Can I start a topic sentence with a verb phrase or a noun phrase? For example:
Firstly, improve their eating habits. ....
Secondly, improve their physical lifestyles. ...
or
Firstly, the decline in birth rate. ....
Secondly, lack of exercise. ...
-
1It's not really helpful to think of your "improve" examples as "starting with a verb phrase". They're imperative sentences, preceded by the implied but unstated subject noun you (the structure is [S]VO rather than SVO).– FumbleFingersCommented Jul 31, 2019 at 11:39
-
Strictly speaking, those sentences each begin with a single word—an adverb. The first sentence is an independent clause with or without it. The second sentence is not an independent clause, and wouldn't be considered a standard sentence. But if it's a title of some kind, or if it's put in the right context, the sentence fragment may be quite acceptable. So, it's not completely clear exactly what you're asking.– Jason BassfordCommented Jul 31, 2019 at 13:37
-
Examples three and four are not sentences but noun (on some analyses, determiner in at least example 3) phrases (each following an ordering pragmatic marker).– Edwin AshworthCommented Dec 30, 2019 at 14:16
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
Not a verb phrase, though you can turn it into a noun phrase with a gerund "Firstly, improving their eating habits."
The noun phrase examples are grammatically ok but might be a bit short on information, depending on what you're writing and how it's introduced. If you set it up clearly with something like:
"This is due to two main factors: the decline in birth rate, and lack of exercise. Each of these will now be dealt with in turn.
Firstly, the decline in birth rate. This has been a problem since..."
it should be ok. It's difficult to be more helpful without knowing a bit more about what it is you're writing.
