Three types of sentence | Syntax | Khan Academy

Hello grammarians! Hello Paige! Hi David!

So, we have three different sentence varieties that we're going to talk about today. All right, um here are their three flavors: Flavor number one, declarative sentences; flavor number two, interrogative sentences; and flavor number three, imperative sentences. Those are all pretty long and wibbly words, seriously. Um, but we will address each one of them in turn.

Paige, if you please, what is a declarative sentence? A declarative sentence is a type of sentence that just states a fact or an opinion, I suppose. But it just makes a statement. So, that would be something like, "It is a beautiful day." "Is it a beautiful day?" Paige, we can also use declarative sentences to just get across any kind of information. This is what we call exposition in writing. Yeah, you know, so we could say, "Lavender hated baseball." You know, you could start a short story with that, right? That's just a fact about Lavender. That's a fact about Lavender.

So, a declarative sentence is a statement, just straight up. Yeah, an interrogative sentence is a question, so it asks a question. So, it's just a fancy word for a question, right? Okay, so an example of an interrogative sentence would be, "Where did you go last night?" Right? Or, "How is he still singing that note?" I have no idea! Incredible breath control.

So, that's what an interrogative question is, right? It's like being interrogated. That's like a similar word to interrogative—just having a lot of questions asked, like really aggressively. Yeah, it's not a very positive thing. Paige, what did you do with the cheese? I don't know, Paige! Why are you still eating the cheese? I'm not, Paige! I know you stole the cheese!

Finally, the third kind of sentence we want to talk about today is the imperative. An imperative is a command, right? So, when you tell someone to do something, it's a command. Like, "Paige, follow that bunny!" I think the bunny stole the cheese.

Yeah, so this is one of those sentences that doesn't have a subject that is literally spoken out loud, right? It's just implied, you know? If you're saying that to me, I know that I am the subject, right? So, it's "You follow that bunny," right? But the "you" is just not spoken. Or if you're not into bunny following, you know, something like, "Remember to wash the dishes!" You're still being commanded to remember.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's our—those are our three sentence types. Yeah, declarative is a statement, interrogative is a question, and imperative is a command.

So, Paige, I think we can recast our slogan in each of these three types of sentence. Okay, so, okay, so declarative, right? That's what it usually is. Declarative form is, "You can learn anything." Okay, we can make it a question, so interrogative: "Can you learn anything?" Right? The answer is yes. And the imperative we want to make it a command would be, "What, Paige? Learn anything!"

Yeah, so you can do any of those three. Sure!

Dave it out! Paige out!