verbless sentences | grammar
Verbless Sentences | Grammar
Introduction:
Dear reader, the title of the article must have shocked you a bit. Can there be a sentence in the English language and that too without a verb? I also agree that this is something unexpected for everyone. And I am writing this article so that your curiosity could be satisfied. I will do my best so that you have no more questions left unanswered.
But for that, you must first do one thing. Try to collect some good
grammar books and read the definition of a sentence. However, there are many
good dictionaries available online these days. Stop! Wait a minute. Don't worry;
to simplify your search, I'll give you a good source to check.
Suppose you want to get a good definition of “sentence” in English
grammar. To be absolutely confirmed I would like to know the meaning of the
word from a reliable source.
Below you will find a quoted part of ‘the dictionary dot com’ that is widely known and used by all of you. The link has been provided here:
“sentence” © 2022 Dictionary.com, LLC. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sentence , which says that:
Please read the above section carefully. You will find that the
dictionary says that the word ‘sentence’ comes from the Latin word "
sententia",
which means: [to feel verb. (The word ‘verb’ is marked in red)]
Notice a little further down; you will see that it says that the meaning of ‘sentence’ is a group of words that makes complete sense. A sentence must contain a “subject” and a “verb”.
I have also noticed that almost all English language learning sites mention that each and every sentence has to have at least a verb.
I saw ‘© 2022 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated as a little more flexible than others. Instead of saying “there must be a verb in each sentence”, they say it slightly in a soft tone that “[Almost every sentence requires a verb.]”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verb so, “instead of saying ‘must’ they have used the word ‘almost’.
The quest for the verb:
So, what was our question? Is there a verb in every sentence? And with reference, I showed you that yes; every sentence must contain a verb.
Now let’s check how much grammar we follow in our day-to-day life. Grammarians always warned us saying that we always follow grammar rules and use our language correctly.
We all know that there are some ‘stative verbs’ that we cannot use
in the progressive tense. It's against the rules.
By the way, ‘stative verbs’ are also called ‘non-continuous verbs’
and they cannot be used as continuous tense.
Such a verb is ‘to know’. You cannot say ‘I am knowing the problem.’ It’s a serious mistake.
Take another stative verb ‘to want’, you cannot use it in
progressing form such as ‘she is wanting a grammar book.’
It’s an extremely faulty sentence, it’s a blunder.
Please don’t get irritated but we have to take one more stative
verb, ‘to love’.
According to the grammar rule it cannot be used as a continuous
tense.
But wait! What? What did you say? Do you want to go against it?
I know you want to say that you have seen big hoardings saying “I am loving it!”
You are absolutely right.
Such advertisements can be seen in most major cities of the world. They do not care about others' thoughts. They are just doing fine and
pointing fingers at English grammar saying, “Look, we just ignore you; not only
that, we are going to draw the world population toward us. Prove and show us
that you succeed in defeating us. ”
It is said that language always flows like a river. The river will keep on flowing and the language will keep on changing. Alright, let us get back to our main topic.
A short story:
I can well remember that during our school days, we had an English grammar teacher with a strict personality. He could not tolerate any grammatical errors in the writing. If someone wrote a grammatically incorrect sentence on the test, he would get very angry and later take that student to another class to correct the grammatical error. Once I wrote very well on an exam. There was not a single mistake in the sentences. I can distinctly remember him smiling at me that day and saying, “Good job!”
Now, if I had somehow found the grammar teacher, I would have asked him, Sir, you also use bad grammar. Sir, do you remember once you said to me, "Good job!" Was it a complete sentence?
What I mean is that a complete sentence must have a subject and at
least one verb. But in your talk, neither of them was present. I know very well
that you will say that the sentence was correct. I also know that there are
some words understood in the sentence. The complete sentence should have been:
"You have done a good job." That means that day you eliminated the
subject and even the verb from your sentence, right? This is not what is
expected of a personality like you. You can argue that everyone is used to
saying it this way. We have to consider it as a complete and natural way of
saying.
So then what’s the final decision?
The way everyone says, what everyone considers natural, becomes the correct language and that takes its place in the grammar book. Then it becomes the formal language.
I am in the mood of giving some more examples. Do you want me to
continue?
We frequently use idioms in our language. We often use proverbs
like, "No pain, no gain," which is considered a hundred percent
correct sentence. No one asks anything about its syntax, sentence structure, or
what it's called in grammatical terms. But we all know that the full form of the
sentence will almost be like “to progress or succeed, you have to suffer”. In this way, we can put many example sentences
where there is no trace of the verb in the sentence, but still, we consider it
as a natural sentence.
Now here we must mention and clarify one thing. In most cases, it
is noticed that this type of sentence without a verb is used as an answer to
questions. And if you look closely you can notice that to answer a question,
the verb used in the question is usually omitted to shorten the answer. Otherwise,
the answer would be long. Nobody wants to waste time unnecessarily. Not only in
the English language, but also in most other languages, they try to shorten
their answers in this way, and it's very natural.
We non-English speakers always try to find the verbs in the English
language. However, when we speak in our native language and use it in the same
way, then we do not realize this. Pay attention while you speak, I'm sure
you'll notice.
Lately, many restrictions on writing articles are being observed. You will be accused of plagiarism if your sentence bears any resemblance to someone else's sentences. So, we always spend our time in fear of plagiarism and be busy avoiding such issues. However, below I give some sentences without verbs, you can read them if you want. I hope you will like it, and read them and try to understand their implicit parts. You will see that it will benefit you a lot.
To the best of my ability, I will try to complete the understood parts of some of the verbless sentences, but it may not be correct in all situations. Here is my take on these commonly used sayings:
Good morning! [I wish you a good morning]
Good evening!
Good night!
Never mind. [(You) never mind it.]
Yes ma’am. [Yes madam, I agree with
you.]
No ma’am. [No, madam, I do not agree with your opinion. ]
Alice in wonderland [Alice is in
Wonderland]
Next, please. [to address someone that
now it is their turn to act]
Nice day. [It’s a nice (pleasing) day.]
Sure. [I am sure.]
Wrong. [It’s wrong.]
False [It’s false.]
No comment. [I have no comment.]
Conclusion:
It is good to learn grammar. You must learn grammar, but more importantly, you must be aware of how others use their words when communicating. We have to talk like them and walk like them; I don't see any logic in going against the flow.
But no more today, hope you have enjoyed reading this article. Very soon I will come to you with a new topic until then,
stay tuned and keep reading good blog articles.
Thank you!
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Very educational
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for commenting.
DeleteUnfortunately, no one wants to read educational topics these days.
*Every sentence needs at least one verb and hence proved*
ReplyDeleteIt should also be noted that sentences can also be formed without verbs. Anyway, thanks for your comment.
Delete