To have a complete sentence, a writer must have a subject as well as a predicate that contains a verb. Additional Resources: View some examples and further explanation of the general sentence elements. Check out a grammar quiz or an interactive grammar module to practice your grammar skills.
Every complete sentence must have a subject and a verb. A sentence fragment is missing one or both of these essential elements. Here are a few examples: Ran after the ball. (This fragment has no subject.) My aunts, uncles, and cousins. (This fragment has no verb.) A dependent clause, which is a group of words that cannot stand alone as a complete sentence, can be a fragment: After we eat ...
A subject is a part of a sentence that contains the person or thing performing the action (or verb) in a sentence. (See What is a verb?) Here are some examples: Example: Jennifer walked to the store. In this sentence, the subject is "Jennifer" and the verb is "walked." Example: After lunch, I will call my mother.
The order of a sentence in standard English is typically subject-verb-object. The subject is what does the action, the verb is the action itself, and the object is what receives the action.
A phrase is a group of words that works together in a sentence but does not contain a subject or a verb. Often phrases are used for descriptions of people, things, or events.
Here the subject is "conclusion," and the verb is "shows." Because "conclusion " is singular (there is only one), the verb should also be singular. If the verb were plural, it would refer to more than one subject. Here is an example of where that plural verb would work: Example: The results show that variables X and Y are related.