Academic Writing: Common Sentence Patterns, Part Three

From VOA Learning English, this is everyday grammar. English has many patterns.

Basic grammatical patterns can explain the structure of around 95% of sentences in English,

says Martha Kohn, a grammar expert.

Learning and mastering these patterns can help you improve your writing and speaking skills.

We have discussed three common patterns in previous everyday grammar stories.

Today, we will explore another common pattern, the intransitive verb pattern.

To start you thinking about intransitive verbs, consider this passage.

It is from the poem, The Human Family, by famous writer and poet, Maya Angelou.

We love and lose in China, we weep on England's moors,

and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores.

By the end of this story, you will be able to recognize and understand

the intransitive verb pattern that Angelou uses many times in the stanza.

The intransitive verb pattern is unusual.

It is unusual because, unlike other verb patterns, the predicate requires only the verb.

Common intransitive verbs include action verbs, go, come, walk, cry, or laugh, for example.

In these verbs, the subject's action is not applied to an object.

In other words, most intransitive verbs can end sentences.

They do not need nouns or adjectives to their right.

The lines from the classic American song, Just Friends, give an example of the intransitive verb pattern in its most basic form.

We loved, we laughed, we cried.

However, sentences with just the subject and intransitive verb are not very common in writing or speaking.

Usually, the sentence has more information, an adverbial structure.

Adverbials are words or phrases that give information about time, place, manner, or reason.

Adverbials answer questions like how often, where, why, when.

The two most common adverbial structures you will find are adverbs and prepositional phrases.

Adverbs such as suddenly, quickly, here, soon, or sometimes modify a verb.

Prepositional phrases are groups of words that begin with a preposition and are followed by an object, usually a noun phrase.

Common prepositions include in, on, at, between, above, and below.

Adverbs and prepositional phrases often follow intransitive verbs.

Think back to the basic intransitive verb pattern.

It is grammatically correct to say a simple sentence like this.

We laughed, or subject plus intransitive verb.

You can put more information into the sentence by adding an adverb.

We laughed loudly, or subject plus intransitive verb plus adverb.

Or you could give even more information by adding a prepositional phrase.

We laughed at the man's silly jokes.

Or subject plus intransitive verb plus prepositional phrase.

In intransitive verb patterns, adverbs or prepositional phrases are often referred to as optional.

In other words, a sentence is still grammatical without them.

You, as the speaker or writer, choose how much information you want to include in the sentence.

Now, think back to the stanza of Maya Angelou's poem.

We love and lose in China, We weep on England's moors,

And laugh and moan in Guinea, And thrive on Spanish shores.

You can see that every single line uses an intransitive verb paired with a prepositional phrase.

Consider the first line, We love and lose in China.

The subject is we, and two intransitive verbs, love and lose, are paired with the prepositional phrase, in China.

The two verbs are joined by a conjunction, and.

We love and lose in China. Or subject plus intransitive verb plus conjunction plus optional subject plus intransitive verb plus prepositional phrase.

The second line follows the basic intransitive verb pattern, but it has an optional prepositional phrase.

We weep on England's moors. Or subject plus intransitive verb plus prepositional phrase.

The second two lines follow the same patterns as the first two lines.

This series of patterns is an example of parallelism, which you can read about in an earlier everyday grammar story.

To practice using the intransitive verb pattern, try writing four lines of poetry in the style of Angelou's poem.

Post your writing in the comments section of this story or on our Facebook page.

Remember, you should not use Angelou's exact words. Rather, you should choose your own noun phrases, intransitive verbs, and prepositional phrases.

Just put your own words into the pattern we discussed today.

Learning this pattern, and other patterns discussed in previous grammar stories, will not only help you study the writing of great authors.

These patterns will help you write and speak in your own clear, concise sentences too. I'm Jill Robbins. I'm Jonathan Evans. And I'm John Russell.