What is a one word sentence called

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Cayla Wisoky

Score: 5/5
(37 votes)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A sentence word (also called a one-word sentence) is a single word that forms a full sentence. Henry Sweet described sentence words as ‘an area under one’s control’ and gave words such as «Come!», «John!», «Alas!», «Yes.» and «No.» as examples of sentence words.

What is a one word line called?

Why? A lonely single word at the end of a paragraph creates a visual interruption in the flow that breaks the reader’s focus. This is called a “runt”.

Can a sentence contain 1 word?

A sentence must have a subject (noun) and a verb (action). However, when we speak we don’t always use complete sentences. So there are sentences that are made up of just one word followed by a punctuation mark. This is allowable because in one-word sentences either the noun or the verb is implied.

What is a short sentence called?

A simple sentence is built from the minimum of a subject and a main verb. It can be very short in length but doesn’t have to be. There are several reasons for using simple sentences.

What is a one word phrase?

In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words which act together as a grammatical unit. … Phrases can consist of a single word or a complete sentence. In theoretical linguistics, phrases are often analyzed as units of syntactic structure such as a constituent.

41 related questions found

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A sentence word (also called a one-word sentence) is a single word that forms a full sentence.

Henry Sweet described sentence words as ‘an area under one’s control’ and gave words such as «Come!», «John!», «Alas!», «Yes.» and «No.» as examples of sentence words.^[1] The Dutch linguist J. M. Hoogvliet described sentence words as «volzinwoorden».^[2] They were also noted in 1891 by Georg von der Gabelentz, whose observations were extensively elaborated by Hoogvliet in 1903; he does not list «Yes.» and «No.» as sentence words. Wegener called sentence words «Wortsätze».^[3]

Single-word utterances and child language acquisition[edit]

One of the predominant questions concerning children and language acquisition deals with the relation between the perception and the production of a child’s word usage. It is difficult to understand what a child understands about the words that they are using and what the desired outcome or goal of the utterance should be.^[4]

Holophrases are defined as a «single-word utterance which is used by a child to express more than one meaning usually attributed to that single word by adults.»^[5] The holophrastic hypothesis argues that children use single words to refer to different meanings in the same way an adult would represent those meanings by using an entire sentence or phrase. There are two opposing hypotheses as to whether holophrases are structural or functional in children. The two hypotheses are outlined below.

Structural holophrastic hypothesis[edit]

The structural version argues that children’s “single word utterances are implicit expressions of syntactic and semantic structural relations.” There are three arguments used to account for the structural version of the holophrastic hypothesis: The comprehension argument, the temporal proximity argument, and the progressive acquisition argument.^[5]

• The comprehension argument is based on the idea that comprehension in children is more advanced than production throughout language acquisition. Structuralists believe that children have knowledge of sentence structure but they are unable to express it due to a limited lexicon. For example, saying “Ball!” could mean “Throw me the ball” which would have the structural relation of the subject of the verb. However, studies attempting to show the extent to which children understand syntactic structural relation, particularly during the one-word stage, end up showing that children “are capable of extracting the lexical information from a multi-word command,” and that they “can respond correctly to a multi-word command if that command is unambiguous at the lexical level.”^[5] This argument therefore does not provide evidence needed to prove the structural version of the holophrastic hypothesis because it fails to prove that children in the single-word stage understand structural relations such as the subject of a sentence and the object of a verb.^[5]
• The temporal proximity argument is based on the observation that children produce utterances referring to the same thing, close to each other. Even the utterances aren’t connected, it is argued that children know about the linguistic relationships between the words, but cannot connect them yet.^[5] An example is laid out below:

→ Child: «Daddy» (holding pair of fathers pants)

→ Child

1. «Bai» (‘bai’ is the term the child uses for any item of clothing)

The usage of ‘Daddy’ and ‘Bai’ used in close proximity are seen to represent a child’s knowledge of linguistic relations; in this case the relation is the ‘possessive’.^[6] This argument is seen as having insufficient evidence as it is possible that the child is only switching from one way to conceptualize pants to another. It is also pointed out that if the child had knowledge of linguistic relationships between words, then the child would combine the words together, instead of using them separately.^[5]

• Finally, the last argument in support of structuralism is the progressive acquisition argument. This argument states that children progressively gain new structural relations throughout the holophrastic stage. This is also unsupported by the research.^[5]

Functional holophrastic hypothesis[edit]

Functionalists doubt whether children really have structural knowledge, and argue that children rely on gestures to carry meaning (such as declarative, interrogative, exclamative or vocative). There are three arguments used to account for the functional version of the holophrastic hypothesis: The intonation argument, the gesture argument, and the predication argument.^[5]

• The intonation argument suggests that children use intonation in a contrastive way. Researchers have established through longitudinal studies that children have knowledge of intonation and can use it to communicate a specific function across utterances.^[7][8][9] Compare the two examples below:

→ Child: «Ball.» (flat intonation) — Can mean «That is a ball.»

