Week Three and Four Vocabulary

Week Three and Four Vocabulary

This week we are talking about the parts of a sentence.

There are two parts of a sentence. Before we discuss these, there are a few important terms to review.

• Verb: A verb is usually the action word. Sometimes these words are easy to identify, such as jump, skip, sing, or sleep. But not all of these action words seem so much like an action. The best example of this is the verb “be.” Forms of the be verb include: be, is, am, are, was, were, being, and been. Although these words don’t seem like an action, they are still verbs.
• Noun: The basic definition of a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. Another definition is anything that you can make plural. Examples: teacher, Vermont, chair, kindness.

Every complete sentence must contain two parts. If it does not include these two parts, it is not a complete sentence.

• Subject: The subject is the thing that is doing the action. It is always either a noun or a pronoun. Examples: I moved the box. The cat ran across the room. She was tired.
• Predicate: The predicate is the verb or verb phrase that describes the action performed by the subject. Examples: I moved the box. The cat ran across the room. She was tired.

A sentence may also include other parts.

• Object: The subject in the sentence may be doing something to another noun. This other noun is the object. Example: I moved the box. The cat ran across the room. She was tired (this sentence does not have an object).
• Modifier: A modifier is something that charges the meaning of another element in the sentence. Modifiers include adjectives (describes a noun) and adverbs (describes an adjective, verb, or other adverb). Examples: I moved the heavy box. The cat ran quickly across the room. She was really tired.