Teach Not the Part but the Whole: What is a Complete Sentence?

Francis Aleba
Department of English
Grant MacEwan College

A complete sentence is grammar in microcosm. Indispensable to most of the things taught in a writing or grammar class is an adequate understanding of what a complete sentence is. A good sense of sentence helps students rid their writing of not only fragments and fused sentences but also such problems as comma splices and even the misuse of a colon before a quotation. So important is a student's ability to identify a complete sentence that completeness should be taught as a primary subject in its own right, with emphasis shifted onto it from secondary subjects like fragments and comma splices. How, then, may one teach completeness effectively?

Stage 1

Solicit as many answers as possible to the question "What is a complete sentence?" Expect to hear some or all of the following:

A. A complete sentence is one that ends with a period.

B. A complete sentence is one that is not a fragment.

C. A complete sentence is a full idea or thought.

D. A complete sentence is a construction that stands on its own.

Gently but firmly point out the error behind each of these. Answer A is a form of question-begging, for the question, restated, is "How can one tell that one's use of a period is correct?" Similarly, answer B (a complete sentence is one that is not a fragment), restated, is "a complete sentence is one that is not incomplete"! Answers C and D are not easy to dismiss, but, though correct, they are not workable definitions because, believing that phrases and subordinate clauses can stand on their own, many students mistakenly see what they think are full ideas in these constructions. Demonstrating the unsatisfactory nature of answers like the ones given is therefore the purpose of Stage 1. The question remains, "What is a complete sentence?"

Stage 2

Express the question differently, more specifically, seeking to elicit responses that name the indispensable components of a complete sentence. Thus translated, the question becomes "What elements must a construction have for it to be a complete sentence?" You will probably not hear a better answer than the one that, unfortunately, many grammar books give, namely, "A complete sentence is a construction with a subject and a verb." Incomplete and therefore ultimately unsatisfactory, this definition works for some sentences but not for others. Seize here an opportunity to point out the difference between intransitive verbs and transitive verbs, and then explain that, while some constructions need only a subject and an intransitive verb to be complete, a subject and a transitive verb, by themselves, will not produce a complete sentence. Hence, "Everyone sleeps" is a complete sentence whereas "Everyone wants" is not. "Everyone sleeps" is a complete sentence not merely because the construction has a subject and a verb but really because the construction has a subject and an intransitive verb which is, by itself, a complete predicate. In "Everyone wants," a subject is present, but, because the transitive verb "wants," by itself, is merely a partial predicate, the construction remains technically an incomplete sentence.

Stage 2, then, is where you put to rest the "subject-verb" definition of a complete sentence. The question, yet to be convincingly answered, is "What, in fact, is a complete sentence?”

Stage 3

Emphasize the traditional division of a sentence into (a) subject and (b) predicate. Circle or underline the complete subject (the subject and whatever words modify it), so as to clarify the point that what remains is the predicate, which affirms the subject. The predicate, in other words, is what is said about the complete subject. Having already killed the "subject-verb" definition of a sentence, you can now bring to life or resurrect the much more useful "subject-predicate" definition of a sentence. A complete sentence, then, must have (1) a subject and (2) not merely a partial predicate but a complete predicate, the most important feature of which is a lexical or main verb. Unaided, some intransitive verbs are, unto themselves, complete predicates; transitive verbs, however, must coexist with their complements (direct objects and, perhaps, indirect objects) to create complete predicates.

Stage 3 is pivotal because it presents two essential characteristics of a complete sentence: a subject and a complete predicate. But there is a third, oft-forgotten characteristic that we ignore at our peril.

Stage 4

If the importance of the first two characteristics lies in their presence, the importance of the third characteristic lies in its absence. Ask students why "Because everyone sleeps," which does contain a subject and a complete predicate, is nevertheless an incomplete sentence. If any of them notices the subordination, signaled by the presence of "because," your work is done.

Incidentally, herein lies an opportunity for you to save your students from a false doctrine. Somewhere in this world, between elementary school and high school, hide grammatical apocrypha, according to which one should not begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "or" unless one is in love with fragments! Simply distinguishing between a subordinate conjunction like "because" and a coordinate conjunction like "and" should enable your students to understand why "And everyone sleeps" is a complete sentence even if "Because everyone sleeps" is not. Coordinate conjunctions allow their clause to retain independent clause status.

Nothing remains at this point, in stage 4, but a practicable and comprehensive definition of a complete sentence, and it is this: A COMPLETE SENTENCE IS A GROUP OF WORDS, GRAMMATICALLY ARRANGED AND UNSUBORDINATED, THAT CONTAINS A SUBJECT AND A COMPLETE PREDICATE.

Systematically and fully explaining the identity of a complete sentence is worthwhile and, in fundamental grammar, invaluable. By the end of the exercise, students will have received a considerable introduction to the language of grammar, for they will know that "main clause," "independent clause," "principal clause," and "coordinate clause" all mean "complete sentence" and that the equally suggestive term "dependent clause" is a synonym for "subordinate clause." This lesson in grammar will, virtually automatically, subsume grammatical terms and concepts such as auxiliary verbs, main verbs, subordinate conjunctions, coordinate conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, relative adverbs, and relative pronouns.

But the strongest argument in favour of making completeness a primary subject in its own right is that nothing useful about writing skills can be effectively explained to students who have no sense of completeness, not the avoidance of fragments and comma splices, not the correct use of semicolons and other punctuation marks, and not the skillful construction of single-sentence theses (which may be complex-sentence or compound ­sentence affairs).