In sentence construction, parts of speech are present in what are known as the clauses of sentences. Clauses are groups of words that have a subject and a verb. The verb is also part of an entire verb phrase known as a predicate.

Simple/Basic Sentences

In its simplest form, a sentence can have one independent clause.

For example, the sentence I walk to the store contains one clause.

• I is the subject of the clause, while walk is the verb.
• The ending phrase, walk to the store would be the verb phrase, or predicate, of the sentence.

This entire sentence I walk to the store is an independent clause, expresses one subject doing one action – and is known as a simple sentence.

Knowing this, apply the fact that nouns and pronouns will often be the subjects or objects of simple sentences, while verbs will convey actions. So once again:

• I (subject, pronoun) walk (verb) to (preposition) the (article) store (object, noun).

Complex Sentences

Complex sentences also contain a subject and a verb, but can not stand alone as independent clauses. For example:

since the weather is sunny.

Here, weather would be the subject, and is would be the verb. So, I walk to the store since the weather is sunny would be a complex sentence. The parts of speech in the second part here would be:

• since (conjunction) the (article) weather (noun) is (verb) sunny (adjective).