The Sentence Patterns

1. The Sentence Patterns There are 10. You need to know them.

2. Pattern I, II and III • I: NP1 be ADV T/P • II: NP1 be ADJ • III: NP1 be NP1

3. Patterns I, II and III contain forms of the verb “be”. • For now, it’s going to be easiest for us to stick with the one word forms of be: • Am • Is • Are • Was • Were

4. Pattern I: • The ADV T/P is an “adverb of time or place.” It describes where the NP is or when the action was done. • Adverbs of manner, condition or degree aren’t our concern in the first sentence pattern. • You’ll notice, they won’t even fit after a “be” verb: • “I am carefully” * • “He was slightly” * • “The boy in the blue boots with the tarnished brass buckles was very”. *

5. Pattern I Examples: • I am upstairs. • “upstairs” modifies the verb, telling the place. • The dance was yesterday. • “yesterday” modifies the verb, telling the time. We could modify the NP as much as we like: “The homecoming dance,” “The surprisingly boring homecoming dance”. This doesn’t change the sentence’s structure and so it doesn’t change the pattern.

6. More Pattern I Examples: • The girl was in the basement. • “in the basement” modifies the verb, telling the place. Here we have a prepositional phrase acting as an adverb of place, or an “adverbial prepositional phrase. • The young girl was in the dank, dark, creepy, rat-infested basement. • This is the same sentence. We’ve got a better sense of what the basement is like, but it’s still a place where the girl was, and is therefore still functioning as an adverb.

7. Pattern II: • The ADJ in the third slot is a subject complement. It describes the NP in the first slot. • Sometimes prepositional phrases can function as adjectives, just as they did as adverbs. A single adjective can often be substituted for these adjectival prepositional phrases. “ I am in a bad mood.”  “I am grumpy.” (You can’t do this with adverbial prepositional phrases.)

8. Pattern II Examples: • The house is blue. • “blue” describes “the house” • Sue was pretty. • “pretty” describes “Sue” • Max is in a funk. • “in a funk” describes “Max” • We could say, “Max is blue,” or “Max is overwrought.” • Since all those words are adjectives, so is the phrase “in a funk;” we call it an adjectival.

9. Pattern III: • The NP renames the NP in the first slot. It is called a “subject nominative.” • Sometimes the NP in the first slot is just a name, and the NP in the third slot is a group of words. Don’t be fooled: the NPs don’t need to be the same number of words. • Since prepositional phrases can only function as adjectives or adverbs, you know that a prep phrase standing alone cannot be a subject nominative.

10. Pattern III Examples: • Bob is a teacher. • “teacher” renames “Bob” • Sue is the best player on the SHHS lacrosse team. • “the best player on the lacrosse team” all renames “Sue” • Mr. Cooper is a just but fair man. • “a just but fair man” has some crazy parts of speech in it – conjunctions, determiners, adjectives, nouns -- but it’s still just an NP renaming the NP in the first slot. It renames Cooper.

11. Classwork/Homework • Complete Sentence Pattern Worksheet • Create 6 of your own sentences using patterns I-III • Two sentences per pattern • Make sure you try to come up with some adverbials (prepositional phrases acting as an ADV T/P) • Continue using past/present tense verbs • Try expanding your Noun Phrases NPs