SENTENCE PATTERNS

English word order is normally SUBJECT - VERB - OBJECT.
Following are the commonly used sentence patterns:

1. SUBJECT - VERB:
"Coyotes howl."

2. SUBJECT - VERB - OBJECT:
"Elephants frighten mice."

3. SUBJECT - VERB - INDIRECT OBJECT - DIRECT OBJECT:
"Mary baked Fred a cake."

4. There(*) - VERB – SUBJECT:
"There have been objections."

5. AUXILIARY - SUBJECT - VERB?
"Do coyotes howl in the distance?"

6. AUXILIARY - SUBJECT - VERB - OBJECT?
"Have mice ever frightened elephants?"

7. AUXILIARY - SUBJECT - VERB - INDIRECT OBJECT - DIRECT OBJECT?
"Will Mary bake Fred a cake?"

8. OBJECT - AUXILIARY- SUBJECT - VERB?
"What did the mice frighten?"

9. VERB - there(*) - SUBJECT?
"Were there any objections?"

10. AUXILIARY - there(*) - VERB - SUBJECT?
"Have there been any objections?"

Common patterns of commands (imperative sentences) are derived from the first three statement patterns.
Many exclamatory sentences are also derived from patterns of statements.
"There have been a hundred objections!"
"Mary baked Fred a cake!"

Such Sentences as the following, usually take an exclamation point:
"How many objections there were!"
"What a cake Mary baked Fred!"

A sentence pattern such as the following may be a statement, a question or an exclamation:
"Mice Frighten elephants."
"Mice frighten elephants?"
"Mice frighten elephants!"

(*) "There" used as an introductory work or filler is an expletive, which is never the subject.

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SENTENCE PATTERNS - Structure:
Every sentence in English (except interjections) has a subject and a verb. The subject is either a noun or a pronoun. The verb is either an action verb or a helping verb.

There are several basic sentence patterns in English.

There are a number of common sentence patterns used to write most sentences in English. The basic sentence patterns presented in this guide to sentence patterns will help you understand the underlying pattern in even the most complex English sentences. Parts of speech are put together to create sentence patterns in English. Quickly, the eight parts of speech are as follows:

Noun
Pronoun
Adjective
Verb
Adverb
Conjunction
Preposition
Interjection

- - - - - - Six Sentence Patterns - - - - - -

Sentence Patterns #1 - Noun / Verb:
The most basic sentence pattern is a noun followed by a verb. It's important to remember that only verbs that do not require objects are used in this sentence pattern.
Examples:
"People work."
"Frank eats."

This basic sentence pattern can be modified by adding a noun phrase, possessive adjective, as well as other elements. This is true for all the sentence patterns that follow.
Examples:
"People work." -> "Our employees work."
"Frank eats." -> "My dog Frank eats."


Sentence Patterns #2 - Noun / Verb / Noun:
The next sentence pattern builds on the first pattern and is used with nouns that can take objects.
Examples:
"John plays softball."
"The boys are watching TV."


Sentence Patterns #3 - Noun / Verb / Adverb:
The next sentence pattern builds on the first pattern by using an adverb to describe how an action is done.
Examples:
"Thomas drives quickly."
"Anna doesn't sleep deeply."


Sentence Patterns #4 - Noun / Linking Verb / Noun:
This sentence pattern uses linking verbs to link one noun to another. Linking verbs are also known as equating verbs - verbs which equate one thing with another such as 'be', 'become', 'seem', etc.
Examples:
"Jack is a student."
"This seed will become an apple."


Sentence Patterns #5 - Noun / Linking Verb / Adjective:
This sentence pattern is similar to sentence pattern #4, but uses linking verbs to link one noun to its description using an adjective.
Examples:
"My computer is slow!"
"Her parents seem unhappy."


Sentence Patterns #6 - Noun / Verb / Noun / Noun:
Sentence pattern #6 is used with verbs that take both direct and indirect objects.
Examples:
"I bought Katherine a gift."
"Jennifer showed Peter her car."

http://esl.about.com/od/writingintermediate/a/sentence_patterns.htm