The Five English Sentence Patterns — SVO / SVC / SVOO / SVOC

Every English sentence can be classified into one of five sentence patterns. Understanding sentence patterns greatly improves the accuracy of English composition.

Basic Rules

S = Subject, V = Verb, O = Object, C = Complement
Pattern 1 SV: Subject + verb only (I run. / She arrived.)
Pattern 2 SVC: Subject = complement (She is happy. / He became a doctor.)
Pattern 3 SVO: The subject performs an action on the object (I play tennis. / She loves music.)
Pattern 4 SVOO: The subject gives “a person something” (I gave him a present. = give + person + thing)
Pattern 5 SVOC: The subject makes “the object = the complement” (They call me Tom. = call + person + name)
Remember the relationship S = C in SVC and O = C in SVOC.

Points to Remember

① Common verbs in Pattern 2: be, become, get, grow, turn, look, sound, feel, taste, smell, and seem. These verbs create the relationship subject = complement. “She got angry.” and “The soup tastes good.”
② Rewriting Pattern 4 SVOO: “She gave me a book.” = “She gave a book to me.” (SVO + to/for + person). Choose to or for depending on the verb:
- to: give, send, show, tell, teach, lend, pass, write, bring
- for: buy, make, get, cook, find (verbs involving making or obtaining something for someone)
③ Complements in Pattern 5 SVOC: A complement is a noun or adjective. “They named the baby Mary.” (noun) and “She made me happy.” (adjective). “make + person + adjective = make a person ...” and “keep + person + adjective = keep a person ...” are also Pattern 5.
④ Identifying the sentence pattern determines how to translate it: in Pattern 2, understand “subject = complement”; in Pattern 5, understand “object = complement.”

Practice

1. Write “She made me happy” in English using SVOC.
2. Write “He sent me a letter” in both SVOO and SVO forms.
3. Identify the sentence pattern: The cake tastes sweet.