Belajar Bahasa Inggris: Apa yang Dimaksud Kalimat?
One of the most basic of all writing skills is the skill of composing sentences. Without it, no writer can lay claim to competency, let alone excellence. Experienced writers know better. They realize that good, effective, pleasing sentences do not just happen; they must be designed by the writer. Skill in composing sentences demands, first, an understanding of the basic sentence patterns and of the ways these patterns can be expanded and combined, and then skill in using the patterns to convey thoughts clearly and accurately.
Sentences
according to Mark Lester (2004:45): “Sentences are the only groups of words
that can stand alone to express complete thoughts. The key idea here is
standing alone.”
A
sentence according to Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue (1999:155): “A sentence is a
group of words that you use to communicate your ideas. Every sentence is formed
from one or more clauses and expresses a complete thought.”
Another
definition of a sentence is uttered by Glenn Leggett (1985:4): “A sentence is a
group of words that contains a subject and a predicate and that is not
introduced by a connecting word such as although,
because, when, or where that makes
it dependent upon another group of words to complete its meaning.” She is studying and what is she studying are sentences. But although she is studying is not a sentence because the word although makes the whole word group
depend upon something else for completion, as in the statement Although she is still studying, she will
finish soon.
Based
on quotations above, it can be concluded that a sentence is a group of words
that you use to communicate your ideas and that is not introduced by a
connecting word such as although, because, when, or where.
Sentence Structure
The
most important thing about sentences as units in a particular context is that
they divide ideas the way you want them divide and seem complete to your
readers. Once you’ve decided that your sentences do that, you can begin to look
at the internal structure of individual sentences. At the most basic level,
sentence structure is conditioned by our seemingly innate syntactical
expectations. Syntax refers to the order of words, the sense they make because
of their placement in a sequence.
Few of us have been taught syntax
directly: it’s naturally embedded in language as we learn it. For instance no
native English speaker would construct a sentence like:
Vote the I in Presidential did elections.
Vote the I in Presidential did elections.
Rather,
the necessary syntax for the same seven words as a declarative sentence is:
I did vote in the Presidential elections.
I did vote in the Presidential elections.
As
a question, the necessary syntax would be:
Did I vote the Presidential elections?
Did I vote the Presidential elections?
Ours
is a language in which syntax—word order—plays a crucial role in meaning, in
sense making. Not all languages create meaning in this way. Latin is generally
cited as an example of those languages which rely for meaning more on word form
than on syntax.
Canis
momordit hominem. “The dog bit the man.”
Hominem
momordit canis. “The dog bit the man.”
It’s
the ending on can- (the root word for
dog and the source of our word canine) which determines whether it’s
the subject of the verb or the object of the verb. It doesn’t matter where the
word is placed in the sentence. In English, of course, when the words are
reversed, meaning is altered.
Canis
momordit hominem. “The dog bit the man.”
Canem
momordit homo. “The man bit the dog.”
In
this pair, the words are in the same order; we translate each correctly by
relying on the endings of the words for dog
and man.
The basic, recurrent word order in English
is
Subject—Predicate/Verb—Object
or,
in other words,
Actor—Action—Object/Receiver of
Action
The Three Signals of Sentence
Structure in the English Language
Sounds
combine to create the form words and the structure words in the English
language. Those words then combine to make phrases
and sentences.
Look
now at these numbered words:
1. climb 2. fast 3.
plane
What
kind of words are they? Each has clear meaning in itself, but you would have
difficulty in combining them into a good sentence.
Look
now at a sentence based upon those words:
The planes climbed very fast.
What
has happened to plane? to climb? What structure words have been
inserted? What has happened to the order of the form words?
Three
signals of sentence structure, as you can see, have made that sentence
possible:
1. Affixes: the suffix –s added to plane
The suffix –ed added to climb
2. Structure words:
the and very
3. Word position: the noun planes put into the subject position
The verb climbed put into the predicate position
As conveyed above that sentences are
not dependent on some previous context or question to fill in grammatically
significant missing pieces. For example, the following is a sentence because it
can stand alone as a grammatically complete unit:
I would like a pizza with anchovies
and pineapple.
