Which option is a sentence fragment?

Which option is a sentence fragment?

• A. Complete sentence.
• B. It was a long night.
• C. Running late for the appointment.
• D. The nurse checked the patient.

Answer: (C)

A sentence fragment happens when a group of words looks like a sentence but doesn’t express a complete thought because it lacks a finite verb and an independent clause. The phrase “Running late for the appointment” uses an -ing form and doesn’t include a subject performing a complete action, so it can’t stand alone as a sentence. If we add a subject and a finite verb, it becomes complete, e.g., “I was running late for the appointment.” The other phrases express complete thoughts: “It was a long night” has a subject and a finite verb, and “The nurse checked the patient” has a subject, a finite verb, and an object. Therefore, the fragment is the phrase starting with “Running late for the appointment.”

A sentence fragment happens when a group of words looks like a sentence but doesn’t express a complete thought because it lacks a finite verb and an independent clause. The phrase “Running late for the appointment” uses an -ing form and doesn’t include a subject performing a complete action, so it can’t stand alone as a sentence. If we add a subject and a finite verb, it becomes complete, e.g., “I was running late for the appointment.”

The other phrases express complete thoughts: “It was a long night” has a subject and a finite verb, and “The nurse checked the patient” has a subject, a finite verb, and an object. Therefore, the fragment is the phrase starting with “Running late for the appointment.”