WORD ORDER
 
Study the sentence patterns in the examples:
subject verb object adverb
Gerry loves Tammy passionately.
The basic grammatical elements of a sentence are subject, verb, object and adverb.
 
Word order
  • As a general rule, sentences follow a fixed word order. There are some typical sentence patterns.
 
PATTERN 1
subject verb
The dog barked.
Lucy sings.
  • The sentence must include a subject and a (full) verb. The subject comes before the verb and is usually placed at the beginning of the sentence.
 
PATTERN 2
subject verb direct object
Sally recognised the blue sky.
Lily made a new song.
 
PATTERN 3
subject verb direct object indirect object
Uncle Benny gave everyone a present.
Arthur brought me his guitar.
  • The object follows the verb. The indirect object normally comes before the direct object. When the indirect object is preceded by to or for it comes after the direct object.
 
PATTERN 4
adjunct subject verb indirect object direct object adjunct
Luckily the players gave the spectators their signatures after the game.
Last night I gave the lady my phone number in the pub.