We must be careful to distinguish
sentences from fragments, which are
only pieces of sentences. The problem is that, in context, fragments can be
perfectly meaningful and grammatical. However, their meaningfulness and
grammaticality is not their own. It borrowed from other sentences. Here is an
example of such a fragment in a dialogue:
Waiter: What would you like?
Customer: A pizza with anchovies and pineapple.
What
the customer said is a fragment. The fragment makes sense only in the context
of the dialogue. The fragment is a piece of telegraphic shorthand that borrows
the rest of its meaning and grammar from the waiter’s question. What the customer
is really saying is this:
[I would like] a pizza with
anchovies and pineapple.
Sentences
never need to borrow from surrounding sentences to be grammatically complete.
Sentences also have a distinctive
structure: they contain both a subject noun phrase and a verb phrase (or
predicate, in traditional terms). In the example sentence just given, there is
a subject noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase:
subject NP verb phrase
I
would like a pizza with anchovies and pineapple.
The
fragment a pizza with anchovies and
pineapple lacks both a subject and a complete verb phrase.
Sentences
are generally classified in two ways, one by types (purposes) and one
by the number of independent or dependent
clauses.
Sentences Classified by Purpose
Sentences
are used in four different ways. Up to this point, we have only looked at
sentences used to make statements. But there are other ways to use sentences,
for example, to ask questions, to issue commands, or to make exclamations. We
will now examine in turn each of the four possible uses.
Declarative Sentences.
In a declarative sentence the subject and predicate have normal word order. Declarative
sentences are used for making statements. Declarative sentences are always
punctuated with periods and drops in pitch in speech. Here are some examples:
This is a declarative sentence.
Declarative sentences can be
positive or negative.
Even
if they contain dependent clauses, declarative sentences are always punctuated
with a period.
Interrogative Sentences.
In an interrogative sentence the subject and auxiliary are often reversed. Interrogative
sentences are used for asking questions. Interrogative sentences must be
punctuated with question marks. Most interrogative-word questions end with a
fall in pitch. Here are some examples:
Do
you know what an interrogative sentence is?
No, what are they?
Why did you ask?
Imperative Sentences.
Imperative sentences are used to issue commands. In an imperative sentence,
only the predicate is expressed. The simple form of the verb is used,
regardless of person or tense. Imperative sentences are not defined by their
punctuation but by their grammar. Imperative sentences must have an understood you as the subject. They may be
punctuated with either periods or exclamation points in writing and drops in
pitch in speech. Here are some examples:
Go away.
Cut it out!
Stop it.
Each
of these examples has an implied you
as the subject:
You
go away.
You
cut it out!
You
stop it.
Exclamatory Sentences.
Exclamatory sentences are actually declarative sentences that are punctuated
with exclamation points for emphasis. Here are some examples:
I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!
I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!
This is really an exclamatory
sentence!
Sally has no cavities!
What a good dinner that was!
Declarative and interrogative
sentences are easy to recognize, but imperative and exclamatory sentences can
be confusing because both can be punctuated with exclamation points. A mnemonic
trick is to remember that exclamatory sentences can only be punctuated with
exclamation points. The other thing to remember is that imperatives must have
an understood you as the subject.
Clausal Sentence Classification
A
clause can be either of two types of structures:
1. Independent clause
(or main clause), which can stand
alone
2. Dependent clause
(or subordinate clause), which is a
clause that cannot stand alone and must be attached to or included within an
independent clause.
A
sentence must contain at least one independent clause, but, in addition, a
sentence may also contain one or more dependent clauses. We can think of a
sentence as having this formula:
Sentence
= independent clause + (dependent clauses)
The parentheses around dependent clauses indicate that dependent clauses are optional.
Here is an example of a sentence
containing a dependent clause (in italics) modifying the independent clause:
Louise takes her lunch whenever she has to attend a noon
presentation.
The clause whenever she has to attend a noon presentation is an adverb clause that modifies the verb takes.
The clause whenever she has to attend a noon presentation is an adverb clause that modifies the verb takes.
The independent clause can stand
alone as a complete sentence, but the dependent clause cannot:
Independent
clause: Louise takes her lunch.
Dependent
clause: X Whenever she has to attend a
noon presentation.
