--- title: Kinds of sentences: statements, questions, commands, exclamations — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Kinds of sentences: statements, questions, commands, exclamations», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: English has four kinds of sentence: a statement tells (The cake is huge.), a question asks (What is tha --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Kinds of sentences: statements, questi… # Kinds of sentences: statements, questions, commands, exclamations Lesson 7 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/0/) — English has four kinds of sentence: a statement tells (The cake is huge.), a question asks (What is that cake?), a command tells someone to do something (Eat the cake.), and an exclamation shows strong feeling (What a huge cake!). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/1/) — A command can be tiny: "Help!", "Run!" and "Stop!" are full sentences, because the "you" is understood; Mum's "Shoes on. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/2/) — Now." works as a command too, and "please" is kindness, not grammar. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/3/) — Don't judge by the first word: "What a huge cake!" and "What is that huge cake?" both start with what, but only one asks for an answer. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/4/) — Some sentences wear a disguise: "Would you mind closing the window?" looks like a question but is a polite request, so answering "No" and not moving makes the class laugh. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/6/) — A statement tells something and usually ends with a full stop. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/7/) — A question asks for information and ends with a question mark. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/8/) — A command tells someone to do something; its verb form is called the imperative, and the "you" is understood, not said. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/9/) — One-word commands like "Help!", "Run!" and "Listen!" are complete sentences. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/11/) — In speech, raising your voice at the end (intonation) can turn a statement into a question: "You're coming tomorrow?" - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/12/) — An indirect request is a polite way of asking someone to do something, like "Would you mind closing the window?" - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/13/) — In Irish English "would you ever" is a polite but firm "please", and a "racket" is a loud noise. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/14/) — In Australia and New Zealand "yeah nah" usually means no, politely, and "nah yeah" usually means yes; listen to the last word. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/15/) — Signs leave words out, so we read them with common sense: "Dogs must be carried" means "if you have a dog, carry it". - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/16/) — A rhetorical question or exclamation like "Isn't it a lovely day!" does not want an answer; it shows a feeling. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/7-kinds-of-sentences/17/) — In texts many people drop question marks; without one a message like "can u come over" can look flat or bossy. - ← previous: [Prepositions and conjunctions: little words that hold sentences together](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/6-prepositions-and-conjunctions/) - next →: [Tenses: past, present and future](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/8-tenses-past-present-future/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)