Basic Sentence Patterns 4.
feel / they / annoyed
5. Sad / seemed / he
Pattern – 1
6. this boy / seems / restless
7. smells / the rose / sweet
Subject + Intransitive verb + Adverbials
8. bitter / this fruit / taste
Ex.
9. upstairs / is / my / brother
1. He Sings Well
10. must have been / the party / enjoyable
2. You laughed loudly
11. were / in the library / they
12. on Sunday / the examination / will be
Pattern – 2
13. Mahatma Gandhi / a great leader / was
14. my brother / a doctor / became
Ex. Sub + Linking verb + Complement
15. they /quiet / remained
1. They were happy.
Exercise (Intermediate)
2. She is a teacher.
Pattern – 3
Arrange the words in the order.
Subject + Transitive verb + Direct Object / Indirect
Sub + Transitive verb + Direct object + Adverbial
object + Adverbials (if any)
1. Sachin scored a century
1. A coat / you / need
2. He has read this book.
2. Have started / the game / they
Pattern – 4
3. the Principal / he / yesterday / met
4. Scored / a century / Sachin
Subject + Transitive verb + Indirect Object + Direct
5. my mother / a story / tells / me / every night
Object + Adverbials
6. The problem / carefully/ I / explained
1. I gave my friend a present on his birthday.
7. Football / don’t like / very much / I
2. The teacher asked him a question.
8. Harish / very well / English / doesn’t speak
9. We / at the airport / some friends / met
Arrange the following words in the order subject + 10. I / In bed / this morning / my break fast / had
Intransitive verb + Adverbials. Start with a capital 11. Ravi / last month / this picture / painted
letter and end with a full stop. 12. us / teaches / English / Mr. Sharma
1. Ravi / with a pen / writes 13. passed / John/ easily / the exam
2. in the east / the sun / rises 14. A lot of work / did / I / yesterday
3. The bus / late / arrived 15. two / letters / I / this morning / wrote
4. Ran / fast / he
5. studied / in the room / children Exercise (Advanced)
6. He / over the wall / jumped
7. Heavily / it / rained Write one sentence for each of the sentence patterns.
8. Well / she / sings 1. Sub + Intransitive verb
9. Laughed / loudly /He 2. Subject +Liking verb + Complement
10. Rohit / there / sat 3. Subject + Transitive verb + Direct object
11. Sanjay / loud / spoke 4. Subject + Transitive verb + Indirect object+ Direct
12. The Scooter / fast /runs object
13. Begins / my college /in July 5. Subject + Transitive verb + Direct object +
14. Went /Home /they compliment
15. on the ice / Ravi / slipped 6. Subject + Intransitive verb + Adverb
7. Subject + Liking verb + Compliment
Exercise (Intermediate) 8. Subject + Transitive verb + Direct object
9. Subject + Transitive verb + Direct object + Indirect
Arrange the words in the order. Object
Subject + linking verb + complements. 10. Subject + Transitive verb + Direct object +
1. Are/ busy / the boys Compliment
2. tall / my brother / is
3. Ravi / happy / appeared
7 Basic Sentence Patterns
The English language has seven basic sentence (or
clause) patterns. Examples are:
1. John / laughed. (SV)*
2. John / kissed / Jane. (SVO)
3. John / is / tall. (SVC)
4. John / gave / Jane / a present. (SVOO)
5. John / made / Jane / angry. (SVOC)
6. John / sat / up. (SVA)
7. John / put / the bag / down. (SVOA)
Most simple and complex (but not compound) clauses
are of one of these patterns no matter how long the
clauses are. For example, the following two sentences
are essentially of the same pattern.
8. Jane / bought / fruit. (SVO)
9. My long lost sister Jane / has been buying / a
variety of fruit. (SVO)
* There are five sentence class terms: S = subject, V =
verb, O = object, C = complement, and A = adverbial.
The slash (/) denotes the boundary between syntactic
terms.