1. → Child: «Ball?» (rising inflection) — Can mean «Where is the ball?»

However, it has been noted by Lois Bloom that there is no evidence that a child intends for intonation to be contrastive, it is only that adults are able to interpret it as such.^[10] Martyn Barrett contrasts this with a longitudinal study performed by him, where he illustrated the acquisition of a rising inflection by a girl who was a year and a half old. Although she started out using intonation randomly, upon acquisition of the term «What’s that» she began to use rising intonation exclusively for questions, suggesting knowledge of its contrastive usage.^[11]

• The gesture argument establishes that some children use gesture instead of intonation contrastively. Compare the two examples laid out below:

→ Child: «Milk.» (points at milk jug) — could mean “That is milk.”

1. → Child: «Milk.» (open-handed gesture while reaching for a glass of milk) — could mean “I want milk.”

Each use of the word ‘milk’ in the examples above could have no use of intonation, or a random use of intonation, and so meaning is reliant on gesture. Anne Carter observed, however, that in the early stages of word acquisition children use gestures primarily to communicate, with words merely serving to intensify the message.^[12] As children move onto multi-word speech, content and context are also used alongside gesture.

• The predication argument suggests that there are three distinct functions of single word utterances, ‘Conative’, which is used to direct the behaviour of oneself or others; ‘Expressive’, which is used to express emotion; and referential, which is used to refer to things.^[13] The idea is that holophrases are predications, which is defined as the relationship between a subject and a predicate. Although McNeill originally intended this argument to support the structural hypothesis, Barrett believes that it more accurately supports the functional hypothesis, as McNeill fails to provide evidence that predication is expressed in holophrases.^[5]

Single-word utterances and adult usage[edit]

While children use sentence words as a default strategy due to lack of syntax and lexicon, adults tend to use sentence words in a more specialized way, generally in a specific context or to convey a certain meaning. Because of this distinction, single word utterances in children are called ‘holophrases’, while in adults, they are called ‘sentence words’. In both the child and adult use of sentence words, context is very important and relative to the word chosen, and the intended meaning.

Sentence word formation[edit]

Many sentence words have formed from the process of devaluation and semantic erosion. Various phrases in various languages have devolved into the words for «yes» and «no» (which can be found discussed in detail in yes and no), and these include expletive sentence words such as «Well!» and the French word «Ben!» (a parallel to «Bien!»).^[14]

However, not all word sentences suffer from this loss of lexical meaning. A subset of sentence words, which Fonagy calls «nominal phrases», exist that retain their lexical meaning. These exist in Uralic languages, and are the remainders of an archaic syntax wherein there were no explicit markers for nouns and verbs. An example of this is the Hungarian language «Fecske!», which transliterates as «Swallow!», but which has to be idiomatically translated with multiple words «Look! A swallow!» for rendering the proper meaning of the original, which to a native Hungarian speaker is neither elliptical nor emphatic. Such nominal phrase word sentences occur in English as well, particularly in telegraphese or as the rote questions that are posed to fill in form data (e.g. «Name?», «Age?»).^[14]

Sentence word syntax[edit]

A sentence word involves invisible covert syntax and visible overt syntax. The invisible section or «covert» is the syntax that is removed in order to form a one word sentence. The visible section or «overt» is the syntax that still remains in a sentence word.^[15] Within sentence word syntax there are 4 different clause-types: Declarative (making a declaration), exclamative (making an exclamation), vocative (relating to a noun), and imperative (a command).

Sentence Word Syntax Examples

	Overt	Covert
Declarative	‘That is excellent!’	‘Excellent!’
Exclamative	‘That was rude!’	‘Rude!’
Vocative	‘There is Mary!’	‘Mary!’
Imperative	‘You should leave!’	‘Leave!’
Locative	‘The chair is here.’	‘Here.’
Interrogative	‘Where is it?’	‘Where?’

The words in bold above demonstrate that in the overt syntax structures, there are words that can be omitted in order to form a covert sentence word.

Distribution cross-linguistically[edit]

Other languages use sentence words as well.

• In Japanese, a holophrastic or single-word sentence is meant to carry the least amount of information as syntactically possible, while intonation becomes the primary carrier of meaning.^[16] For example, a person saying the Japanese word e.g. «はい» (/haɪ/) = ‘yes’ on a high level pitch would command attention. Pronouncing the same word using a mid tone, could represent an answer to a roll-call. Finally, pronouncing this word with a low pitch could signify acquiescence: acceptance of something reluctantly.^[16]

Japanese Word «はい» (/haɪ/) ‘Yes’

High tone pitch	Mid tone pitch	Low tone pitch
Command attention	Represent an answer to roll-call	Signify acquiescence acceptance of something reluctantly

• Modern Hebrew also exhibits examples of sentence words in its language, e.g. «.חַם» (/χam/) = «It is hot.» or «.קַר» (/kar/) = «It is cold.».

