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Q: So, you want to know how parts of speech influence sentence construction, do you? Well, you’re in the right place.
A: Each part of speech plays a role in how your sentence is constructed, and sometimes these roles overlap. You can link ideas with more than just conjunctions. You can modify with more than simply adjectives and adverbs. And you can build your sentences around a key noun, verb, or adjective.
To put it even more simply, you can change the parts of speech around to influence sentence structure in different ways.
When you delve into the intricacies of language, you quickly realize that parts of speech serve as the foundational building blocks of sentence construction.
Each part of speech plays a unique role, contributing to the overall meaning and clarity of your communication. By understanding these roles, you can enhance your writing and speaking skills, making your sentences more effective and engaging. Most importantly, you become grammatically flexible, meaning you are able to find various ways to communicate the same idea – a trait of fluency.
This guide is designed for upper-intermediate to advanced learners of English who want to know more nuance about the parts-of-speech and how they affect sentence structure.
Here's a quick rundown of the parts of speech
The 9 primary parts of speech—nouns, verbs, determiners, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections—each have distinct functions that work together to create coherent and meaningful sentences. As you explore the world of grammar, you will find that mastering the parts of speech allows you to manipulate language with greater flexibility. For instance, knowing how to use modifiers effectively can help you add details or extra information either concisely or in greater detail.
Similarly, understanding the overlap between conjunctions, prepositions, and linking adverbs enables you to express related ideas in a balanced way or with hierarchy (main and subordinate ideas). By recognizing the interplay between these elements, you can construct sentences that not only convey your intended message but also communicate strategically through the language instead of in it.
This foundational knowledge is essential for anyone looking to improve their writing or speaking abilities.
For an in-depth study of all the parts of speech and their relationships, check out my post here.
Key Takeaways from this Post
- Learn what it means to be grammatically flexible and what you need to know to become exactly that.
- Understand the relationships between direct and indirect modifiers to transform or rebalance sentences.
- Use word building (changing the part of speech of a root word) to change the “voice” of a sentence.
- Transform between coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs to link ideas more expressively.
In my book, English Grammar Explained, I teach you how English sentences work, building you up from simple sentences to complex sentences to grammatical flexibility. If you enjoy this advanced and nuanced look at English grammar, you’ll love the book in full (especially part 3). So, why don’t you pick it up on Amazon today!
Now, without further adieu, let’s explore this idea of how parts of speech influence sentence structure for grammatical flexibility.
What is Grammatical Flexibility?
For starters, I would define grammatical flexibility as your ability as the English speaker or writer to transform your use of English in multiple ways while also maintaining meaning and clarity.
English is a dynamic language with multiple ways to say the same thing. If you have ever done a use-of-English exam such as the FCE or CAE exams, there are various transformation exercises that test your grammatical flexibility.
In order to pass these exams, you will need to excel at the following:
- Foundational knowledge of the parts of speech
- Word building
- Clause to phrase transformations (and vice versa)
- Have a deep understanding of verb tense aspects and what they mean.
How about a sentence transformation example to show how parts of speech influences sentence construction
Here’s a sample exercise to demonstrate what these transformation activities look like:
Instructions: Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first, using the word given. Do not change the word given. You must use between two and five words, including the word given.
1. I watched TV the whole afternoon, and I didn’t study for the test.
________________ the whole afternoon, I didn’t study for the test. (HAVING)
Now, go ahead and solve this keyword transformation sentence, leaving your answer in the comments to this blog.
As you can see, grammatical flexibility centers around being able to express the same idea in different ways – grammatically.
To solve that sentence transformation, you must understand the underlying meaning of the sentence which is cause and effect. In English, we express this in many ways from using perfect tenses, conjunctions, or participle clauses. In this specific case, you must transform away from the coordinating conjunction (a part of speech) to the participle clause that does the same job as the conjunction.
So, in effect, it’s not the part of speech that directly influences sentence construction, it is your understanding of how different parts of speech overlap. This allows you to construct or reconstruct the sentence in different ways.
The example given, tests your ability to recognize this meaning then transform the sentence using the participle clause, expressing the result.
