DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “STATEMENT” AND “SENTENCE”

STATEMENT

 A statement is a speech or sentence that states something positively or negatively and delivers an information in the manner of claiming the information to be true. It comes in the forms of affirmative or negative sentences as well as it can come in the form of exclamatory expressions also, but never interrogative, nor imperative. And a statement does not require a feedback. If the receiver of the statement wants to give a reply or feedback, they can but they are not required to give any feedback or reply.

Examples of Statement:

1. He is a good teacher.

2. He is not a good teacher.

3. Wow! He is an awesome teacher!

4. If we can travel at the speed of light, we can reach at the sun in 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

 Through statements, we STATE facts or hypotheses. In simple language, making a statement means to deliver an information of fact or hypothesis accompanied by an implicit claim that the delivered information is true. As you see in the above examples, numbers 1, 2, and 3 are stating a fact or delivering a factual information that the speech maker implicitly claims to be true. And speech number 4 is stating a hypothetical fact that claims the latter part is true where the condition in the former part is met.

These sentences are statements.

But, when we ask questions or make imperative commands, these are not stating anything in the manner of giving any factual or hypothetical information with the claim that the information is true.

Rather, a question does not state any true or hypothetical fact. But it is a delivery of an information that expressly requires a feedback or reply.

Example:

5. What are you doing?

This sentence expresses the speaker’s thought but not any information in the manner of claiming the information to be true. And it requires a feedback or reply.

And, just as a question, an imperative doesn’t state any true or hypothetical fact either. Its only function is to command execution of a task. And the receiver of an imperative has an option to choose between reply or not to reply but an imperative certainly doesn’t deliver an information in the manner of claiming the information to be true.

Examples:

6. Do not do it again. 

This sentence commands someone not to do it again. It expresses the speaker’s thought but it has nothing to do with any claim of whether anything is true or not. If you tell someone “Do not do it again”, this is a command but not any statement of anything that needs a claim of truthfulness and, of course, there is no truthfulness claim in it as such claim would be irrelevant. The receiver of the command has options of replying or not replying.

Numbers 5 and 6 are not statement.

SENTENCE

A sentence is a word or a group of words that deliver a complete information but it has nothing to do with the nature of the information. As long as a word or group of words deliver a complete thought or meaning, it is a sentence.

All of the above examples (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) are examples of sentence.

Further example:

7. John: You should not go there.

8. Jenn: Why?

 Here both John and Jenn’s speeches deliver complete meaning. They are sentence.

DIFFERENCE

1. All statements are sentence (examples: numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 above) but all sentences are not statement (examples: numbers 5, 6, 7, and 8).

2. All statements are accompanied by an implicit claim that the information delivered is true but any claim of truthfulness of a delivered information is not any constructional element of sentence as a word or group of words are sentence as long as they deliver a complete meaning.

3. All statements are closed-ended speech but a sentence can be either open-ended or closed-ended.

4. All statements are limited to stating a fact or hypothesis but a speech does not have to be any statement of fact or hypothesis for it to be a sentence as, for a speech to be a sentence, all that requires is a delivery of a complete meaning.

NOTE

The central topic of this article is:

What is the DIFFERENCE between sentence and statement?

And therefore the central focus of this article is to explain the DIFFERENCE.

As an additional information, you can note that the exact grammatical names of the statement sentences are:

Assertive and Declarative.

And remember, as shown in the example number 4, the exclamatory sentences can be assertive and/or declarative too. The exclamatory sentences simply have an expression of exclamation while asserting or declaring something.

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