Primary English Sentence Patterns

STANDARD FOUR LANGUAGE PATTERNS I wrote in one of my posts that the language patterns taught in primary school are purely grammar items. The pattern of the day is the use of the simple past passive. PREREQUISITE: Structure of the simple sentence OBJECTIVE: Construct passive sentences in the simple past The English sentence has a subject and a verb. The subject is what is talked about. The verb is what is said about it. In this lesson we shall introduce something we have not talked about in our lessons so far: the object. The object appears in sentences with active verbs. The object comes after the verb. Look at this sentence: James plays football. James is the subject; plays is the verb and football is the object. ‘S’ is used to indicate the subject, ‘V’ is used to indicate the verb, and ‘O’ is used to indicate the object. Now identify the subject, verb and object in the following sentences. 1) James cut the cake. 2) Jane ate the apple. 3) John washed the plates. 4) Joan laid the table. 5) Mary cooked lunch. Now, all these sentences are in the active voice. The verbs cut, ate, washed, laid and cooked are active verbs. The simple past passive form of these verbs are: was cut, was eaten, were washed, was laid and was cooked. The final thing you need to do to transform the active sentences into simple past passive is to move the subject into the object position and the object into the subject position and replace the active verbs with the passive verbs and introduce ‘by’ before the doer of the action. The sentences will now read: 1) The cake was cut by James. 2) The apple was eaten by Jane. 3) The plates were washed by John. 4) The table was laid by Joan. 5) Lunch was cooked by Mary. Let us take note that the doer of the action need not be included in a passive sentence. 1) The cake was cut. 2) The apple was eaten. 3) The plates were washed. 4) The table was laid. 5) Lunch was cooked. Now let us pick five nouns: shoe, ruler, house, book and hair. I will ask a fixed question: What was done to your shoe/ruler/house/book/hair? 1) My shoe was polished. 2) My ruler was broken. 3) My house was locked. 4) My book was covered. 5) My hair was plaited. Now look around your house and write down ten nouns. Ask the fixed question we used in the last exercise and write down your answers in the simple past passive. You are at liberty to include or leave out the doer of the action.