What is a Minor Sentence? A Definition

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines minor sentence as “a word, phrase, or clause functioning as a sentence and having in speech an intonation characteristic of a sentence but lacking the grammatical completeness and independence of a full sentence (as Yes, indeed)”. We can understand a minor sentence as one that expresses a complete unit of meaning though it does not necessarily contain a verb in it. Generally, a minor sentence omits one of the structural elements like the subject, predicator, or complement.

Some simple sentence are not usually represented fully in some contexts. In such contexts, the simple sentence may be represented by any of the elements or a combination of the elements in the subject, predicator, complement and adjunct (SPCA) framework. The process of ellipsis or deletion has been used. A minor sentence is similar in nature to a verbless sentence. Let us see what a verbless sentence is…
Verbless Sentence

This is a unit of grammar that is independent; that is, it is not part of some other grammatical units, and yet does not contain any verb. Although a verb is essential to a sentence, a verbless sentence is very common in spoken language and are far from rare in written texts. Examples are:

Happy birthday!
Good God!
How cool!
No problem.
A thousand Naira please.
Down!
More coffee?
Yes Lord!

Types of Minor Sentences

Broadly speaking, we can divide minor sentence into two types. They include the following:
Productive Minor Simple Sentence

The realisation of this type is limitless since we can still model or produce new ones after them where necessary. We commonly use this type in newspaper headlines, greetings, adverts, conversations, commentaries, etc. Let us see few examples:
Newspaper Headlines

EU’s Brexit stance about to splinter?
Super Eagles in 2-0 victory!
Trump off to London.
Arsenal in, Chelsea out!
No plans to sack workers.

Adverts/Slogans

Milo: Food drink of future champions!
Coca-Cola: Enjoy!
Union Bank: Big, Strong, Reliable
FCMB: My bank and I
MTN: Everywhere you go
The Punch: The most widely read newspaper
Daily Sun: Voice of the Nation
Stanbic IBTC Bank: Moving forward
Sterling Bank: The One-customer bank
Skye Bank: Expanding your world
Fayrouz: Refreshingly different
Ovaltine: Rich in happiness
Malta Guinness: Top-of-the-world smiles
Top Tea: Bags of Flavour
Veleta Wine: Sheer Delight
Biggs: What a delicious experience!
Michelin: A Better way forward
Binatone: The smart choice

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