Who did what?

This first snippet is about as simple as you can get in a sentence.

Mr Cartright sighed.

Flour Babies(1992)

Person-Action.

There's nothing else! No things, no qualities, no time or place.

Let's create our own sentences using exactly the same structure.

Chandi cried.

The Queen sniffed.

Now write your own variation of this very simple sentence.

A 'person' doesn't have to just be a name, or a proper noun ("Mr Cartright", "Chandi", "Lady Gray"...). It can be a pronoun ("I", "she", "they", "nobody", etc.), or even something more descriptive ("the folks back home", "the head of the toothpaste committee"). (Check out the Noun groups lesson for more on this).

The children of the Moodey Building cheered.

Hazel Green(1999)

The 'action' can also be more complex, using helper verbs to change tense, modality, or give other shades of meaning. (Check out the Verb groups lesson for more about this).

"You're not going to die."

Alanna: The first adventure(1983)

Write your own variation, but try to mess around with the person and action a little more.

So you see, even these simple sentences can be quite long.

Simple sentences