Writing topic: Sentence Structure

The chapter that I reviewed was the chapter on sentence structure and the challenges that multilingual students have when writing sentences. In the English sentence there has to be a link between the subject and its complement.  A complement is nouns or adjectives that rename or describe the subject.  An example is, Natalie smart. Natalie is smart. In every sentence a verb and a subject must be included. Some languages like Spanish or Japanese do not require a subject in every sentence, however, the English language does. Most of the time the subject shows before the verb but it does not always happen that way.

Another important rule is to not use both a noun and a pronoun to perform the same grammatical function in a sentence. In a sentence there is no need to repeat the subject in its own sentence. For example, the dentist she told me to floss. She is a pronoun and can’t repeat the subject which is the dentist. Also, repeating an object or an adverb in an adjective sentence. An adjective sentence is a sentence that starts with relative pronouns or relative adverbs like who, whom, whose, where, or when.  This is an example of a sentence that would not work.

 The dog ran under the car that it was parked on the street.

In that sentence the pronoun is that is the subject of the adjective sentence, so it which is a pronoun cannot be used as the subject.

The last rule that I felt that was important to learn is distinguishing between present and past participles used as adjectives. The way to distinguish between present and past participles is the present participles usually end in ing. I.e. confusing, speaking, and boring. Past participles usually end in ed, i.e. confused, spoken, bored. Both past and present can be used as adjectives.

What I can do to utilize this information is to apply it. I know now how to distinguish between past and present participles, so now when I write I will make sure that when I am talking about the past I will make sure that I use participles that end in ed. I will also make sure that I use a subject in every sentence. I am not bilingual so I don’t have the same challenges with English like someone that is bilingual might have. I put my daughter in a language academy charter school so she can learn English and Spanish at an early age. Spanish and English are very different languages, and some things that she learns in Spanish she will apply in English also. The information in this chapter is great for myself and for when I have to teach others.