References[edit]

A sentence word (also called a one-word sentence) is a single word that forms a full sentence. The Dutch linguist J. M. Hoogvliet described sentence words as “volzinwoorden”.

Which of these is a declarative sentence?

Declarative sentences are simply statements that relay information. They are the most common type of sentences in the English language. A declarative sentence states the facts or an opinion and lets the reader know something specific. It always ends with a period.

What is a declarative sentence?

A declarative sentence is the most common type of sentence in the English language. It is written in the present tense and usually ends with a period. Normally, the subject comes before the verb.

Which of the following is an exclamatory sentence?

An exclamatory sentence is a sentence that expresses great emotion such as excitement, surprise, happiness and anger, and ends with an exclamation point. Examples of this sentence type: “It is too dangerous to climb that mountain!” “I got an A on my book report!”

Which of the following is an interrogative sentence?

Thus, “where are you going?” is an interrogative sentence as it is a wh- type interrogative and has a question mark at the end. Keywords : Sentences, types of sentences, interrogative sentences, who, what, where, when, how and why.

What are the 3 main types of sentences?

Three essential types of sentence are declarative sentences (which are statements), interrogative sentences (which are questions), and imperative sentences (which are orders).

What are the 2 types of sentences?

A simple sentence is the most effective way to deliver one main point.

• COMPOUND SENTENCES contain two or more independent clauses.
• COMPLEX SENTENCES have one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
• COMPOUND-COMPLEX sentences have two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.

How many type of sentence are there?

four types

What are the assertive sentences?

The sentence which declares or asserts a statement, feeling, opinion, incident, event, history, or anything is called an assertive sentence. An assertive sentence ends with a period (.). Assertive sentences can be either affirmative or negative.

What are the two forms of assertive sentence?

Assertive sentences are divided into two categories-

• Affirmative assertive sentence.
• Negative assertive sentence.

What makes you feel assertive?

An assertive sentence states or asserts a feeling, opinion, history etc. The above sentence – “I have not been feeling well” is a negative sentence. When changed into assertive it becomes- “I have been feeling well”. Assertive sentences are also known as declarative sentence.

What can one person do make the sentence assertive?

Explanation: hy , one person can do anything .

Are they afraid of her make assertive sentence?

An assertive sentence is also known as declarative sentence that makes a statement. They are afraid of her. It is an adjective which describes the state of a person who assert him/her confidently.

What an event that was make assertive?

Answer. =>” That was so/very wonderful event.” Here the given sentence was in exclamatory form and it was asked us to convert it in assertive . An exclamatory sentence is represented by exclamation mark (❗) .

What are we waiting for turn into assertive?

Answer. Answer: We should not wait for anything.

Can you touch the sky turn into assertive?

Answer: we can’t touch the sky.

Do you think she heard make it assertive?

Answer. Explanation: The assertive statement is given as; She heard it correctly.

How time does fly make it assertive?

Assertive to Exclamatory-JSC

Assertive	Exclamatory sentence
I am aggrieved that I am undone.	Alas! I am undone.
I wish I had a cow.	Had I a cow!
Time flies very fast	How time does fly!
I wish I were a child.	Were I a child!

What a pretty picture changes into assertiveness?

Answer: Assertive:It is a very beautiful picture.

What a pity you did not come change into assertive?

Answer: You are very pity that you didn’t come. Explanation: This is the right answer of your question.

How strange that he succeeded without working hard?

Answer. Answer: It is very strange that he succeeded without working hard. Hope my answer helps.

Which of the following is a declarative statement *?

You are clever. Explanation: This sentence is declaring that the person who is referred as ‘you’ is clever. A declarative sentence is written in the present tense and usually ends with a period.

How do you write a declarative statement?

When writing a simple declarative sentence, use one idea and eliminate excess phrases and words. Choose your subject and predicate. A declarative sentence is made up of two basic elements: the noun, or subject, and the verb, or predicate. Convey information directly and simply by choosing the most basic information.

Is a question a declarative sentence?

All sentences come in one of four forms: declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamatory. A declarative sentence is a simple statement: You eat gluten. An interrogative sentence is a question: Do you eat gluten? An imperative sentence is a command: Eat gluten!

How do you end a declarative sentence?

Declarative sentences simply make a statement (or a declaration). They pass on information. A declarative sentence always ends with a period (full stop).

