The Five Basic Sentence Structures

Despite all the creativity and variety you see in writing, there are really just five basic structures for single-clause sentences.

1. Subject plus verb: Jason laughed.

2. Subject plus transitive verb plus direct object: Horses eat oats.

3: Subject plus transitive verb plus indirect object plus direct object: Sarah sent Joe a letter.

4: Subject plus copular verb plus complement of the copular verb: Harry is mean.

5: Subject plus transitive verb plus direct object plus object complement: The CEO made Ron treasurer.

Here's a closer look at how these five arrangements create infinite opportunities for expression.

Tags: ,

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2025 at 3:09 pm and is filed under this week's podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.