Sentence Types

There are different categories of sentences, often distinguished by the intention of the sentence, the types of clauses the sentence uses, the voice of the sentence, and the pattern the sentence uses. These categories are neither exclusive nor exhaustive; there are overlaps and redundancies among them, and there are more than those noted here.

Sentence Types: Intention

Declarative

• A sentence that asserts or denies (which is the default mode for college composition)
• Examples:
  • The werewolf is hungry. 
  • The front door isn’t shut.

Imperative

• A sentence that directs or commands (the subject is the implied second person, “you”)
• Examples:
  • Feed the werewolf.
  • Shut the front door.

Interrogative

• A sentence that asks or inquires
• Examples
  • Is the werewolf hungry?
  • Did you shut the front door?

Exclamatory

• A sentence that announces an excited sentiment or point
• Examples:
  • What big teeth he has!
  • Hooray for werewolves!

Sentence Types: Clauses

Simple

• A sentence that has one independent clause only.
• Examples:
  • I like monsters.
  • Monsters don’t like me.

Compound

• A sentence that includes two or more independent clauses
• Examples:
  • I like monsters, but monsters don’t like me.
  • Godzilla destroys cities, and cities destroy King Kong.

Complex

• A sentence that includes one or more dependent clauses
• Examples:
  • Although Godzilla destroys cities, I think he’s cute.
  • Sunlight is bad for vampires because it weakens them.

Compound-Complex

• A sentence that combines multiple independent clauses with one or more dependent clauses
• Examples:
  • Although Godzilla destroys cities, I think he’s cute, and he seems to know it.
  • Sunlight is bad for vampires because it weakens them, but not all vampires are destroyed by it.

Sentence Types: Voice

Active

• A sentence in which the grammatical subject is the one acting or being (which is the default mode for college composition)
• Examples:
  • She took a walk.
  • I made mistakes.

Passive

• A sentence in which the grammatical subject is something being acted upon
• Examples:
  • A walk was being taken by her.
  • Mistakes were made.

Sentence Types: Mode (or Mood)

Indicative

• A sentence that asserts, denies, or questions facts or claims (which is the standard mode for college composition)
• Examples:
  • The werewolf is hungry.
  • Is the werewolf hungry?
  • A tree fell in the forest.

Subjunctive

• A sentence exploring ideas as counter-factual or merely possible, not factual or real (note the change in verbs)
• Examples:
  • If Shakespeare were alive today, he would work in Hollywood.
  • If that be true, the treasure is gone.
  • The professor asked that the student leave the test on the desk.

Imperative

• A sentence that directs or commands (the subject is the implied second person, “you”)
• Examples:
  • Feed the werewolf.
  • Shut the front door.

Sentence Types: Style

Balanced

• A sentence that presents multiple ideas in the same way at the same length, often with a sense of rhythm
• Examples
  • “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” (John F. Kennedy)
  • “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)

Periodic

• A sentence that separates the grammatical beginning and the grammatical conclusion with extra information (sometimes separating subject and predicate, sometimes separating phrases or clauses)
• Examples
  • “It was in Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.” (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon)
  • The dog, having howled and moaned and pawed at the door incessantly for hours like some famished beast from an old folktale,  was finally let inside.

Loose

• A sentence that presents an independent clause and then continues to add other phrases and clauses
• Examples
  • The concert was loud, perhaps too loud, maybe not too loud for the younger audience members, who danced and sweated and screamed, but too loud for the old folks, especially in the heat, under the blazing summer sun.
  • “I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull: he got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznoer; but by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called, nay we call ourselves, and write our name Crusoe, and so my companions always called me.” (Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe)