Questions tagged [sentence-patterns]
Questions relating to the pattern of words in a sentence.
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It this a that-clause
But thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
This is from Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener. I loved the structure &...
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Is it proper grammar to start a sentence with the word "reference"?
The sentence "Reference these materials" sounds wrong to me, but I cannot figure out why, assuming I'm correct.
The intended meaning is "use these materials to further your ...
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"It is confirmed that" [closed]
Can I write as below?
It is confirmed that,
The A requires B.
The C requires D.
(1.2. Are just random sentences..)
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What is wrong with my sentence structure?
'With my brother standing by my side, I reached for the pot handle, tilting the pot way too much caused the boiling water to spill.’
My gut feeling tells me that there is something wrong with this ...
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Does 'angle' as a noun necessarily receive a definite article?
Here is the sentence in dispute:
In humans, the femoral angle shows no correlation with femoral length.
The question: why would 'femoral angle' receive a definite article, but not 'femoral length'? ...
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Fronting of helping verbs for impossible probabilities
This is from 'Landour Days' by Ruskin Bond where he dwells at length on writings by hand.
" A few years earlier, when Dickens and Balzac had submitted their hefty manuscripts in longhand, no one had ...
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Why is this sentence grammatically incorrect?
I have been practicing sample tests for an English Olympiad and came across such a question:
Decide if the sentence is correct or incorrect.
After you make your payment, the products will be sent to ...
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3
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Using "though" at the beginning of the following sentence
But during the trip, she hardly spoke with him. In fact, she hardly spoke with anyone in the group. She would just follow us quietly to whereever we went, like a little
stray cat. Though she spent ...
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Do I need the comma after the opening adjective? [duplicate]
The sentence is:
There, it continues to attract visitors.
vs
There it continues to attract visitors.
I saw the second example on the grammar section of a standardized test and I thought they made ...
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Is "that"a conjunction or other grammatical function in the emphatic structure"It is .... that ..."?
For example, in the following sentence
It is Mary that brought me this book.
Does "that" serve as a conjunction or pronoun or any other grammatical function? And Why?
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"Ask ourselves what is it that..." or "Ask ourselves what it is that..."
This is from an article about setting goals: 'We need to ask ourselves what is it that we want in order to feel truly accomplished.'
Compared with 'We need to ask ourselves what it is that we want in ...
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Argumentation - [We provide X] [because of Y] or vice versa?
When writing academic (technical) texts I often encounter situations where our solution has some cool property X because we did Y.
Is it better to write the reason first or after the argument?
...
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* makes it * for * to be * [duplicate]
Is a sentence like the following correct English?
This search engine makes it hard for less popular sites to be found.
Variations would be
X makes it easy/difficult for Y to be discovered/...
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Simple or compound sentences? [closed]
John ate and drank to his satisfaction.
John ate the yam and drank the juice.
My question: Are these sentences simple or compound sentences?
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Pre-clause, Post-clause
I have two possible sentences of the some situation and I am confused:
Realizing he did not belong there, he left the meeting early.
He left the meeting early, realizing he did not belong there.
...
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How to parse the sentence for better understanding? [closed]
He doesn’t sound nearly as eager to make small talk with this guy as he was with me.
how to understand the above sentence?
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Using the word "he" twice in the same sentence - is this grammatically correct? If not, why are there published books that break this rule? [closed]
So, I was reading some books by Stephen King, S.D. Perry, and a couple authors I really love. I notice they'll use pronouns or certains words twice in the same sentence. When I read it, it's pleasant ...
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"Bet" in the beginning of the sentence [duplicate]
Bet it was a quick death, though. In this sentence, there is no noun before "Bet". Does it refer to "you" or "I"?
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Skipping a relative pronoun
My eyes widen, and I slowly turn toward the elderly gentleman standing at my side.
In this sentence, before "standing", "who" is skipped why?
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"There are fish of every hue." For different kinds of fish, should fish be in plural form here?
In the Caribbean waters, there are fish of every hue.
Since one is talking about different kinds of fish, should fish be in marked plural form (fishes) here?
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Name for concise sentence with articles and verbs removed [duplicate]
Suppose I am writing a sign for my front gate to warn people of the dog in the yard. I would write "Warning: Dog in Yard" as opposed to "Warning: There is a dog in the yard". The ...
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How can we make passive out of perfect continuous tenses?
Can we make passive out of perfect continuous tenses as below?
English is being taught here since 2013
He is being beaten since morning
We are being taught this since February
It's just that "has ...
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Usage of they/them as a pronoun in confusing sentences [duplicate]
Pronouns are an integral part of the english language. However, they can also cause confusion and problems within communication, especially in the modern era, as some people choose to use ...
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How can one use 'would' and 'could' both, consecutively?
I encountered a sentence in an article. The writer (an Australian) has used both 'could' and 'would' consecutively in a sentence.
The sentence is
But I was determined to make a statement: would ...
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How is “The Stars My Destination” a grammatically correct title/sentence?
It's a bit of a niche question, but I've always wondered how the title of Alfred Bester's 1956 novel is at all grammatically correct. I feel like it teeters on being grammatically sufficient, but isn'...
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not only... but also (but also - together)
I know that parallelism is a maxim when it comes to talking about this matter, my question is:
Not only do I like chocolate, but I also like coffee. (this is correct)
Not only do I like chocolate, but ...
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Order of time from certain time to general time [duplicate]
Here is the time order that I found quite confusing in a sentence, following with the sample sentence that I saw from a piece of teaching material:
The school party is on June 8th at 8 o'clock in the ...
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Is it ok to write "no one can help you make sense of your existence"? [closed]
I just read a sentence somewhere and as a non-native English speaker, I found the structure a bit different from the ways I have learned, the sentence is as below:
This is the feeling of loneliness ...
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Using a verb twice to describe a chain of action [closed]
Is the following sentence grammatically correct:
Cats bother dogs bother ducks.
I want to say that cats bother dogs and, also, that dogs bother ducks. Is this a correct way to do so?
If it is, ...
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One verb, multiple subjects, and multiple objects
Are the following constructions valid in English where we have a common verb with many subjects and objects? If yes, how do we usually phrase such sentences?
Lisa, US; Andrew, Mexico; and Taylor lives ...
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What is the term for a sentence which reads same forwards and backwards?
Please note, I'm not asking for a palindrome. I mean to say that only the word order is rearranged, not the actual spelling of the word. An example might be as follows:
First ladies rule the ...
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Singular vs. plural when the subject has multiple objects in it
This is a question about deciding singular vs. plural verb where the subject contains multiple objects in it. Let me set the context first.
I have a mathematical problem where I need to find a ...
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Is it grammatically wrong if we say 'I have been unable too' and 'I have not been able either'?
So, If the context is like this:
Person 1: Hey, due to a black out in my region, I have not been able to turn on my TV. So, I missed some parts of the show.
Person 2: What a coincidence! I have not ...
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Is this correct usage of "unable"? [closed]
I sent an email to my recruiter asking how to track my application online and recruiter said this in an email -
Unfortunately you are unable to track your application online.
Is this sentence ...
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Why is 'a' used in "There's a good many reasons why people should follow it"? [duplicate]
There's a good many reasons why people should follow it.
Why is there an 'a' before 'good many reasons'?
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How to write from this, to that, to that, to that
For example, if I were writing the menu options for a restaurant, how would I write something like this?
Restaurant ABC offers many different dishes. From pizza, to burgers,
to shakes, to fries, ...
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What does this phrase ("..for who knows which ideas now considered ...might one day upset the prevailing paradigm") mean?
The following sentence is a GRE style text-completion sentence, where you must fill in each blank from only one of three enlisted options.
It is telling that some scientific ideas that were once (i)...
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Is it possible to make a declarative sentence starting with 'Can'?
everyone
As the title shows, is it possible to make a declarative sentence starting with "Can"?
For example, 'Please, can we request that you do not accept any proposals from him.'
The ...
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How to say this more concisely with less redundancy? [closed]
I felt like I had a privileged access to something that most people had no access to.
How to say the above more concisely? I feel like the sentence suffers from redundancy. Is it so? I am saying that ...
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Which one is correct/idiomatic? [closed]
Which one of the following is the best choice?
The fact that only now I can see clearly was that …
The fact that I can only now see clearly was that …
The fact that I can see clearly only now was ...
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"Note that, because English orthography, there are two verbs tear, pronounced differently, one transitive......"
While reading an answer by John Lawler, I got puzzled by a sentence with unfamiliar phrasing. I for the life of me can't understand the meaning of that sentence. I read it about 30 times. Here is the ...
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Is this a complex sentence with a dependent clause, or a simple sentence with an introductory clause?
so I came across this sentence:
Before the invention of the printing press, books were very expensive.
I know that “books were very expensive” is the independent clause, but what about “before the ...
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Is this a complex sentence with a relative clause?
I have a sentence here:
“I don’t understand why you like birds.”
Upon analyzing the sentence structure, there is what appears to be a relative clause:
“why you like birds”
Is this then a complex ...
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Rearrange the sentence in a specific order [closed]
Sentence: Developers from 10+ countries are using our service.
I want to rearrange this sentence so that it starts with "10+ countries". But keep the meaning of the sentence the same.
I ...
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"Too great of a [risk]" OR "Too great a [risk]"? [duplicate]
First, I want to emphasize that my question is general.
I want your answer regarding all of the cases in the following sentence stractures:
[Adjective] + of + [Noun] (For example: It is too great of ...
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Framing a question whose answer is an ordinal number
I am the third daughter (or son) of my parents.
OR
I am the third child of my parents
How should a question that is answered with the above sentences be framed?
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Hitchhiker's Guide opening sentence analysis according to Verspoor and Sauter [duplicate]
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of
the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded
yellow sun.
(Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams)
Does anyone ...
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Having + past tense as a subject in a sentence?
is it possible to use the form "having + past tense" as a subject in a sentence? For example, is it grammatically correct to say:
Having applied at the right time resulted in getting an admission.
...
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I'm getting confused between two of these sentences [closed]
What’s about this support ticket?
This was the question we used inside a product. But some users suggested the below version of the same sentence.
What’s this support ticket about?
Now I'm getting ...
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Is there a sentence that begins with “them”?
An online retail store is asking its customers to construct a sentence beginning with them in order to win a voucher. I just can't believe there's any such sentence, at least I don't know of any!
I'...
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