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What the title says. Consider this example:

"There are a lot to visit when going sightseeing. One of them being tourist attractions."

Is "One of them being tourist attractions." a complete sentence?

My teacher says it isn't as it is lacking a verb. In my opinion, it is complete with the verb "being" but I can't seem to dissect the underlying grammar behind this. Best I can do is "being tourist attractions" is a participle phrase headed by "being" and is modifying the word "them", which is in turn replacing "a lot to visit". Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a lot in advance!

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  • It's a very poorly written passage altogether. There are a lot [of what?] to visit when going sightseeing. One of them [of what?] being tourist attractions. Isn't the definition of a tourist attraction a place that attracts sightseers?
    – Kate Bunting
    Dec 31, 2021 at 9:30
  • Being is a verb form, but it's not correctly conjugated for the phrase to be a sentence. A sentence has to have a subject and a main verb, which means it has to be correctly conjugated for the subject. It's like the difference between "Fred runs marathons" (a sentence) and "Fred running marathons" (not a sentence).
    – stangdon
    Dec 31, 2021 at 14:50

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No, that is not generally considered a complete sentence. It does have a verb ("being"), but that is not enough. A complete sentence should have a subject and a predicate, and the predicate should include a simple predicate. However, "being" in this case is a present participle (you were correct in calling "being tourist attractions" a participle phrase), which can not function as a simple predicate. Therefore, the text does not constitute a properly formed sentence.

A couple of notes:

  1. This explanation sticks to a traditional notion of what a sentence is. Some people claim that texts such as "Oh, no!" are complete sentences despite lacking simple predicates. There is no definitive explanation in English of what constitutes a "sentence".

  2. The simple predicate is usually finite (i.e., conjugated). However, that is not always the case. Consider the following: "Go away!" "Lord have mercy." The simple predicates in those sentences ("go" and "have") are bare infinitives and thus unconjugated. However, such cases (involving the imperative and subjunctive moods) are relatively rare. Other non-finite verb forms (full infinitives, gerunds, and participles) do not function as simple predicates.

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    Thank you so much! This cleared up a lot! Wishing you and everyone a Happy New Year, btw!
    – lil' barbussy
    Dec 31, 2021 at 13:23
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You're right that it does have a verb. But your teacher is right that it is not a complete sentence. A complete sentence has a conjugated verb, meaning it has a tense. "Is/are/was/were" are the conjugated forms of "be" along with the present continuous, past perfect, and so on. "Being" is a gerund/participle, and doesn't have a tense, so that's not a sentence.

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