Sentence Formation Guide: How To Form Sentences?

Get familiar with verb, subject, object types.

Are your sentences grammatically correct? This guide will provide you with a base knowledge of words’ functions and how to form sentences in accordance with them.Rather than following grammatical logic, we will observe the meaning to discover the logic behind it.Let’s begin with verbs.

Verb

Verbs themselves can be meaningfully used by themselves. We can give commands like “sit,” “come,” or “run.”
When it comes to forming sentences, the first thought that comes to mind must be “action” when uttering any verb.

Can you find the sentences with state verbs?

1. I own a house.
2. The dog barks at the robber.
3. I exercise every day.
4. My sister believes me.

(Answer: 1 and 4)

You might think that “to have,” “to be,” or “want” are also verbs, but they do not necessarily entail “action.”

It is true. But in a way, these actions should be thought of as limited to the person acting. So, we would rather call them “states.” How?

Action or State Verb

It is easy to think of every verb as an action. You can think of state verbs as the actions that you don’t “act out.” For a verb to be classified as an “action,” it should be observable.

Think of “to be.” Phrases like “I am, you are, she is, and they are” describe the condition you declare. Similarly, “to know,” “to have,” or “to want” expresses the subject’s state or desire. We can desire, fear, or feel various things without acting them out physically.

On the other hand, we can visualise ourselves running, cooking, or “doing” something.
This can be thought of as the simplest way to differentiate between action and state verbs.

Tip: Remember why the former is called “action” and the latter “state,” and the logic will follow.

Before investigating verbs in depth, we should mention “who” is doing the doing, or expressing a state:

Subject
Isn’t it surprising? “Run!” can still be thought of as a full sentence since it conveys the meaning of the hidden subject, “you.”
These are called imperative sentences. We use them to give commands, instructions, and so on. However, in forming grammatically correct, full sentences, we usually add a “subject” to indicate who “does” the action or “is” in some state. Such as:

• I think.
• She cooks every day.
• The books are grey.

Do not forget: “I, you, she, he, they” can function as the subject of a sentence as well as nouns like “the books, my homework, an apple.”

For a word to be a subject, action, or state, it must say something about it. In the examples we offered above, “she” does the “cooking” action, and “I” am thinking about something unspecified.

What do you think of this sentence?

• I am calling my mother.

In addition to subject and verb, we are introduced to an object.

Object
An object in a sentence indicates that there is something or someone that is influenced by the subject’s action. The subject’s “action” influences the “object.” For example:

• The boy is eating candy.

“Candy” becomes the object of the “eating” action. In the end, there might not be candy left, as it will be affected by being eaten. See?

Usually, state verbs do not directly refer to objects. But there are exceptions:

• The boy loves candy.

Even though “love” is a state verb, it directly refers to the candy because the verb is used in the “transitive” (explained in the next section).

Tip: Think of the meaning the sentence is trying to convey, especially in exceptional cases. You must understand how the “action” could influence the object.

Objects can be influenced by the subject’s action, directly or indirectly. In order to differentiate, we must understand that transitive verbs usually take direct objects, and intransitive verbs take indirect objects.

Before investigating object types deeper, let’s clarify the “action” of a sentence.

Intransitive and Transitive Verbs

• I laugh at this movie.
• I love this movie.

In these examples, the first verb, “laugh,” is an intransitive verb, whereas “love” is a transitive verb.

Example 1: I laugh at this movie.

Intransitive verbs do not require an object. This means that we could have said “I laugh,” and it would still be a meaningful sentence.
If an object follows an intransitive verb, we need prepositions such as “at” (or in, out, between, etc.).

Tip: You can think of prepositions as connectors. For intransitive verbs to refer to an object, they need connectors that define the relationship between verb and object.

Think of this sentence:

• I swim.

Apparently, I do not swim by myself, sitting in the living room. I might be swimming in “the sea, ocean, or lake.”  The preposition in here indicates “where” I do the swimming action by creating a link between the verb and the object. 

