Does a sentence fragment have to start with a capital letter?

Question

If not, what would make a sentence fragment different from a phrase?

Answer 1

Above is correct and fragments of sentences may be used as a quote. In this case, a capital will depend on the quote - start of a sentence a capital, end or middle of a sentence - no capitel. As you would imagine.

Answer 2

Now that we've heard from the "technically right Grammar Police" with her comment, "A sentence fragment is an incorrect sentence, so it doesn't matter whether or not it starts with a capital letter, it is still wrong," let's talk about the real world.

In the real world, you will OFTEN see sentence fragments used in legitimate media: magazine articles, novels, etc. Let me give you an example of a possible use in a novel:

"I had just arrived at the crime scene when something unexpected happened. Unexpected to me, anyway. The victim's mother arrived and confessed. Not to the killing, but to hating her daughter enough to do it."

In that paragraph above, the "sentence" starting "Unexpected" is a fragment. So is the one starting with "Not to the killing." Yes, they're incorrect grammar....but often used by very good authors to accurately reflect how people start. So my point is this: Since there ARE legitimate cases when people will write down sentence fragments, there MUST be a correct way to punctuate them. And the correct way is TO CAPITALIZE THE FRAGMENT just like you would a regular sentence.

Answer 3

A sentence fragment is an incorrect sentence, so it doesn't matter whether or not it starts with a capital letter, it is still wrong.

Ex:

Went to eat last night.

went to eat last night.

(Both not sentences).

A phrase is just a commonly said sentence that has become an idiomatic expression.