Simple and Compound sentences

Simple Sentence

A simple sentence contains one independent clause.

What’s an “independent clause”? It’s one subject followed by one verb or verb phrase. It expresses a single idea.

Examples of simple sentences:

• I‘m happy.
• Robert doesn’t eat meat.
• My brother and I went to the mall last night.
• This new laptop computer has already crashed twice.

Notice that a “simple sentence” isn’t necessarily short. The subject can be a single word like “I” or “Robert,” or it can be a double subject like “my brother and I,” or it can be multiple words describing a single person/object, like “This new laptop computer.”

Compound Sentence

A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by a linking word (and, but, or, so, yet, however).

Each independent clause could be a sentence by itself, but we connect them with a linking word:

• I‘m happy, but my kids are always complaining.
• Robert doesn’t eat meat, so Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him.
• My brother and I went to the mall last night, but we didn’t buy anything.
• This new laptop computer has already crashed twice, and I have no idea why.