Similarly, look at this example:

• I laugh while watching movies.

Here, “laugh” is still intransitive, but it is followed by a subordinating clause. The words “while, after, before, since,” and so on, are the subordinating conjunctions. In a way, we establish a dependency, a relationship, between me laughing and me watching a movie.

Example 2: I love this movie.

While “laughing” itself was meaningful, transitive verbs like “love” need an object to refer to. It is an action that can be seen by others. However, when we say, “I love,” a noun, verb, adverb, or adjective should directly follow the verb.

In the example, the object “this movie” follows the verb “love” without the need of any preposition. We also could have said, “I love my mother” or “I love healthy snacks.”

The phrases “my mother” and “healthy snacks” follow the verb “love” directly. For example,

• I bought a car.

As we see in its past tense version, the verb “buy” must be directly followed by a noun. “I buy,” by itself, is not meaningful. We must indicate “what” we bought to make this a meaningful sentence.

Keep in mind:The verbs can sometimes be transitive or intransitive. Once you figure out the logic behind such classifications, you can analyse the different sentences you encounter.

Differentiating Direct and Indirect Objects

Since we discovered the actor and the act (subject and verb), we can grasp the types of objects better.

For example:

• Sandy opened the door.

In order to find the object, ask these: Sandy opened “what.” You will find answers to “what” and “whom,” if you have a direct object.

Question: Is this verb transitive or intransitive?
Answer: “Opening” requires another object to be a complete action. There is no “opening” if there is no door, window, or page, for example. 

What do you think of this sentence? Is there a direct or indirect object?

• Sandy gave her mother a gift.

Let’s ask: Sandy gave what? A gift. Here, “gift” is our direct object. What about “her mother?”

For indirect objects, we ask “whom” and “what” with by adding “to” and “for.”

Sandy gave a gift “to whom?” The answer would be “her mother.”

Is it a little confusing? You can think of it this way:

Divide “actions” into three layers:

States are the actions that have an end to themselves. It concerns your inner world and condition rather than your physical actions.

If we cannot separate my action from its object, it would be a direct object.
For example, the verb “call” can both be transitive and intransitive. If we say, “I called my mother,” the verb “call” would be transitive and “my mother” would be a direct object.

Lastly, apart from “I” (the subject) and the “action” (verb), there can be a recipient of the action. Like giving a gift.
Think of this example:

• John cooked us a dinner.

Here, “dinner” gives us the answer, “John cooked what?” As a direct object, “dinner” is directly related to the action “cooking.” However, John is cooking “for” someone, right? John cooked a dinner for whom? “Us,” in this case, would be the indirect object, receiving the completed action.

Example Sentence Formations

As we mentioned, your sentence can even be one verb long, like “Run.”

Followingly, subject + verb can give us sentences like these:

• My cat runs.
• I care.
• They are sleeping.

When it comes to subject + verb + object formations, we can exemplify them as follows:

• My father built this house.
• Natalie fixed the broken desk.
• We wrote a letter.

For this short exercise, can you identify which objects are direct and indirect?
(There is a little trick.)

• We wrote a letter to them.
• The teacher assigned her students a project.
• He showed his house to the guests.

Answers

• We wrote a letter to them. (Direct object: Letter, Indirect object: them)
• The teacher assigned her students a project. (Direct object: a project, Indirect object: her students)
• He showed his house to the guests. (Direct object: his house)

Careful! If you think that “the guests” is indirect object, you are mistaken. There is already “to” in the sentence. The phrase “to the guests” is prepositional, so it gives us additional information.

Similarly, if we say that “He cleaned the house before their arrival,” the phrase “before their arrival” would be prepositional again.

That’s it for our introduction to forming sentences. 

Get familiar with different sentence types and challenge yourself.
Learn the reasoning behind basic grammar rules with High Learn.
See you in our next guide. 👋