a sentence if necessary. 

Another factor that you should be mindful of when writing your piece is to see that your ideas and thoughts are coherent. This is important because simply providing random ideas one after the other would not make any sense or convey your message to your readers. So, when you sit down to write something, try to first pen down all your thoughts on a piece of paper so that you can structure it in the most meaningful way. 

With all these in mind, also remember that the English language, unlike other languages, keeps evolving day by day. New words are added to the dictionary. It is not easy to determine if this is an irony or the fact that makes the language all the more interesting. After all, how you perceive it is the only thing that matters. 

Some ways to stay updated with the developments in the language are by,

  • Reading newspapers, story books, fiction and nonfiction
  • Listening to the news
  • Watching English movies and TV series.

These activities will make sure you get in touch with words, idioms, phrases and usages which you would otherwise miss out on. The efforts you take will only make you better.  It is in your hands to make the English language interesting or difficult. What is it for you?

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