Sentences Part II: Are the Verses Complete or Incomplete Sentences?

Are the verses in the above poem complete sentences?

Verses:

1. Thundering down in torrents, the rain came, battering the barren earth in merry glee.

   
   

   Complete Sentence - it contains a complete thought.

   
   

   If you change the structure of the verses, you'll get:

   `The rain (subject) came (verb), `thundering down in torrents', (and) `battering the barren earth in merry glee' (which are participial phrases describing the manner in which it rained).

   
   

   Since `thundering' and `battering' are verbs ending in `ing', these verb forms (or participles) become part of phrases that are actually adjectival phrases used to allow the reader to visualise the sound and force of the rain.

   
   

2. To where do you disappear, radiant rain?

   
   

   Complete sentence in an interrogative, or question, form - contains a complete thought.

   
   

3. Falling in thuds on the helpless soil, you appear but a moment, in puddles that swell into a widening pool before you are gone, forever, as you stealthily seep through.

   
   

   Complete sentence - contains multiple ideas in one complete thought.

   
   

   Restructure the verses, and you get:

   `You (subject), falling in thuds (participial phrase), appear (verb) but a moment, in puddles that swell into a widening pool before you (subject) are gone (verb), forever, as you (subject) stealthily (adverb - describes the verb `seep') seep through.

   
   

Additional Exercise

Let's now take the last three verses, and look at it verse, by verse, to ascertain if each verse can stand on its own as a sentence.

1. Falling in thuds on the helpless soil, you appear but a moment

   
   

   Complete Sentence

   
   

   Complete thought in `You appear but a moment, falling in thuds on the helpless soil' - We have a subject, `you', a verb. `appear' and a descriptive phrase, `falling in thuds', through which the manner in which the rain falls is elaborated on. Finally, there is an object, namely the soil which is the recipient of what the rain does when it appears.

   
   

2. In puddles that swell into a widening pool

   
   

   Incomplete Sentence

   
   

   Just reading this verse on its own makes no sense, hence it a sentence fragment as the thought is incomplete for we do not know what is `in puddles'.

   
   

3. Before you are gone, forever, as you stealthily seep through

   
   

   Incomplete Sentence

   
   

   Again, the thought here is incomplete because of the inclusion of the transitionary word, `before' as it indicates that something happened before the subject, `you', was `gone'.

Now, whenever you write, ask yourself, does that sentence have a complete thought or is there something missing to make it a sentence fragment that will leave people confused as to what I am trying to get across? Moreover, to make a sentence complete, it is necessary to have a subject and a verb but it is not necessary to have an object though often you will find that the sentence has an object.