Prompt
Now that you have worked through a lot of material that includes these basic patterns, and you have compared grammatically correct and incorrect sentences, write down what you think is a rule that could explain what makes a sentence grammatically correct or not. For example, you might write something like: "verbs always match nouns in number, and they usually come before the noun." In other words, make your best guess for the grammar rule that makes sense out of the pattern(s) you see in the phrases you have been working with. Review if you need to, and you might briefly check your hunches against the sentences you have been working with in this or previous modules. Keep in mind that what you're after is your hunch, not a grammar rule from a text book. Now check your hunch with the explanation of this principle in the following pattern.
My hunch for a grammar rule that could explain what makes a sentence grammatically correct or not is that every sentence must have a subject and a verb. Additionally, the subject and verb must agree in number (singular or plural).
Upon reviewing the sentences I have worked with in previous modules, it seems like this hunch aligns with the patterns observed. In every grammatically correct sentence, there is a subject performing an action or being described by the verb.
For example:
- "The cat meows." has the subject "The cat" and the verb "meows", both agreeing in number (singular).
- "The cats meow." has the subject "The cats" and the verb "meow", both agreeing in number (plural).
On the other hand, in sentences where there is a mismatch between the subject and verb number, they appear to be grammatically incorrect.
- "The cat meow." has the subject "The cat" (singular) and the verb "meow" (plural), which is incorrect.
- "The cats meows." has the subject "The cats" (plural) and the verb "meows" (singular), which is also incorrect.
Therefore, based on these observations, my hunch is that the grammar rule for sentence correctness is that every sentence must have a subject and verb, and they must agree in number.