What do you call a group of words without a subject and a verb that functions in a sentence as one part of speech?

This page will provide a review of the parts of speech and sentences so that you can identify for yourself when you are using them properly (and possibly understand your instructor's comments better). We'll start with the basics and move on to the very confusing.

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

Elements of Sentence Construction
Subjects and Predicates
Compounding Sentence Elements
Avoiding Fragments
Avoiding Comma Splices and Fused Sentences
What do you call a group of words without a subject and a verb that functions?
What do you call a group of words with its own subject and verb and can either stand by it self or depend on other parts?
Which can stand by itself as a complete sentence?
What do you call a group of words that function as a single parts of speech?

NOUN: These name persons, things, places, ideas -- can be concrete or abstract. EX: Stephanie, door, biology, honor.

PRONOUN: These substitute for nouns but act in the same way. They can be individual (I, you, he) or collective (everyone, each). EX: they, who, which, she.

ADJECTIVE: These describe or modify nouns. EX: slow, quiet, useful, blue, much.

VERB: These state an action or a state of being. EX: kick, call, create, is, will be. Verbs can be transitive, meaning that they act on something else, or intransitive, meaning that they don't. EX: Transitive: Walter kicked the football. Intransitive: I was asleep. Verbs can also be linking verbs, meaning that they connect a subject to a word or group of words which describe or complete its meaning. EX: The car was blue and full of bullet holes.

When a verb is in its present participle ("ing") form, it can operate as a noun (called a gerund). EX: Walking, throwing a football, going downtown.

ADVERB: These modify several things: verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Adverbs are often made from adjectives (careful -- carefully). They answer these questions about an action: where? when? why? how? in what way? how much? EX: tomorrow, next, quietly, honorably, very.

CONJUNCTION: These join words, phrases and clauses. There are three kinds of conjuctions:

Coordinating Conjunctions: these are single words that join words, phrases, and clauses of equal grammatical importance in the sentence. EX: and, but, or, so.
Coorelative Conjunctions: these are pairs of words that join equally important words, phrases, and clauses. EX: either...or, both...and, not only...but also.
Subordinating Conjuctions: these begin clauses that cannot stand on their own and tell you how that clause relates to the rest of the sentence. These words help you create sentences with increasingly complicated ideas and relationships between those ideas. EX (not a complete list): if, because, although, when, where, unless, until, since.

PREPOSITIONS: These words or phrases relate nouns or pronouns to other words in a sentence, and often indicate some sort of positional relationship. EX: of, in, about, to, around, next to, on top of.

PHRASE: a group of related words that does not have a subject, or does not have a predicate, or both. A phrase acts collectively as a single part of speech, and is usually a noun, adject or adverb. EX: Noun phrase: The winningest football team is at Greenville High. Adjective phrase: I went down the street with a smile on my face. Adverb phrase: I went down the street more slowly than I ever had before.

There are, however, some special types of phrases:

Prepositional Phrases: prepositions and their objects and modifiers. EX: That book is on top of the bookcase. Alice went through the looking glass.

Verbal Phrases: A verbal is a form of a verb that doesn't act as a verb. This is not as confusing as it sounds; we all know that infinitive forms of verbs (to go, to be) do not function as verbs in that form. Phrases that include verbals are gerund phrases, participial phrases, and infinitive phrases.

Gerund phrases: these always function as nouns. Their verbals are the present participle ("ing") forms of verbs. EX: Lying around all day is the worst thing you can do in your condition!
Participal phrases: these always function as adjectives. Their verbals are present participles (the "ing" form) or past participles (the "ed") form. EX: (Present) The book lying on the counter is overdue. (Past) Tired from his workout, Jason rested for an hour.
Infinitive phrases: these can function as nouns, adjectives or adverbs. Their verbals are always infinitive forms. EX: I have lost the chance to say I am sorry. To be a good friend is my goal.

If you need help understanding the way sentences are put together, click here to skip to the Sentences page in this chapter.

If you would like to move on to the next page in this chapter, click here for the Using Pronouns page.

Elements of Sentence Construction

Subjects and Predicates

Parts of speech have specific tasks to perform when they are put together in a sentence.

A noun or pronoun functions as the sentence subject when it is paired with a verb functioning as the sentence predicate.

Every sentence has a subject and predicate.

A subject can be a noun or pronoun that is partnered with an action verb.

Example:

Sometimes a verb will express being or existence instead of action.

Example:

Sometimes we use sentences in which a subject is not actually stated, but is, nevertheless, understood in the meaning.

