Index

Declarative Sentence

A declarative sentence makes a statement or states an idea. Declarative sentences consist of a subject and a predicate. This worksheet will guide you through the process of generating a declarative sentence. Click on the components highlighted in   BLUE  . Sometimes there is more than one choice.

Notes:
This syntactic worksheet constructs sentences whose grammar is correct, but whose semantics may be nonsensical like the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" created by Norman Chomsky. The implementation of this worksheet is a context-sensitive finite-state automaton where the context is kept in internal variables. In particular, the context sensitive items are:

• Phonetic constraints for indefinite articles:
  The article "a" is used before a word starting with a consonant sound, and "an" is used before a word starting with a vowel sound.
  
  
• Number constraints for articles:
  The indefinite articles "a" and "an" precede singular nouns. The definite article "the" may precede singular or plural nouns.
  
  
• Person and number agreement between subject and verb:
  The form of the verb has to agree with the person and number of the subject. This is is particularly complicated for the verb "be" which has different forms for the singular and plural forms of the first, second, and third person nominative pronouns.
  
  
• Types of allowable verb complements:
  Intransitive verbs require no complements whereas transitive verbs require a complement. A verb may belong to both categories. "I washed." is an example of a sentence with an intransitive verb. In the sentence "I washed our clothes." the verb has one complement.

Refer to the Grammar section for a description of Declarative Sentences.

---

Copyright 2009 - Antonio Zamora