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Exercise 1: Is it a sentence?

A sentence is a group of words that names something and then says something about what it
has named. Because the thing that is named is what the sentence is about, grammarians call
it the “subject.” The most important words that say something about the subject are called
“verbs.”

In the following sentence, the subject is in green and is underlined once. (The verb is in blue
and is underlined twice.)

Birds fly.

Some sentences say something by asking a question about the subject.

Do birds fly?

Most sentences are longer than this. In longer sentences we talk about subject phrases and
verb phrases.

For example:

The little words are the most difficult.

Here, “words” is the subject. Because the words “The” and “little” go with “words,” we can
call the whole group of words ( “The little words” ) the subject phrase.

The second part of the sentence says, “the most difficult.” This group of words goes with the
verb ( “are”), so we call the whole group of words (“are the most difficult” ) a verb phrase
– it begins with the verb.

So, a phrase, is:

a group of words that does not contain both a subject and a verb, and
a group of words that also says something about the subject.

So, what is a sentence? What is a phrase?

Have a look at these examples of sentences (remember the color coding and underlining
system mentioned in the first paragraph of this paper).

April is the cruelest month. Sarah was going to the museum.

Is April the cruelest month? Swimming can be good exercise.

Bert likes baseball. Jane will have to work on Friday

Does Bert like baseball? The book was written by a child.

Adapted from Dr. Ed Vavra’s KISS Grammar. 1

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Now have a look at these examples of phrases.

around the house swimming in the pond.

the bright, beautiful sun were lonely and sad

going to the store on the table

Q. So, what’s the difference between a sentence and a phrase?

A. Well, a sentence must contain both a subject and a verb. Check the examples here to
see how you can tell a phrase from a sentence.

Conclusion

There are thousands of verbs in English, and learning to recognize them is probably the
hardest part of understanding grammar.

The next few exercises will help you. You will be expected to make some mistakes, but the
next lessons will introduce you to some verbs that you will be expected to always recognize
correctly.

Q. Great! So, what should I do now?

A. Look at the examples in this lesson once more again and see if you can decide what the
difference really is between a sentence and a phrase. Then do the exercise 1.1.

Adapted from Dr. Ed Vavra’s KISS Grammar. 2