The subject of a sentence is a part which is said Young, 1958: 29. It occurs before the verb phrase in declarative clauses and immediately after the
operator in questions. The subject of a sentence has a number and person concord where applicable with the verb phrase, and the examples are:
3 The students have completed the task.
4 Have
the student completed the task?
b. Verb
Young 1958: 29 states that verb is the word that indicates action, state or condition, existence, or what is perceived by senses – touch, taste, hearing, seeing,
and smelling. Asher and Simpson 1994: 5186 describe a verb as a member of the word class traditionally defined as a ‘doing’ word, denoting an action or
states, for example knows, give, and broke. Verbs generally refer to actions, events and processes.
There are two classes of verb forms. They are finite verb and non-finite verb. According to Harman 1950: 93 a finite verb is one which asserts or
predicates and it is “limited” by person and number. A finite verb contains a form of the verb, showing tense distinction between past and present, and being
associated with particular subject first, second, third person, singular or plural Jackson, 1982: 72, for example:
5 The
dog runs. 6
I drive my motorcycle. 7
She slept in hotel yesterday. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
A non-finite verb is one which lacks the power to assert Harman, 1950: 93. It is not limited by the person or the number of the subject. According to
Jackson, a non-finite verb consists a form of the verb i.e. the infinitive form usually with to, the present participle, or the past participle, for example:
8 I want to go home.
9 Going along the road, we sang.
10 Covered with confusion, I left the room.
The non-fine verbs in sentence 8, 9, and 10 are go, going, and covered.
c. Object
An object is a noun or noun equivalent e.g. a clause which is directed by the actions of the verb, or to which a preposition indicates some relations
Hornby, 1974: 557. Both Quirk 1973: 13 and Jackson 1982: 84 distinguish two types of object: direct and indirect object. The indirect object normally refers
to a person, more particularly the person who is the recipient or who benefits from the action. For example:
11 She
gives me a book.
The indirect object tends to be done for or received by the direct object. The direct object is a word or group of words to which the verb carries the action
from the subject. For example in sentence 11, the direct object is a book while the indirect object is me.
d. Complement
Mallery indicates complement as a word that completes the meaning of
verb or predicate 1944: 43. Quirk et al 1972: 37 also distinguishes two types of
complement: the subject complement and the object complement. The subject complement has a straightforward relation to the subjects of their respective
sentences. While the object complement has a similar relation to a direct object. The examples are:
12 Anne
is the winner.
13 Tom
made her
the winner. In
sentence 12
the winner is the subject complement while in sentence 13 function as the object complement.
e. Adverbial
The adverbial function is filled by an adverb including adverb phrase, noun phrase, prepositional phrase, finite verb clause, non-finite verb clause, and
verbless clause Quirk et al, 1972: 420. Leech states that adverbials usually tell something extra about the action, happening, or state which are described by the
rest of the sentence 1975: 197. Some of the examples are: 14
She hurried
across the field. 15
We have to go before it’s too late.
2. Theory on Sentence Structure
Tense has an important position in English sentence structure. The term of tense always influences the form of verb. By knowing the English sentence
structure, we can know the term of tense which is used in a sentence. According to Chomsky as cited in Dwijatmoko, 2002: 55 an ordinary clause basically
