Appositives

These are nouns or noun phrases, which immediately follow another noun. They are known to provide more information about a noun. Some examples are provided below along with answers. Appositives can be placed at the beginning or between the sentences.

My neighbor, Alvin is a University student.

Alvin is the noun and ‘My neighbor’ identifies the noun, thus being the appositive. ‘My neighbor’ renames the subject and makes it more evident. The above mentioned example can also be reconstructed with the appositives in between sentences:

Alvin, my neighbor, is a University student.

Dangling Modifiers

As is evident from the name, modifiers add more information in the statement. When it is not clear that what is being modified, we call it dangling modifiers.

I was late for my office again. Running for the car, my bag fell in the drain.

In this example, was the bag running for the bus? It is the only noun present near ‘the drain’.

Independent and Dependent Clauses

Independent and Dependent Clauses are known to be the building blocks of a sentence. An independent clause can be a sentence itself. Example, ‘Joe reads.’

A dependent clause cannot stand by itself. It is dependent on other clauses to express the complete meaning. Example, ‘Before I bake a cake’.

The example does not have any meaning unless we add some other clause.

‘Before I bake a cake, I need to visit the market.’

Making Subject and Verbs Agree

The rule of the grammar is that there has to be sync between the subject and the verb in the sentence. If there is mismatch between them, then the sentence does not have any meaning.

Parallel structures

When two or more words, clauses, or phrases, have similar length and grammatical form, they are called parallel structures. It is called parallelism. For example, ‘he goes driving on the road, swimming in the pond and trekking across mountains’.

Run-ons, Comma splices, and Fused Sentences

These problems occur when two or more main clauses in a sentence are joined incorrectly. A comma splice incorrectly joins two main clauses with a comma. A fused sentence joins two main clauses without any punctuation. Run-ons connect two independent clauses with no connecting word. For example,

He prefers walking. He often leaves his car.

The above sentence does not express correct meaning, unless it has punctuation or a connecting word in between.

He prefers walking; he often leaves his car.

Sentence Fragments

A sentence cannot stand by itself. It fails to convey the complete meaning on its own. It does not contain a single independent clause. For instance:

“Mark is” The sentence lacks a complete thought.

“Mark is a college student”. Thus the sentence is complete now.

These basic tips will enable you to be strong in sentence formation, which is the backbone of education. NIHE India is one of the leading medical entrance coaching institute in Norther India with several branches spread across cities for great results in medical coaching classes

About the Author

Rakhi Kaptiyal NIHE India is one of the leading medical entrance coaching institute in Norther India with several branches spread across cities for great results in medical coaching classes

Your Response