The second sentence you presented, “The Sydney Harbor Bridge was built during the Great Depression of 1930s,” is the normal form of <subject + verb + complement> sentence type, where “the Sydney Harbor Bridge” is the subject, “was built” is the passive-form verb, and “during the Great Depression of 1930s” is the complement in the form of an adverbial phrase. On the other hand, the first sentence you presented, “During the Great Depression of 1930s, the Sydney Harbor Bridge was built,” positions the adverbial phrase “during the Great Depression of 1930s” as prepositional phrase modifier up front of the sentence. Generally, as in this case, adverbial modifiers have the flexibility to take alternative positions in the sentence.
There are actually not just four but five basic sentence types according to form, namely:
1. Subject + verb. Example: “He jumped.”
2. Subject + verb + object. Example: “She picked the ball.” (“ball” is the object)
3. Subject + verb + complement. Example: “They worked so hard.” (“so hard is the adverbial complement)
4. Subject + verb + indirect object + direct object. Example: “Anna gave John a music album.” (“John” is the indirect object, “music album” is the direct object)
5. Subject + verb + object + complement. Example: “The CEO appointed him general manager.” (“him” is the direct object, “general manager” is the object complement)
No, lvlychild, I don’t recall these basic sentence types being taken up at length in the Forum’s discussion boards. For a comprehensive discussion of them, click this link to
About.com – English as 2nd Language. The Forum does have several basic lessons on sentence construction. You can check the lineup of lessons by clicking this link to the
“Getting to Know English” discussion boards. Check out also the
Purdue Online Writing Lab for a discussion of the English sentence types according to construction.
