Have you ever struggled with the niceties of English grammar? Have you tried to learn the rules of sentence structure only to find yourself confused by the terminology used to explain the rules? The good news is we are all pretty much capable of stringing a sentence together with a little practice, and it doesn't have to be a painful learning process.
Basic English grammar dictates that to be complete, a sentence must have either a subject and a predicate, or a subject, verb and object. But what does that mean?
Subject
The subject of a sentence is the person, thing, place or idea, driving the sentence. It is who, or what the sentence is about. Take the following example:
Person: My father has trouble understanding English grammar basics.
Thing: That sentence was incomplete.
Place: Wolverhampton is a town in the united Kingdom.
Idea: English grammar rules are confusing for many people.
In the above sentences "My father," "That sentence," Wolverhampton," and "English grammar rules," are the subjects. In technical terms, they are either nouns or pronouns, but it's often easier to think in terms of them as the "who or what?" of the sentence if nouns and pronouns confuse you.
Notice the subject doesn't have to be a single word, it can be a word pair or group.
Predicate or Verb
Having established the subject, the predicate or verb is the action word that answers the question, "what about them?" It defines the action or state of being being described.
In the above examples, consider "has trouble understanding," "was," "is," and "are confusing," as the verbs. The middle two are simple enough. In the first and last, the verbs stand complete. In the last, the verb confusing alone would not make sense, so we have to add the word "are" to complete the thought. This could be rewritten as "English grammar rules confuse many people." Notice how the change affects the immediacy of the sentence though? With "English grammar rules are confusing," you are in the middle of the confusion, whereas "English grammar rules confuse," has a sense of distance, due to the absence of the present tense.
In the same way, "has trouble understanding," could be replaced by "can not understand," "struggles to understand," or "never understood." Each substitution changes the meaning or implication of the sentence.
Notice not all words in these phrases are verbs, or action words. Trouble, for instance, is a noun that's needed to make sense of the verb "understanding," and the helping verb "has."
Object
The object is the part of the sentence the verb is being done to, by the subject. It's the part of the sentence that answers the question raised by the subject and verb. In our examples, the objects are "English grammar basics," "incomplete," "in the United Kingdom," and "for many people." These complete the thought, and therefore the sentence.
Although it's easy to get bogged down with the definitions of phrases, clauses, conjunctive and compound sentences, you don't need to. Forget the terminology and get the words of the basic idea down first. Then ask the following questions:
Is it a complete thought?
Is it clear who is doing what, and to whom?
Is there more than one thought?
If the thought is not complete, what you have is either a phrase or a dependent clause. To turn this into a complete sentence, you will need to either add in the missing elements, or attach this to another phrase or clause that provides them.
If there is more than one complete thought, you have a compound sentence. This will probably be easier to read if it is split into two sentences.
Read http://www.towson.edu/ows/sentelmt.htm for a good, if technical, explanation of the rules of sentence structure. Remember though, that clarity of thought and ease of reading are more important than absolute adherence to rules for your reader.