What Linguistics Teaches Us About Sentences

Students are introduced to a set of rules that structure the ordering of constituents (words and their morphemes) in phrases, clauses, and sentences. One of the primary constituents in sentences is the noun phrase, which must contain a noun and may also contain a determiner and/or one or more adjectives. The verb phrase is the other major constituent of a sentence. The verb phrase must contain a verb and may also contain a noun phrase, one or more prepositional phrases, and/or an adverb. Syntactic competence helps in the interpretation of meaning, as well as its construction. LiFT activity plans are provided to exemplify and provide structure for the teaching of syntactic skills.