Job Discussion Forums

[some waygug-in]

During the course of my Korean class, my tutor asked me a question that I have absolutely no clue about. She said that when she was in middle school, she was taught that all English sentences could be classified into 5 basic types.

At first, I thought she meant, affirmative, negative, interrogative etc., but then she started writing out patterns (subject) (verb)(object) etc.
(subject - verb prep indirect object)
etc.

She wrote the sentence: There is blah blah blah blah blah blah.
and then asked me to classify it according to one of the 5 basic types.

I am not a grammarian. I can explain the differences between verb tenses, or between adjectives and adverbs, subject and predicate.
This kind of stuff is just beyond me. My question is, does anyone out there know what she was refering to? Are these real classifications, or just something that Koreans dreamt up to confuse students?

I think understanding the meaning of a sentence should be far more important than being able to classify it into some grammatical category.

Can anyone out there shed some light on this?
Thanks
some waygug-in

[Gordon]

I think we did a little more info than blah blah blah. What are the names of the 5 classifications she is talking about?

[some waygug-in]

She couldn't really elaborate on the 5 types.

1 subject verb object

2 subject verb prep object

3 She never got past number 3 and I can't remember what she had written.

The sentence she wrote was a typical, "There is a man with a big dog" kind of sentence.

She just automatically assumed that I would "know".

Does anyone out there have an idea about this?
Thanks
some waygug-in

[Capergirl]

I believe this is what your student was talking about. We've spent a lot of time recently on complements, so I have had a little refresher in sentence structure.


1. Subject - Verb

She sings.

2. Subject - Verb - Direct Object

She sang a song.

3. Subject - Verb - Direct Object - Object Complement

She sang a song about love.


4. Subject - Verb - Indirect Object - Direct Object

She sang me a song.


5. Subject - Linking Verb - Subject Complement

It was a beautiful song.

[lajzar]

Your Korean friend was taught bad information. Consider recursive sentences.

This is a house.
This is the house that Jack built.
This is the house that Jack built in Cambodia.
This is the house that Jack pretended to build in Cambodia for his brother in law who likes to tell people that he is a member of the Illuminati, while smoking the weed that Jill gave him one sunny morning when they lived together in Thailand with a comely young lady who worked as a serving maid for their next-door enighbour.

I'm willing to bet 830,000 yen that this last sentence doesn't fit neatly into any of those five . I'm also willing to bet that most people will need to read it at least twice to parse it correctly

[Capergirl]

@lajzar...All of your sentences follow the subject - linking verb - complement rule. (Just about any word or phrase can be a complement.)

[Roger]

I submit this Korean tutor got her grammar terminology wrong.
Those things listed in previous psts are not sentences. They are syntactic parts of normal English sentences.

[dyak]

I can imagine her teaching�

�Teacher! English(ee) berry hard to learn!�

�Don�t worry, there are only 5 types of English sentence. And you�ll always hear grammatically and syntactically correct English in all parts of the English speaking world.�

�Oh good! Teacher! Do you ebber hab bisited English(ee) country?�

�No, never.�

[some waygug-in]

Thanks all for your responses, especially Capegirl. I suspected that the 5 classifications were arbitrary and not really useful with regards to understanding the language.

I suppose there is some use to learning such things, mostly so that teachers can impress their students with 'knowledge'.

Thanks again.
cheers

[Dr.J]

Aw, gosh, that's not really fair. Some people really like that kind of classification. Different strokes etc...

[leeroy]

(dyak, It's alarming how well you can convey the Korean accent over a keyboard!)

So what about the passive? Does that make it 10 rules?