What is the meaning of period at the end of sentence?

Period at the end of the sentence means, the things said in the sentence are definite and no change is allowed. For example, “I want the document without any errors, period” meaning that there should not be any errors in the document.

Can I end a sentence in to?

Prepositions, Ending a Sentence With. Ending a sentence with a preposition such as “with,” “of,” and “to,” is permissible in the English language.

Why shouldn’t you end a sentence with a preposition?

It’s not an error to end a sentence with a preposition, but it is a little less formal. In emails, text messages, and notes to friends, it’s perfectly fine. But if you’re writing a research paper or submitting a business proposal and you want to sound very formal, avoid ending sentences with prepositions.

What does three periods mean at the end of a sentence?

ellipsis

Is it thanks you too or to?

The sentence “Thank you to you, too.” is indeed grammatically correct. However, to some of us native English Speakers who don’t really care for pretentious attitudes toward formal usages of English grammar, we would think you are trying to be pedantic grammatically for sake of appearance, rather than naturally polite.

What is another way to say me too?

But I blame Donald.”…What is another word for me too?

likewise	ditto
same	same here
seconded	that applies to me as well
that applies to me as too	me as well
same to you	agreed

A sentence word (also called a one-word sentence) is a single word that forms a full sentence. The Dutch linguist J. M. Hoogvliet described sentence words as “volzinwoorden”.

What is single word?

A single-word modifier is one word that modifies the meaning of another word, phrase or clause. Single-word modifier may refer to: Grammatical modifier, a word which modifies another element of the phrase or clause. Adverb, a word which modifies a verb, adjective, or other word or phrase.

What is a word for example?

Some common synonyms of example are case, illustration, instance, sample, and specimen. While all these words mean “something that exhibits distinguishing characteristics in its category,” example applies to a typical, representative, or illustrative instance or case.

Is go a sentence?

“Go!” is a sentence, it is in the imperative, basically a command, you can also say “Leave!” this same way. Most English verbs can be used in the imperative by themselves this way.

What Go means?

(Entry 1 of 4) intransitive verb. 1a : to move on a course : proceed go slow went by train — compare stop. b : to travel to a place goes to the office every morning went to the gas station before heading home.

What is a synonym for go to?

Synonyms for go (to) consult, refer (to), resort (to), turn (to)

What type of word is go?

The verb go is an irregular verb in the English language (see English irregular verbs). It has a wide range of uses; its basic meaning is “to move from one place to another”. Apart from the copular verb be, the verb go is the only English verb to have a suppletive past tense, namely went.

How can I use go in a sentence?

[M] [T] Let’s go to a concert together. [M] [T] We’ll go when it quits raining. [M] [T] You may go home if you want to. [M] [T] You’d better go to bed at once.

What is meaning of ask?

Ask is a verb meaning ‘put a question or seek an answer from someone’: … Ask for. If you ask for something, it means that you want someone to give you something: … Ask and ask for: typical error. ….

What want means?

to feel a need or a desire for; wish for: to want one’s dinner; always wanting something new. to wish, need, crave, demand, or desire (often followed by an infinitive): I want to see you. She wants to be notified. to be without or be deficient in: to want judgment; to want knowledge.

Is it a need or a want?

Want — have a desire to possess or do (something); wish for. Need — require (something) because it is essential or very important rather than just desirable.

What is an example of a good?

The definition of good is someone or something that is efficient, useful, healthy, strong, happy or skilled. An example of good is a washing machine that cleans clothes well and doesn’t use much water. An example of good is a productive employee. An example of good is 20/20 vision.

What’s an example of a want?

Some clear-cut examples of “wants” are things like designer clothing, upscale dining, and sports cars. Without a doubt they’re luxury items, not necessities. Then it’s time to trim the fat — focus on the essentials and buy “wants” as funds become available.

What are basic wants?

Want for food, clothing, shelter are the basic necessities of human beings. We want books, pens, pencils, medicines, fuel and cooking gas etc. Ail these are basic necessities of human life.

What are the basic needs of a man?

Human beings have certain basic needs. We must have food, water, air, and shelter to survive. If any one of these basic needs is not met, then humans cannot survive.

What is need with example?

The definition of a need is a desire or requirement. An example of a need is the desire for a fast Internet connection. An example of a need is food and water for survival. noun.

What are the 7 human needs?

The 7 Fundamental Human Needs

• Subsistence.
• Understanding and growth.
• Connection and love.
• Contribution.
• Esteem and Identity.
• Self-governance(Autonomy)
• Significance and purpose.

What are the 5 basic needs?

they are, from daily rise to rest, continually trying to satisfy their basic human needs. The five basic needs built into our genetic structure have been identified as survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun (Glasser, 1998).