ABE English Tutorials/simple sentences/Finding objects and phrases

Finding Objects and Phrases in Sentences


Each sentence below has the subject shown in bold, and the object shown in italics:

We tend to think that the subject must come first in a sentence. But sometimes the object comes first. Consider the last sentence in the example above:

The foreman yelled, "Look out!"

This sentence could have been written:

"Look out!", the foreman yelled.

Note that in this second sentence, the subject is still "the foreman", since he is the one doing the yelling. The object is still "Look out!", since this is what he yelled. It doesn't matter where it comes in the sentence: it's still just the object.

(Although many of our "little words" in English are prepositions, note that the words "the", "a", and "not" are not prepositions.) These are examples of phrases:

And here's how phrases work in a sentence: Susan bought a book for her brother. The dog ran around the corner. Kira never goes anywhere without her best friend. Elvis lived in Graceland. Twenty boxes of cookies is enough for the party. I'm going to Mexico when I have the money. Did you notice that phrases don't have to come only at the end of a sentence?

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