Hi guys, welcome to the lesson my name is Michelle and this lesson is one of the very
first lessons in our series of “how to write complex sentences”, yes this is going to
be of a great help to you because complex sentences help you be much more fluent. Right
so I have a question for you, “what is this?” “This is a hand.” “What is a hand?”
Hand is a noun of course it is, but it can also be a subject yes when it's part of a
sentence and that's what we are going to find out today what are the main parts of a sentence
just like the hand is a main part of our body so please join me I'm so glad to have you
with me. Right so here we are and let's look at the first sentence that we have in red,
“Kate is a thin girl” right so what question can you form for the sentence you could say
“who is a thin girl?” the answer would be, “Kate is a thin girl” so what is Kate
here? Kate is the ‘subject’ yes because it's answering the question ‘who’. So
Kate is the subject so whenever a name or a word answers the question
who it is always the subject. Now let's talk about the form of the word ‘Kate’, Kate
is a name and that's why it's a ‘noun’ so you can see that ‘subject is always a
noun’ yes you must remember that, that a ‘subject is always a noun’. So Kate is
a thin girl, here Kate is the simple subject because there is no more information along
with Kate except that she's a thin girl. So if we look at Kate that is a simple subject
because it's just a noun. Right now let's look at the next sentence that we have, “Jack's
poem about his mother made the class cry.” What kind of a question can you make out of
this, you could say, “whose poem made the class cry?” what would be the answer, the
answer would be Jack's poem about his mother made the class cry. Now this is also a subject
but as you can see that here we only have the name Kate and here we have the entire
information about the poem that's why it's not a simple subject but this is a ‘full
subject’ because we are giving all the information about the poem whose poem is it? It's Jack's
poem, about whom? About his mother so this is a full subject, I'll write it here for
you, a full subject now let's look at the difference between ‘simple
subject’ and ‘full subject’, so simple subject will always have just a noun a single
noun or a name, right? But a full subject will have a noun phrase it not only has a
noun but it has added information along with the noun. So this is a ‘noun phrase’ interesting,
isn't it? Let's look at the next sentence that we have, “Paul and Tommy joined the
team”, so you could ask, “who all joined the team?” again it's answering the question
‘who’ therefore we know that we are looking for the subject already you know that a subject
has to be a noun or a noun phrase, so look for the noun in this one, how many nouns have
you got? You've got two nouns, ‘Paul’ and ‘Tommy’ and what have we done with
them, we have joined the two nouns right, with and so whenever we join two nouns with
each other with an ‘and’ it's called a ‘compound subject’ which means to join
two things together so this is a ‘compound subject’ for you. Just to help you remember
this is a ‘simple subject’ where we have just a ‘noun’, alright? This is a ‘full
subject’ where we have a ‘noun phrase’ and here we have the ‘compound subject’
where we have more than one noun which means two nouns which are joined together using
an ‘and’. Great so this is where we have looked at a subject right, which is a very
important part of a sentence. Now here is the sense for you, why don't you find out
the subject for this sentence for yourself? So the first step would be to ask the “who”
question, “Kelly walked down the street”, who walked down the street? Kelly walk down
the street, so definitely Kelly is the subject. Great with that we look at the next important
part of sentence, so we've already looked at the noun, now let's look at the first one
here “Harry ate” which one is the noun Harry, right? So the noun is the subject isn't
it? So let's write subject over here so we already have the noun, we already have the
subject, what are we left with? What is “ate”? Do you know the word “ate” which is the
past form for the word ‘eat’, right? What is eating? It's an action right, so it's a
“verb”. So “ate” is a verb. Now what is verb in a sentence, what do we call that
part of a sentence which tells us what the noun is doing so this question is actually
answering what did Harry do, right? ‘Harry ate’ or what is how we doing? Harry is eating.
In that way ate is the verb which is called the “predicate”. So predicate essentially
answers what the subject is doing, so subject is the actor and predicate answers what is
the actor doing. Right now as you've already seen that ‘Harry’ and ‘ate’ when we
join them together they form a complete sentence so you must remember that a subject and a
predicate together by themselves can have a full sentence you do not need more information
with it, you could say “Harry ate the apples”, so that would be a full sentence but if you
say “Harry ate” that's still a full sentence and you do not need more information with
it. So a verb and a predicate can form sorry a subject and a predicate can form a full
sentence by itself. Right so this one like here we have the simple subject which is Kate
here we have the simple predicate which is ate, the simple predicate. Why is it a simple
predicate, because we do not have any added information about how he ate, right? We just
know that he ate we don't know if he ate slowly or if he ate quickly, right? Now let's look
at the next sentence that we have, “the mouse slowly ran towards the cheese”, how
did the mouse run? Did you notice something special here? So let's see first the subject
mouse is the subject okay because it's the noun now the predicate as you already know
is the verb, alright? Now the interesting part is we have more information with the
verb, ‘how did the mouse run?’ ‘The mouse ran slowly’, so this is an “adverb”
and it tells us more about the verb so this one here is a “full predicate” as this
is a simple predicate this is a full predicate. Just to remind you that a full subject is
always a noun phrase and a full predicate is always an adverb along with a verb and
it answers the question about the subject, what is the subject doing so the mouse what
is the mouse doing? The mouse is running slowly towards the cheese. Great now let's look at
the next sentence that we have with us and this is, “she both laughed and cried at
the film”, so when she saw the film she had mixed emotions, right? We have two verbs
here “laughed and cried” as you may have already guessed she is the subject because
she's the actor in the sense she both laughed and cried so to verbs coming together with
an “and” form a “compound predicate” just like a compound subject. Okay so a compound
subject has two nouns joined with an “and” but a compound predicate has two verbs joined
with an “and”. I hope this has been really helpful for you to find out the main parts
of a sentence, the first one being the subject and the second one being a predicate. Now
try yourself in the first phrase, first sense that we have, “she walked down the street”,
what did she do? We are answering the question “what” which means we are talking about
the action, so what did she do, she walked down the street. So this is the predicate.
Now let's look at the rest of the sentences that we have with us, “they like ice cream
on hot days”, do you like ice cream on hot days? I love it. So they like ice cream on
hot days is a complete sentence as you can see, right? But if I only say “They like
ice cream” wouldn't that be enough, right? But I'm giving more information by saying
on ‘hot days’, so whenever I'm giving more information this means that I'm adding
a “clause”, on ‘hot days’ is a clause. So a clause is used to add more information
to a sentence, so they like ice cream on hot days. Okay if I say ‘they like ice cream’,
it's a full sentence, isn't it? but if I say on hot days is it a full sentence if I say
only hot days on hot days it's not, so whenever a clause cannot stand on its own it's called
a “dependent clause” because it's dependent on the main part of the sentence which is
they like ice cream. Now let's look at the next one that we have, “John washed the
dishes”, okay fine John washed the dishes so it's a complete sentence but we add more
to it more information, “but he didn't want to” which means that we are adding more
information now let's look at the sentence “he did want to” is it a complete sentence,
yes it is. So that's why this is an “independent clause” because it is not dependent on the
first part of the sentence so this is an independent clause for you
and how do we join them we have tried to join them by using the word “but” however just
to help you remember, “John washed the dishes” can't stand by itself “but he didn't want
to” this can also stand by itself therefore the second part of the sentence is an “independent
clause” and it's not dependent on the first part. Coming back to the first one we have,
“Kelly walked down the street”, I have a quick test for you, “Kelly walked down
the street in the evening” so ‘in the evening’, quickly tell me is it a dependent
clause or an independent clause? This one here isn't is it dependent clause and why
is that so because ‘in the evenings’ just like ‘on hot days’ cannot stand alone.
So with this we complete the sentence and we also complete this lesson. I hope this
lesson was really helpful for you to understand the main parts of the sentence. In the next
lesson in this series of complex sentence writing, I’m gonna explain to you the “dependent
clauses” and the “independent clauses” in more detail. Do not forget to do the test
at the end of this video or you can find the link in the description box. Thank you so
much for having me I had a great time teaching you thank you, bye.