How a gerund phrase fragment hides: Because I’m so athletic, I can do any sport. When a gerund phrase is written alone, it is a gerund phrase fragment.
( Running in a marathon is the subject of the sentence, and Running is the simple subject.) Example: Running in a marathon can cause permanent knee injury. ( Running is the subject of the sentence.) A gerund phrase is a group of words beginning with a gerund. #1 Gerund Phrase FragmentĪ gerund is a word that looks like a verb but acts like a noun, and it ends in –ing. A verbal can be a gerund, participle, or infinitive, and each of those can have its own type of fragment. Some terminology first: A verbal phrase is a group of words beginning with a word that looks like a verb but functions as something else. I go DEEP into sentence structure, so that’s where I’m taking this post. You can break the rule once you can follow it.īecause our students’ speech will be judged first on their agreement (specifically, subject-verb) and their writing on their sentence structure, I like to spend significant time there. I joke with students that they are allowed to use fragments stylistically (outside of formal analysis and exposition) when and only when they can prove to me their control of syntax. As a stylistic device, I use the former a lot. I’m fully aware (and teach) that language is a fluid, constantly evolving thing and that the rules themselves have their own cozy little home in classism, racism, and misogyny but sometimes, a sentence fragment is a sentence fragment, and I like teaching students what that means.īefore I tell you about the technical way I group fragments, let’s start with the two main categories: ones we mean to create and ones we don’t. The rest are complete sentences.Because grammar has boundaries and rules, teaching it is actually a reprieve from the subjectivity of analysis. You just have to recognize the error and figure out if you need to add a subject or a predicate, add it, and voila, it is fixed!įor the practice questions, no. Sometimes, they’re careless during the proofreading and editing process.īut, similar to run-on sentences, the good thing is that sentence fragments are easy to fix (well, they’re a tad more difficult, but not complex). Sometimes, they don’t realize that their sentence is incomplete. Sentence fragments are common grammar mistakes that many people make. If you found these questions helpful, you can find more of them (and ones with more detail and complexity) in workbooks, which you can find at my store here. Chad and his parents travel across South America.I have to go to work tomorrow at 8 o’clock.All you have to do is spot the fragment and point it out: Now that you’re all knowledgeable and stuff about sentence fragments, give these practice questions a try. A sentence fragment is when a sentence is missing either a subject or predicate.A predicate tells the action of the subject.A subject is who or what the sentence is talking about.A complete sentence has to have a subject and a predicate.
If you are able to answer these two questions clearly, then your sentence is complete.
Since these two words are nouns, they are stating who the sentence is talking about, thus making it a subject.Īs for sentence number 1, it is a predicate. The predicate is the second half of the sentence and states what the subject is doing it tells what action the subject is doing.įor example, in sentence number 2 (above), it says “He and Alfred.” These two words, if you remember the parts of speech, are nouns. What are Subjects and Predicates?Ĭomplete sentences are composed of a subject and a predicate.Ī subject (the vast majority of the time) is the beginning part of the sentence and states who or what the sentence is talking about. They are only one part of a complete sentence. The reason being is that those sentences are fragments.
Sentence fragment definition example how to#
In this blog post, I share what they are and how to correct them.ĭo they make sense? Do these sentences sound complete? Sentence fragments are a common grammatical error that can easily be avoided and fixed.
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