Clauses and sentence fragments

In English, standard sentences must contain a main clause consisting of a noun phrase and a verb phrase in that specific order. They can have a whole bunch of other things too, but those two components have to be there.

E.g. noun phrases and verb phrases:

• I travelled a lot in my youth.
• Fred was too old to jump on the trampoline.
• Because I handed in my essay late, my English teacher yelled at me.
• My mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided to enrol me in ballet classes.

Some of the information in these sentences is optional – we could just say ‘I travelled’ and ‘my English teacher yelled at me’ and we’d still have a grammatical sentence. We can also have other optional information separating the noun phrase from the verb phrase. However, we can’t leave out the noun phrases or verb phrases. These are the two essential parts of the sentence!

When either a noun phrase or a verb phrase is missing, we end up with a sentence fragment, which means the sentence is incomplete.

For example, the underlined sentences below are fragments:

Throughout the novel, the theme of family becomes increasingly important. Signifying how the author believes family to be a valuable force in helping people overcome trauma. Rosey struggles with her traumatic past, but she conquers this with the help of her parents and siblings. Her father Rob, who loses his job, and her mother Dianne, who wants a divorce, as well as her two brothers. Each character experiences loss, but the novel shows how they become united and are made stronger by their struggles. For example, her brother and his alcoholism. Therefore, suggesting that family plays a vital role in our lives.

In formal and analytical writing, you should always fix sentence fragments. The only exception to this is in imaginative writing as there are more flexible rules when writing dialogue or stream-of-consciousness inner monologues.