Five Sentence Patterns

        Some high school textbooks teach students five "basic" sentence patterns. All five patterns have a subject at the beginning, followed by a verb.

Which sentence pattern(s) you use is determined by the verb. A few verbs can use more than one pattern, but most use just one.

Simple: S + V + O

        Most verbs can and do have an object follow them. These transitive verbs (‘¼“®ŽŒ) are the most common of all. The subject and object tell who and/or what. Extra information (such as an adverbial) telling when, where, how often, how much, and why does not affect the sentence pattern.

Subject	Verb	Object	extra = plus a
Minami	bought	some nice shoes	for 4,000 yen in Sakae.
My sister Peggy	had	cancer	a few years ago.
My friend Yuki	does	her homework	in the library, because it's quiet.

Subject	Verb	Object	extra = plus a
You .	should eat .	. (breakfast)	every morning. .
Nagisa .	did .	it (her homework)	last night. .
Prof. Gagne .	has .	some (some books)	in his office. .

Reduced: S + V

        Other verbs cannot have an object follow them. They are called intransitive verbs (Ž©“®ŽŒ).

Subject	Verb	extra = plus a
Jack Dawson	died	when the Titanic sank.
Ayaka	listened	to the music carefully.
Many students	go shopping	near Nagoya Station or Sakae.

Passive: S + V + alpha

        Passive sentences never have an object. They are active SVO sentences that have been transformed so that the object became the subject. Usually the original subject has been eliminated. If it remains, it moves to a plus-alpha (prepositional) phrase.

Subject	Verb	extra = plus a
This book	was written	500 years ago by Geoffrey Chaucer.
My grandfather	was born	on May 10, 1879 in Belfast, Ireland.
My bicycle	was stolen	near Nagoya Station.

Special case: There + V + S

Subject	Verb	.	extra = plus a
Only five copies of that painting	exist.	.	.
One	is	.	in Paris.
Two more	are	.	in London.
.	Verb	Subject	when, where, how, etc.
There	is	one	in Paris.
There	are	two more	in London.

Simple: S + V + C

        Some special verbs (linking verbs) behave like the verb to be. Instead of an object the verb is followed by something called a complement. The complement may be a noun or an adjective, so there are two types of S-V-C sentences: S-V-C(noun) and S-V-C(adj). In either case, the complement describes the subject.
        It is important to remember that S is always an item in the category described by C(noun). If you find a sentence where that is not the case, you probably need EITHER to change the verb OR put a preposition in front of the noun.

Subject	Verb	Noun Complement	extra = plus a
My cousin Laura	is	a police officer.	.
Those two women, Tootsy and Mrs. Doubtfire	are	men	in disguise.
Subject	Verb	Adjective Complement	when, where, how, etc.
Those girls	look	very happy.	.
Nothing	is	impossible	when you are young.
We all	feel	sorry	for poor John.

There is a relationship between adjective pairs of feeling (usually ending in -ing and -ed) and the verbs that they come from. It can be clearly seen in a comparison of their basic sentence patterns.

.	Subject	Verb	O / C	extra = plus a
S-V-C	Action movies	are	exciting.	.
S-V-O	Action movies	excite	Bob.	.
passive	Bob	is excited	.	by action movies.
S-V-C	Bob	gets	excited	when he watches action movies.

So we have exciting movies and excited people (like Bob). Other adjective pairs that follow this pattern include shocking / shocked; interesting / interested; and frightening / frightened.

Elaborated: S + V + O + O

        Some verbs take two objects, though they can often be rewritten using a single object and a plus-alpha (prepositional) phrase.

Subject	Verb	Object	Object	extra = plus a
My mother	gave	me	a necklace	for my birthday.
The little boy	bought	his mother	some flowers	for Mother's Day.
The young American	asked	us	a question	about kabuki.

The first two sentences can also be written:

My mother gave a necklace to me for my birthday.
The little boy bought some flowers for his mother for Mother's Day.

Elaborated: S + V + O + C

        Sometimes an S+V+C sentence is imbedded in a longer, more complex sentence in such a way that its verb drops out and the subject becomes the object of the new, longer sentence.

Subject	Verb	Object	Complement	extra = plus a
Mai	dyed	her hair	brown	in junior high school.
You	must keep	your room	clean	every day.
Prof. Ueda	found	the book	interesting.	.

The third sentence can also be written:

Prof. Ueda found the book to be interesting.

        Take a piece of writing, perhaps something you yourself have written, and underline all the verb phrases. Then try to write a basic sentence for each such phrase and identify the pattern used.