Sentence structure

Academic language is efficient and a lot is said in few words. This is why academic texts tend to give a lot of information in a short space. When you come across long or difficult sentences during your research, and you think these may be stating an important point that you need to understand and perhaps paraphrase in your essay, reduce them to their basic sentence pattern, and then build them back up, bit by bit.

Look at the following example:

Control of immigration to New Zealand is divided into two areas: visas for temporary stays, such as for tourists or business visits, and residence permits, which allow a person to settle.

If we strip the sentences of all the details and look at the underlying grammatical framework, all this is really saying is: ‘Control is divided into two areas: A and B.’

We can then think of the extra information bit by bit: Control (of immigration to New Zealand) is divided into two areas: (A) visas (for temporary stays, such as for tourists or business visits) and (B) residence permits (which allow a person to settle).

As you can increase your comprehension of longer sentences by reducing them to their essentials, it is worth looking at the basic sentence types in English, as shown in these sentences.

subject / verb 

The sea / is calming.
subject / verb / object 

The sea / reflects / the sunshine.
subject / verb / complement The sea / is / beautiful. 
subject / verb / adverbial 

The sea / glows / in the sunshine.
subject / verb / object / object 

The sea / gives / me / beautiful thoughts.
subject / verb / object / complement The sea / has made / people / happy. 
subject / verb / object / adverbial 

The sea / offers / different things / at different times.

Note that the different items are not always in that order, and that there could be more adverbials in the sentences. 

Look at the following examples:

Shopping is becoming a leisure activity as much as a necessity. 

The main idea is ‘shopping / is becoming / a leisure activity’ – pattern (2): subject / verb / object. 

Subjects and objects can consist of noun phrases: a head noun and more information about the head noun. In the sentence above, the head noun in the object is ‘activity’, and ‘leisure’ tells us what type of activity it is. 

The following example is a longer sentence: 

The growth of CCTV cameras, of the use of private security firms and of the blurring of public and private land has been an issue in cities such as Exeter. 

The main idea is ‘the growth / has been / an issue’ – pattern (3): subject / verb / complement. 

We can find this structure quickly by looking for the verb first. We need to look for ‘conjugated’ verbs, i.e. verbs which tell you something about ‘how many’ or ‘when’, e.g. drinks (about the present, and referring to one person), drank (referring to the past), are drinking (about more than one person, referring to the present). Verb forms ending in –ed and –ing (i.e. participles) and to-forms are not conjugated verbs, but they can be part of conjugated verbs (e.g. is drinking, has drunk, have lived). 

In the second sentence, ‘blurring’ is not a conjugated verb, but a gerund: a verb used as a noun. The main verb is ‘has been’: ‘has’ is a conjugated verb in the present perfect form that tells us that the subject is singular (referring to one person). 

Once we have found the conjugated verb, it is easy to find the subject that corresponds to it. The subject in the second sentence is a very long noun phrase (‘the growth of CCTV cameras, of the use of private security firms and of the

blurring of public and private land’). The way to find the head noun, and to reduce the sentence to its basic form, is to say: ‘what or who + verb?’ Here this would be ‘What has been (an issue)?’ The answer is ‘growth’.

Noun Phrases

Noun phrases are commonly used in academic writing. They can occur in the subject or object of sentences. It is important that you can identify the head noun in your own phrases, to make sure that your subject and verb agree. Identifying head nouns is also important for your reading comprehension.

When you are reading, you may have to work out the meaning of new words, so it is important that you are aware of the different relationships between the nouns in noun combinations.

Look at the following examples, which all give examples of restaurants:

Fast food restaurant
Neighbourhood restaurant
Palace restaurant

In the first example, a fast food restaurant sells fast food, it is all about fast food.

The relationship between the nouns is topic.

The second example is different: the restaurant doesn’t sell ‘neighbourhood food’, it is in the neighbourhood, and also for the neighbourhood. The relationship expressed by the nouns is location and purpose.

The last example is different again: the restaurant is not related to a place, it is not serving food to a palace, or based in a palace. ‘Palace’ is the name of the restaurant.

Topic, purpose, location and name are only some of the relationships between nouns. A few other ones are: material (sea spray – the spray consists of sea water); possessor (student debt – the debt belongs to the student); time (winter blues – the blues happen in winter); agent, i.e. the person who does something (charity campaign – the campaign is organized by the charity); characteristic (metal fatigue – the weakness is a characteristic of the metal); subtype (plant cell – a plant cell is a type of cell).

Notice how the first or the second noun can express the relationship, e.g. in ‘winter blues’, the first noun ‘winter’ expresses the time relationship; in ‘metal fatigue’, the second noun’ fatigue’ expresses the characteristic.

When you have three nouns, you need to think about how all the nouns relate to each other, e.g. ‘heart rate monitor’ can be divided up as follows: ‘heart rate / monitor’: it is a monitor that measures heart rate, not a ‘rate monitor’ for the heart.