Forming valid one word sentences

I remember my English teacher saying that there are only two valid ways to make a one-word sentence:

• A question:

  Why? Where?

• A command:

  Go! Stop!

Is this correct?

Solution 1:

Interrogatives (who?), imperatives (stop), declaratives (me), locatives (here), and nominatives (Jane) all allow for single-word statements, as do adjectives, adverbs and so on. You'd be hard-pressed to find a category of words that are not amenable to the possibility.

In general, in almost all things pertaining to our language, you will discover that everything your English teacher taught you is wrong. See Theodore Bernstein's Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins for extended commentary on this point.

Solution 2:

No.

There are many other ways to make one-word sentences.

Q. Where are you going?

A. Home.

And so on.

Really.

Solution 3:

That's what your teacher said, eh?

Fine. Great. Right. Correct. Granted. Absolutely. Beautiful. Amazing.

Solution 4:

Your English teacher is probably correct in the sense that those are the only complete, grammatically-correct sentences that contain only one word. But in common writing we often use one-word statements that are not complete sentences. Like Robusto's example, "Where are you going?" "Home." "Home." is not really a "sentence" as it contains neither a subject nor a verb but just an object. It conveys no clear meaning by itself, but only when heard with the preceding question. But I wouldn't be afraid to use such statements. They're perfectly acceptable to all but the most annoying pedants.

When I was in school, teachers often insisted that on a test, all answers must be complete sentences. So if the question was, say, "What is the capital of France?", a student who wrote "Paris" would be marked wrong. The student was required to write, "The capital of France is Paris." Which always struck me as rather silly: the question is right there, the teacher and I both know what it is, why do I need to repeat it? I recall my chemistry teacher once saying that on his tests it was NOT necessary to do this. That if he asked, "What chemical reaction occurs when you mix NaCl and AgNO3?", you should just write the resultant chemicals, it was not necessary to write, "Yes indeed, a chemical reaction occurs when you mix NaCl and AgNO3. ..."