Kinds of Sentence

2.5              Kinds of Sentence

According to quirk at all in his book entitled The Comprehensive Grammar of The English Language there are four major syntactic of simple sentence. Those are declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative (1985:803):

2.5.1        Declarative

            Declarative are sentences, in which the subject is present and generally precedes the verb. From the function that is used to convey information. For example:

1)      Someone called last night (Quirk, 1985:808).

2)      The boat has left already (Quirk, 1985:808).

3)      I live somewhere near Dover (Quirk, 1985:808).

In the example 1), the sentence is started with the subject ‘someone’ followed by the verb ‘called’. In the example 2), the sentence is started with the subject ‘the boat’ and followed by the verb ‘has’ left this sentence is used to convey information that the boat has left already. In the example 3), the sentence is started with the subject ‘I’ followed by the verb ‘live’. It is used to convey information ‘I live somewhere ear Doer’.

2.5.2        Interrogative

Interrogatives are sentence which formally marked with the operator placed in front of the subject and the element is positioned initially. It is used to seek information (Quirk, 1985:803).

Question can be divided into three major classes such as: yes-no question, why question and alternative question. For example:

1)      Must I leave now (Quirk, 1985:815).

2)      What did you base your prediction on (Quirk, 1985:817).

3)      Which ice cream would you like? Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberries (Quirk, 1985:823)?

In the example 1), is categorized as yes – no question. It is marked with the modal must. It is used to seek information (yes or no). in example 2), we found that the question on the interrogative is marked with wh question element (what). So it is wh question used to seek information about something. In the example 3), the sentence is marked with the wh element expressing choice. It is categorized as alternative question.

2.5.3        Imperative or directive

Imperatives had no subject in the base form. The imperative can be classified into imperative with subject, without subject, imperative let and negative imperative. For example:

1)      Don’t open the door (Quirk, 1985:830).

2)      Let us all work hard (Quirk, 1985:839).

3)      You are quite (Quirk, 1985:828)!

4)      Open the door (Quirk, 1985:827).

In the example 1), the sentence belongs to negative imperative. It is started with auxiliary do + not followed by the base from of the verb (open). In the example 2), belongs to imperative with let because it is started with the word let. In the example 3), belongs to imperative with subject. It is started with the subject you. In the example 4), the sentence belongs to imperative with out subject. It is started with the base form of the verb (open).

2.5.4        Exclamative

Exclamative as a formal category of sentence are restricted to the type exclamatory utterance introduced by what or how. Here there is generally no subject – operator inversion (Quirk, 1985:833). For example:

1)      What an enomous crowd came (Quirk, 1985:833).

2)      What a time we we’ve had today (Quirk, 1985:833).

Both of the examples above belong to exclamatives. They do not have subject operator inversion. They are started with the word that. 

Credits:Indra