Parts of the Sentence

Parts of the Sentence

Subject is a part of the sentence that names the doer of the action. It answers the questions Who? What? It can be a noun, a pronoun, a gerund, an infinitive, a numeral, a phrase, or a clause.

Predicate is a part of the sentence that expresses the action or state of the subject. It can be a verb, verb to be + noun, verb to be + adjective.

Object is a part of the sentence that names the receiver of the action. It answers the questions What? Who (Whom)? It can be a noun, a pronoun, a gerund, an infinitive, a numeral, a phrase, or a clause.

Attribute is a part of the sentence that modifies nouns or pronouns in the sentence. It answers the questions What kind? or Whose? It can be an adjective, a pronoun, a numeral, a participle, a phrase, or a clause.

Adverbial Modifier is a part of the sentence that shows how, where, when, and why the action occurs. It answers the questions How? (How much? How long? etc.) Where? When? Why?

Usual order of words in an English sentence in active voice is:

(Attribute) Subject + predicate + (attribute) object + adverbial modifier.

For example:

Amy wrote an interesting story yesterday.

In this example, "Amy" is the subject, "wrote" is the predicate, "interesting" is an attribute, "story" is an object, and "yesterday" is an adverbial modifier.