1. Transforming Direct and Indirect Modifiers to influence sentence construction
The first use-case for grammatical flexibility lies with modifiers—words, phrases, or clauses that provide additional information. These are a major factor in sentence structure. When constructing sentences, you can manipulate the form of modifiers to control emphasis, clarity, and conciseness.
Modifiers can either be direct (adjectives and adverbs) or indirect (prepositional and infinitive phrases along with relative clauses).
I often express to my English learners that you can modify on three levels:
- With a part of speech,
- Phrase,
- Or a clause.
Clause to Phrase to a Single Word
Adjective and adverbial clauses can be reduced to phrases or even single words while maintaining meaning. This transformation allows you to shift between more formal or detailed structures and more concise, fluid expressions.
Example:
- Clause: The camera that I use for live streaming has been malfunctioning lately.
- Phrase: The camera for live streaming has been malfunctioning lately.
- Word: The live-streaming camera has been malfunctioning lately.
Similarly, adverbial modifiers follow the same principle:
- Clause: He made his case to the judge as he kept a calm demeanor.
- Phrase: He made his case to the judge while keeping a calm demeanor.
- Word: He made his case to the judge calmly.
In these examples, you see how parts of speech can serve the same purpose as modifying clauses and phrases. By mastering these shifts, you gain control over the weight and flow of information in your sentences, adjusting for style and emphasis.
2. Using Word Building to Change the Voice of a Sentence
Another way parts of speech shape sentence construction is through transitions and linkers. Depending on whether you use a conjunction, a preposition, or an adverb, you can structure relationships between ideas differently—either as equal elements, a cause-effect relationship, or a hierarchical structure.
Example Transformations Amongst LINKING wORDS
- Coordinating conjunction: She was tired, but she finished the project. (Balanced contrast)
- Subordinating conjunction: Although she was tired, she finished the project. (Hierarchy: concession)
- Prepositional phrase: Despite her exhaustion, she finished the project.
- Linking adverb: She was tired. However, she finished the project.
How different Conjunctions Affect Sentence Structure
Each of these options affects how ideas are connected and interpreted. Here’s how:
- A coordinating conjunction suggests two equal clauses. Therefore, the use of one of these conjunctions will link your ideas in a balanced way.
- On the other hand, a subordinating conjunction establishes a hierarchical relationship with an independent (or main) clause and a subordinate clause. If you want to present your ideas in an imbalanced way, you make the 60% point the independent clause with the 40% point the subordinate clause. This is extremely useful when answering “to what extent questions.”
- Prepositional phrases work similarly to subordinating conjunctions but add more variety in sentence construction. It’s a shorter, more compressed version of a clause – going from clause down to prepositional phrase.
- Finally, the adverb does the same job as the grammatically equal coordinating conjunctions except the two clauses are split into separate sentences.
In my book, English Grammar Explained, I teach this style of grammatical flexibility on ALL the complex sentence types. If you want to learn how to do sentence transformation exercises, my book is for you.
Below are some FAQs on how parts of speech influence sentence structure
It allows you to express ideas more clearly, concisely, and persuasively. Mastering grammatical flexibility improves both writing and speaking fluency.
Start with full adjective or adverb clauses, then try rewriting them as phrases or single words while keeping the original meaning intact.
Consider what aspect of the sentence you want to emphasize. Verbs focus on action, nouns formalize concepts, and adjectives describe qualities.
A conjunction links clauses (e.g., “because,” “although”), while a preposition introduces a phrase that provides additional context (e.g., “due to,” “despite”).
My book, English Grammar Explained, dives deep into these concepts, guiding you from simple sentence structures to advanced grammatical flexibility. Grab your copy on Amazon today!
Conclusion: The Beauty of Multi-Functional Words Grammatical Flexibility
So, there you have it – 3 use cases on how parts of speech influence sentence construction. What these cases demonstrate is that the parts of speech are for more than just teaching English sentence structure to beginners (link).
What’s more, understanding the parts of speech gives you the power to eliminate many of your common mistakes.
English Grammar Explained
If you want to learn more about English grammar, check out my book, English Grammar Explained here, which will teach you the parts of speech along with English sentence building rules all the way from basic to the advanced techniques like the ones you learned here in this post.
