A complete sentence needs a subject and verb. If you leave out either the subject or the verb, you have written a fragment. A fragment is only a piece of a sentence.
The beautiful flowers in my back yard.
Three giant geese.
Since yesterday, incredibly loud airplanes.
Each of these groups of words has a subject – flowers, geese, airplanes – but the words do not form sentences. A sentence needs action. The subject of a sentence must do something.
We can turn a group of words into a sentence if we make the subject do something. Let’s add action to each group of words, like this:
The beautiful flowers in my yard are growing very tall.
The beautiful flowers in my yard need water.
The beautiful flowers in my yard cheer me up.
Each action word (verb) tells us what the subject is doing and makes the sentence complete.
Let’s make the other fragments into sentences. We can add action, like this:
Three giant geese are honking at a crow.
Three giant geese landed in the pond.
Three giant geese are fighting over a piece of bread.
Since yesterday, incredibly loud airplanes are keeping me awake at night.
Since yesterday, incredibly loud airplanes are flying over my house.
Since yesterday, incredibly loud airplanes are frightening my dog.
To write a complete sentence, you must have a subject doing some action.
▶It’s your turn. Add action to this fragment to make a complete sentence: The little girl. Did you make a sentence by giving the little girl something to do? Good for you!