There are several ways to differentiate a sentence from a
fragment.
First of all, a sentence must have a subject, a
noun or a pronoun. You can determine the subject by asking yourself, "Who or what is
this sentence about?"
For example: Our country's birthday
is celebrated each July 4th. Who or what is this sentence
about? Our country's birthday. If we narrowed this down to the simple
subject, you would ask yourself which word the sentence is mainly about, which is
"birthday".
Second, you must locate the predicate. You can
determine the predicate by asking yourself "What is the subject doing?" or "What about
the subject?"
For example: Our country's birthday is
celebrated each July 4th. What is the birthday doing or what about the
birthday? The birthday "is celebrated each July 4th." The verb or main
linking or action word in this predicate is "is".
One
problem my students frequently have is this final step. You must then ask yourself, "If
someone came up to me and said these words, would the thought feel finished?" A
sentence must express a complete thought.
Look at the
following examples. Do they express complete thoughts if someone came up to you and
said them?
1. Our country's
birthday (No - What about it? I would be waiting for you to finish that
thought, so this is a fragment.)
2. Is
celebrated each July 4th (No - What is celebrated each July 4th? I would
be waiting for you finish that thought, so this is a
fragment.)
3. Because our country's birthday
is celebrated each July 4th (No - I would be waiting for you to finish
your thought. This indicates another thought is coming. Maybe, Because
our country's birthday is celebrated each July 4th, families watch fireworks
together. Now, this thought feels finished and makes
sense.
Number three is an example of a complex sentence
because the first part is a dependent clause (or fragment) that cannot stand along and
the second part of the sentence is and independent clause or complete sentence that can
stand alone.
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