No!
…What do you think? Is that a sentence? I speak it daily. I hear it often. I write it occasionally. You see, I live with small people who like to throw food/clothing/punches, so I feel that this sentence is very integral in my life.

But is it a sentence? Well, to work that out, let’s use Libby’s checklist of wonders, which includes logic and the Australian Curriculum.
Logic states that a sentence should “make sense.” Does it make sense?- Yes! Tick!
Aus Curriculum English: Recognise that sentences are key units for expressing ideas.
Woah! Slow down! Maybe I’ll look back a year level in the curriculum… Wait. no, I can’t. Because that is the FOUNDATION LEVEL OUTCOME!

Blimey, we are in trouble! Or maybe I should say, I am in trouble. If 5-year-olds (and some 4-year-olds) need to understand that sentences are key units for expressing ideas, then surely 34-year-old me should have this sentence thing sorted. Right? (Is that a sentence?)
Well, here is the thing. English is lovely and squishy, and I mean that in a nice way. We can mould it and manipulate it based on our purpose and based on the context in which we are using it.

Right now, I’m just blabbing on as I do, here in my blog. So as I write sentences, I do with some with some degree of informality. I write as though you and I have some shared understanding about what I am talking about (do I assume too much?). There are many ellipsis and omissions here. I can’t be bothered writing out everything I want to say, so I dash around it. I just give you the dots, and you have to connect them with a collective understanding. So when I write sentences like…
No!
Wait!
Finally!
There is hidden meaning. Use your x-ray googles and find it with me:
No, don’t eat my chocolate!
Wait, let me share it with you.
Finally you have given me some chocolate!
What did you notice? Not only do I have a chocolate addiction, but there was a lot of meaning I expected you to infer. It would have been easier to see it in context, right? So this ellipsed content. It existed. But like the matrix…only in our minds. In our shared understanding. It is this ellipsed content that helps this sentence to “express an idea.”

So when the chips fall, if a sentence has to express an idea, what does that mean? Well, in functional grammar terms, it means that something is happening, and there is a Process (verb group). We find it by asking, “What is happening?” Let’s find it now to make sure those are sentences:
No, don’t eat my chocolate!
Wait, let me share it with you.
Finally, you have given me some chocolate.
*What’s the green about? Find out in this post.
But sometimes, this Process or “happening” is hiding in our shared understandings. Nod nod wink wink. Yeah, you know? Yeah, nah?

So, next time a sentence doesn’t seem to have something happening in it, pop on those ellipsis x-ray goggles and take a closer look.

No! Is that even a sentence?
