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A complete sentence in English consists of a subject (usually a noun) and a predicate (a verb). True, there are minor types like 'Hi!' and elliptical answers to questions like 'Tomorrow', but they are not typical complete sentences in English.
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In Russian, on the other hand, there are many major sentence types that do not consist of the familiar Nominative subject plus verb predicate.
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There are three kinds of words that make predicates in Russian:
- verbs proper
- short adjectives
- predicatives (including o-forms)
When you read mature Russian prose, with its long sentences and variety of word-orders, you have to keep your eyes peeled for these elements and recognize what type of sentence you're dealing with. All long sentences can be reduced to several types:
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