Affirmative Sentence

Affirmative sentence (oznamovací věta) has its typical structure:

  • subject - (podmět) - it can be a noun (book, students,..), a pronoun (I, she ..), or a noun phrase (beautiful summer flowers,..)
  • verb - (sloveso) - in English it is the most important part of a  sentence, that is why a verb phrase can't be separated (napsat rychle zprávu = write the message quickly)
  • verb phrase can be a phrasal verb or verb-object phrase
  • object - (předmět) - connected with verbs, it can be a noun, pronoun, or a phrase
  • adverbials - (příslovečná určení) - the adverbial order is manner (způsob - quickly, well,..), place (místo - at school,..), and time (čas - in the morning, at 7,..)

Questions

There are two main types of questions: YES/NO QUESTIONS and WH-QUESTIONS

  • Yes/No Questions - there are only 2 possibilities of answers for these questions. They usually start with auxuliary verb (pomocné sloveso):
    • Do you like listening to music? Yes, I do. OR No, I don't.
  • WH-Questions - there are many possible answers for these questions. They usually start with question words beginning with "WH" - where, when, what, how etc.:
    • Where do you live? I live in Prague OR I live at my parents' house etc.
  • If the subject of the WH-QUESTION is QUESTION WORD, we speak about so called SUBJECT QUESTION - it means that it has the word order of affirmative sentence (podmětná otázka - má slovosled oznamovací věty!!!)
  • Základní typ WH-QUESTIONS můžeme potom také nazvat OBJECT QUESTIONS, protože QUESTION WORD je v tomto případě předmětem otázky
  • Question words used in SUBJECT QUESTIONS are usually WHO, WHAT, HOW MANY PEOPLE, etc. - How many people live there? (how many people = podmět, live = sloveso atd.)
  • Let's have a look at the difference between SUBJECT and OBJECT QUESTIONS:
    • Who likes you? - SUBJECT QUESTION (Kdo tě má rád? - částice je pouze v 1. pádě)
    • Who do you like? - OBJECT QUESTION (Koho máš rád? - otázkou je tázací částice ve 2. - 7. pádě)