Parts of a sentence, types and the proper use of nouns

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In order to express a complete thought, we put together a group of words that contain a subject and a verb. This, then, is what is referred to a sentence. Invariably, sentences must begin with a capital letter (upper case on a computer keyboard) and terminate with either a period (full stop), question mark (?) or an exclamation mark (!).

Outside the complete sentences, we have ‘sentence fragments ‘. These are word groups that, though they look like sentences, fail to express a complete thought. Notably, sentence fragments do not feature both verb and subject. The following is an example of a sentence fragment: ‘A butterfly with yellow wings and short antennae’. In this sentence fragment, although there is a subject (butterfly), there is no verb. Verbs, as we know, express an action or the state of being. One could therefore ask, what about the butterfly? What was it doing? Where was it?

Sentences contain two basic parts, namely, the subject and the predicate. As earlier said, the subject is about the ‘whom’ and the ‘what’ of a sentence. An example is: ‘The editor found a 1902 copy of the Standard newspaper in the library’. On the other hand, the sentence predicate tells us something about the subject: ‘Juma’s father is a postman’ or, ‘on the lamp post, stood the forlorn looking Marabou stork’.

Noun types

Let’s move on to nouns which, ideally, are words or word used to name a person, place, thing or idea. The acronym TIPP (Things, Ideas, People, Places) could come in handy in remembering this. Indeed, acronyms aid a lot in recollection, hence, if we could each create our own unique acronyms, or try to establish connections between objects and some situations, we might discover that remembering a few things here and there becomes easy. In our formative years of learning, remembering the order of the colours of the rainbow, for instance, was quite daunting. We would cringe whenever the question came up in class until a trainee teacher introduced us to the acronym ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).

There are a number of noun types, but let us focus on a few today. Compound nouns, for instance, are composed of two or more words applied together as a single noun. Examples of compound nouns, as single words are: basketball, filmmaker, drugstore, doghouse and grandchild. Compound nouns, as separate words, include: fire drill, chain smoker, pass out, chain reaction. The hyphenated compound nouns include: self-control, fund-raising, president-elect and cross-eyed. On the other hand, ‘Mother-in-law’, ‘commander-in-chief’ and ‘father-in-law’ are examples of compound nouns made up of more than two words.

Reference

A week ago, a news reporter who, while explaining what was going on at the Kasarani National Stadium where President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta will be sworn as Kenya’s fifth president tomorrow, made reference to the military personnel practising for the occasion in a way that may have baffled listeners. He uttered the words, ‘the military parade has just passed out’. The compound noun ‘Pass out’ is a tricky one to use. Ordinarily it means to faint, lose consciousness. In the transitive (showing action), it means giving each member of a group something. When used in the same context with the nouns’ military’ or ‘police’, it means to complete a course or training (for the soldiers or policemen).

Common nouns name people, places, things or ideas. Common nouns do not begin with a capital letter. Examples of common nouns are: athlete, newspaper, shop, river, street, organization and country. Proper nouns, on the other hand, name particular things, people, places or ideas. Unlike common nouns, proper nouns must begin with a capital letter. Examples include; Parliament, Nairobi, Jackson Spain, Kenya.

Concrete nouns name persons, things or places that can be perceived by one or more of the human senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell). Examples; music, aroma, touch. Abstract nouns name ideas, feeling, quality or characteristic, for example; patriotism, knowledge, self-confidence, beauty, competition. Finally, collective nouns refer to a group, either of people, animals or things. Examples are, audience, chorus, crew, society or family (for people,) brood, herd, litter, pack flock (animals) batch, bundle, fleet, collection or cluster (for things).

 

 

 Mr Chagema is a correspondent at The [email protected]