English Grammar - Sentence Structure and Transformation

English Grammar
English Grammar - Sentence Structure and Transformation

Identify the sentence pattern of the sentence given below : It was too long a talk to hold the interest of the listeners.


Options:

  1. Simple sentence
  2. Complex sentence
  3. Compound sentence
  4. Complex-compound sentence

Right Answer: Simple sentence

A simple sentence contains only one finite verb and therefore only one clause. In ‘It was too long a talk to hold the interest of the listeners’, the only finite verb is ‘was’; the phrase ‘to hold the interest of the listeners’ is a to-infinitive, which is a non-finite form and does not create a clause of its own. Since there is no subordinating conjunction and no coordinating conjunction joining two finite clauses, the sentence is neither complex nor compound. Infinitives, participles and gerunds often make a simple sentence look longer than it is.

This question is part of English Grammar - Sentence Structure and Transformation, which has 14 practice questions with answers.

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