Fragments meaning grammar series#

You can actually have a complete sentence with just one word–a verb–if it is a command. Of course, sentences usually contain more than two words, but the right two words will do: a subject and a verb:īefore we start writing a nursery school primer here, let’s continue. What do you need to have a complete sentence? A subject and a verb usually does the trick. They are usually strung together with a comma rather than a period or semicolon (or the addition of a conjunction).Ī fragment, on the other hand, is less than a sentence. A run-on sentence is two (usually) sentences that are run together without appropriate punctuation to separate them.

While a run-on sentence is too much information, a fragment is not enough. His son is three years old.īack to the dreaded fragment (which is a fragment itself). Here is another example: I ordered a well-done steak. I suppose I could have hyphenated run on all the time, but I saw no reason. I was following the standard of hyphenating compound adjectives that precede the noun they modify. If I used run on as a noun without the word sentence after it, I didn’t use a hyphen. I hyphenated run-on when it was a modifier preceding the word sentence. While it may have looked inconsistent, there was a method to my madness. This week we will talk about its opposite, the dreaded fragment.īy the way, I received a comment about my inconsistent hyphenation of the word run-on ( run on).

Fragments meaning grammar series#

Last week we began the series of the 7 Deadly Sins of Grammar with the run-on sentence.