Despite differences in their ability
to stand alone, clauses (both independent and dependent) are set apart from all
other grammatical structures by one key characteristic: clauses must have
subject-verb agreement. Here are the subjects (in bold) and the verbs (in
italics) from the preceding example:
Independent
clause: Louise takes her lunch.
Dependent
clause: X Whenever she has
to attend a noon presentation.
In
the independent clause, the verb takes
agrees with its subject Louise, and
in the dependent clause, the verb has
agrees with its subject she
.
.
The
number of main or subordinate clauses in a sentence determines its
classification: simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex.
Simple Sentence
A simple sentence is one independent
clause or has a single main clause.
The wind blew.
Note
that a sentence remains a simple sentence even though the subject, the verb, or
both are compounded.
The cat and the dog fought.
The dog barked and growled.
The cat and the dog snarled and fought.
Compound Sentence
A
compound sentence has two or more
main clauses.
The
wind blew, and the leaves fell.
A
compound sentence is two or more independent clauses joined together. There are
three ways to join the clauses:
1. With
a coordinator
|
I enjoy tennis, but I hate golf.
|
2. With
a conjunctive adverb
|
I enjoy tennis; however, I hate golf.
|
3. With
a semicolon
|
I enjoy tennis; I hate golf.
|
Notice
that in the first sentence, there is a comma after the first independent
clause. Notice the punctuation in the second sentence: a semicolon follows the
first independent clause, and a comma follows the conjunctive adverb. Also,
just like the FUN BOYS coordinators, conjunctive adverbs express relationship
between the clauses. Notice the third sentence. This kind of compound sentence
is possible only when the two independent clauses are closely related in
meaning. If they aren’t closely related, they should be written as two simple
sentences, each ending with a period.
Complex Sentence
A
complex sentence has one main clause
and one or more subordinate clauses.
When
the wind blew, the leaves fell.
The
simple sentence is a natural way to express a single idea that is not too long
or too complicated. The compound sentence serves you well when you have two
related ideas of equal importance. Sometimes, however, you need to combine into
one sentence several ideas of unequal importance. The complex sentence is the
one to use when you wish to show the relationship between those unequal parts.
Relating
to complex sentence, Mellie John et al. (1973:458) gives definition as follow:
“A complex sentence is one that contains one independent clause and at least
one dependent (subordinate) clause. Every dependent clause in the sentence will
be used as a part of speech; that is, as a noun,
an adjective, or an adverb.”
I
was in England when the coronation took place. (adverb clause)
I
do not know when the bulletin was released. (noun clause)
The
money came at a time when I needed it most. (adjective clause)
Note
in the three sentences above that the same word (when) may introduce each kind of dependent clause.
Another
definition about complex sentence is uttered by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero
(1981:172):
A complex
sentence is a sentence with two or more complete thoughts (each containing a
subject and a predicate), only one of which is grammatically independent. The
other one or more thoughts are subordinate to the independent one; that is,
they are made dependent on the other thought for their full meaning by being
introduced by such words as if, although, when, after, and because. Use a complex sentence when the
relationships between your thoughts are best expressed in a
subordinate/independent structure.
For example:
Multiple Sentences
|
Complex Sentences
|
He didn’t get
the job. He made a very poor impression on the interview.
The twins were
sleeping soundly. Tim quietly got up, tiptoed to the kitchen, and ate the
rest of the cake.
I don’t
consider him a really good teacher. I can’t, however, cite a single bad
quality in his teaching.
|
He didn’t get
the job because he made a very poor
impression on the interview.
While the twins were sleeping soundly, Tim
quietly got up, tiptoed to the kitchen, and ate the rest of the cake.
I don’t
consider him a really good teacher although
I can’t cite a single bad quality in his teaching.
|
Further
more about complex sentence is uttered by Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue
(1999:160):
A complex sentence
contains one independent clause and one (or more) dependent clause(s). In a
complex sentence, one idea is generally more important than the other one. The
more important idea is placed in the independent clause, and the less important
idea is placed in the dependent clause.
Compound-complex Sentence
A compound-complex
sentence contains two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent
clauses.
When
the sky darkened, the wind blew, and the leaves fell.
The independent clause in all four classes of sentences may take the form of a statement (declarative sentence), question (interrogative sentence), request (imperative sentence), and an exclamation (exclamatory sentence).
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