Do You Know a Sentence When You See One?

If you check a dictionary, you’ll find that a sentence is typically defined as a string of words that includes a subject and a predicate.

But my own favorite expert on such things, our About.com Guide to Grammar, takes this a little further and defines a sentence as:

“A word or (more commonly) a group of words that expresses a complete idea. Conventionally, a sentence includes a subject and a verb. It begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point.”

The notion of “a complete idea” is very important when it comes to recognizing a sentence. Why? Because an incomplete sentence (sentence fragment) can contain things that look like a subject and a predicate. It’s easy to be fooled!

If you get confused by the technical definition of a sentence, you can always do what I do and go with your gut instinct. An incomplete sentence leaves me feeling empty. I doesn’t satisfy. It just doesn’t close the deal. This is because—no matter how long they are—sentence fragments just don’t express a complete idea. Take a look at some long sentence fragments that look like they could be sentences. They really leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled!