3 How sentences are built

Most of the sentences you’ve seen so far have been quite simple. But now you know the basics about how subject, verbs and objects fit together, you can start to take a look at some of the different ways in which we can arrange phrases to make meaning in English. The easiest way to do this is by using diagrams.

Figure 5 A simple sentence.

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A tree diagram showing the components of a simple sentence. The word ‘Sentence’ is at the top of the diagram with three lines branching out from beneath it. The first line goes to the subject (Mary and Juan), the second line goes to the verb (ate), and the third line goes to the object (all the pies).

Figure 5 A simple sentence.

In this first diagram you can see the subject + verb + object structure that you’ve been looking at. This structure is the basic structure of English sentences and is known as SVO (subject, verb, object). We can use a similar structure to draw a sentence without an object. This structure is known as SV (subject, verb).

Figure 6 A sentence with no object.

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A tree diagram showing the components of a sentence with no object. The word ‘Sentence’ is at the top of the diagram with two lines branching out from beneath it. The first line goes to the subject (They), the second line goes to the verb (were sleeping).

Figure 6 A sentence with no object.

There are also some sentences that can have more than one object, such as

The subjects are simple enough (Francesc, I and Grandma), but there are two objects in each example, which we would draw like this:

Figure 7 A sentence with two objects.

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A tree diagram showing the components of a sentence with two objects. The word ‘Sentence’ is at the top of the diagram with four lines branching out from beneath it. The first line goes to the subject (Francesc), the second line goes to the verb (gave), the third goes to one object (his mother), and the fourth goes to another object (a cup of tea).

Figure 7 A sentence with two objects.

Many sentences that have two objects involve some form of giving and receiving. The subject (Francesc) gives the direct object (that which is directly acted upon, a cup of tea) to a recipient, known as the indirect object (his mother).

Finally, there are also sentences that tell us something about the subject although no action or process is taking place.

In these examples, we can’t classify happy, hungry and very fluffy as objects because they aren’t tangible things that the subject is acting upon. Rather, they simply give us more information about the subject and their experiences. These characteristics can be physical (very fluffy) or existential (happiness) and they can be permanent or fleeting. We call this component of the sentence a complement and you’ll often find them used with a form of the auxiliary verb BE.

Figure 8 A sentence with a complement.

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A tree diagram showing the components of sentence with a complement. The word ‘Sentence’ is at the top of the diagram with three lines branching out from beneath it. The first line goes to the subject (Stephanie), the second line goes to the verb (is), and the third line goes to the object (happy).

Figure 8 A sentence with a complement.

There are, of course, other grammatical structures used in English. We can add additional information to this basic structure about how, when, and where something happened. Now you’ve mastered the basics, you can take a closer look at how we can add more information to SVO.