Example:

A sentence like this gives an order or a request to someone.

Because we use such statements when we are talking directly to someone, we omit the word you. It is understood in the sentence. Therefore, in statements like this one, we say the subject is

you (understood).

This kind of sentence is an imperativesentence.

A predicate is a verb that expresses the subject's action or state of being.

Example:

Sometimes the predicate will be composed of two or three verbs that fit together - the main verb preceded by one or more auxiliary (helping) verbs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To be a predicate, a verb that ends in -ing must ALWAYS have a helping verb with it. An -ing verb WITHOUT a helping verb cannot be a predicate in a sentence.

A subject and predicate may not always appear together or in the normal order, as the following examples show:

Phrases

A phrase is a group of related words that

1. does not express a complete thought

2. does not have a subject and predicate pair

One type of phrase is a prepositional phrase.

Examples:

Another kind of phrase is a verbal phrase.

Examples:

Even though these phrases contain nouns (pronouns) and/or verb forms, none of the nouns/pronouns/verbs are subjects or predicates. None of them work as a partnership.

Also, these phrases do NOT express complete thoughts.

Clauses

Words and phrases can be put together to make clauses.

A clause is a group of related words that contain a subject and predicate.

Note the difference between phrases and clauses in the following examples:

Only one of the clauses is a sentence.

Clause #1 gives a thought or an idea that is COMPLETE, that can stand by itself, independent of other words.

However, clause #2 gives an INCOMPLETE thought or idea, one that cannot stand by itself, one that needs some more words to make it whole. The word after changes the meaning, making the thought incomplete. After reading this clause, we are left hanging.

These two clauses illustrate the two kinds of clauses:

independent clauses and dependent clauses

An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject, a predicate, and a complete thought.

A dependent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate, but does NOT express a complete thought.

Compounding Sentence Elements

Words, phrases, and clauses may be joined to one another inside a sentence with a conjunction.

The coordinating conjunctions

and, but, or, and nor may join subjects, predicates, adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases or dependent clauses within a sentence. This process is called "compounding."

The following examples show the process of compounding

WORDS

PHRASES

DEPENDENT CLAUSES

When entire independent clauses (simple sentences) are joined this way, they become compound sentences.

Avoiding Fragments

A complete sentence needs only two elements:

a subject - predicate unit AND a complete thought

In other words, a simple sentence is actually the SAME thing as an independent clause.

Dependent clauses or phrases are called fragments because they are missing one or more parts needed to make a sentence.

Therefore, they are only pieces or fragments of complete sentences.

Look at these examples:

Avoiding Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

Sometimes two independent clauses (simple sentences) can be joined to form another kind of sentence: the compound sentence.

Two major errors can occur when constructing compound sentences.

Error #1: The Comma Splice

Writers make this error when they try to separate the two independent clauses in a compound sentence with a comma alone.

A comma is not a strong enough punctuation mark to separate the two independent clauses by itself; thus, using it causes the clauses to be spliced together.

Example of a comma splice:

This sentence can be repaired in three ways:

1. by adding an appropriate coordinating conjunction

2. by changing the comma to a semicolon

3. by changing the punctuation and adding an appropriate conjunctive adverb

Error #2: The Fused Sentence

Writers make this error by joining two independent clauses into a compound sentence without using any punctuation between them.

No punctuation between the two independent clauses causes them to "fuse" into an INCORRECT compound sentence.

Example of a fused sentence:

This sentence is also repaired in three ways:

1. by adding a comma and an appropriate coordinating conjunction

2. by placing a semicolon between the two clauses

3. by adding the needed punctuation and an appropriate conjunctive adverb

Another way to repair a comma splice or fused sentence is to make each independent clauseinto a simple sentence.

What do you call a group of words without a subject and a verb that functions?

Phrases: A phrase is a group of words that does not have a subject and verb. A phrase cannot therefore be a complete idea or a complete sentence by itself.

What do you call a group of words with its own subject and verb and can either stand by it self or depend on other parts?

A clause, however, is by definition a group of words that has a subject and a verb. A sentence can have any number of clauses and phrases combined together. See the examples below: Phrases. Clauses.

Which can stand by itself as a complete sentence?

There are two types of clauses: independent clauses and dependent clauses. An independent clause can stand alone as a complete sentence.

What do you call a group of words that function as a single parts of speech?

PHRASE: a group of related words that does not have a subject, or does not have a predicate, or both. A phrase acts collectively as a single part of speech, and is usually a noun, adject or adverb.