Sentence

How it is used

Teachers classify sentences by structure (simple, compound, complex) and by function (statement, question, command, exclamation). Linguists often say utterance for real stretches of speech.

Example sentences

1. A complex sentence has a main clause and at least one subordinate clause.

2. Try to keep each sentence in your abstract under 30 words.

Common collocations

• simple sentence
• complex sentence
• compound sentence
• sentence structure
• topic sentence

Related terms

• clauseA group of words that contains a subject and a verb and forms a sentence or part of a sentence, such as 'because it was raining'.
• subjectThe part of a clause that usually names who or what does the action or is described, and that the verb agrees with, such as 'my sister' in 'My sister works here'.
• predicateThe part of a clause that says something about the subject; it contains the verb and everything that follows it, such as 'missed the bus' in 'Emre missed the bus'.
• word orderThe usual order in which words and sentence parts such as subject, verb and object appear in a language, for example subject-verb-object in English.
• conditional sentenceA sentence with an if-clause and a main clause, used to talk about a condition and its result, real or imagined: 'If it rains, we'll stay in.'

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• sentence · Criminal Law & Justice

More terms: Clauses and Sentences

• object
• relative clause
• subordinate clause
• main clause