Previously, we’ve
learned about conjunctions that join one clause to another. Now we can finally
define some of the most important terms in grammar regarding clauses and
sentences, and the subject is important enough that it merits a bit of
repetition.
As we’ve learned
before, a clause is a unit of
language that contains one subject and one predicate. That definition overlaps
with our working definition of a sentence because every sentence contains at least
one clause.
We’ve said that are two general kinds of
clauses in English:
An independent clause contains one subject
and one predicate, and it contains no word that makes the clause dependent on
another clause to be complete. That is, it contains no word like a
subordinating conjunction or others that we will learn about. An independent
clause is grammatically complete by itself, so it can stand by itself as a
complete sentence.
A dependent clause contains one subject
and one predicate, and it is not grammatically complete by itself. It functions
as part of an independent clause. Dependent clauses include the subordinate
clause (which we create with a subordinating conjunction), and other kinds of
dependent clauses that we’ll learn about soon.
According to these definitions, this is an independent clause:
We fixed dinner for our parents last night.
But if we add a subordinating
conjunction to it, it becomes a de-pendent clause that needs to be connected to
an independent clause:
Before we fixed dinner for our parents last night . . .
A subordinate
clause is one kind of dependent clause. A subordinate clause contains one
subject and one predicate, and it must be connected to an independent clause by
a subordinating conjunction. The clause above (Before we fixed dinner . . .) is a subordinate clause.
Again, notice the
difference between dependent clauses and subordinate clauses: A subordinate
clause is one kind of dependent clause. (We’ll study two other kinds of dependent
clauses in later chapters: the relative
clause and the nominal clause.)
Finally, here is a
new definition of a sentence, that
important unit of language that we’ve talked about all along:
A sentence is a unit of language that
contains at least one independent clause. It may also contain one or more
dependent clauses.
Like most
definitions of a sentence, this one would not satisfy most linguists (a
notoriously argumentative bunch), but it will do for our purposes.
CLASSIFYING BY STRUCTURE
With these definitions, we go
on to the well-known, four-part classification of sentences, based on their
structures:
Simple sentences
Compound sentences
Complex sentences
Compound-Complex sentences
You’ve probably encountered them before:
Simple Sentence: A simple sentence contains
only one in-dependent clause:
I went to the garage.
A simple sentence
can contain a compound subject, a compound predicate, or other compound
structures. The sentence below contains one compound subject and one compound
predicate, so it’s still a simple sentence:
Alphonse and I went to the garage, found his car, and drove it home.
The following
sentence contains a compound subject, a com-pound verb, and a compound predicate:
Jim and Louise planned and prepared
the meal and cleared up afterward.
It’s still just one clause, so it’s a simple sentence.
Compound Sentence: A compound sentence contains
at least two clauses: two or more
independent clauses joined by one or more coordinating conjunctions. There are
no dependent clauses in a compound sentence:
I went to the garage, and I found my bike.
I found my bike, but the tires were flat.
Complex Sentence: A complex sentence contains at
least two clauses: only one
independent clause and one or more de-pendent clauses. In the examples in this
chapter, the dependent clauses will be joined to the independent clauses by one
or more subordinating conjunctions (shown in bold):
I went to the garage because I needed my bike.
Complex sentences
can also contain relative clauses or nominal clauses, as we will soon see.
Compound-Complex Sentence: A compound- complex sentence contains at least three
clauses. It contains two or more independent clauses joined by one or more
coordinating con-junctions, and it also contains one or more dependent clauses.
In the example below, the dependent clause is a subordinate clause, joined by a
subordinating conjunction:
I went to the garage because I needed my bike, and
I found it.
As we’ll soon see,
compound-complex sentences can also contain relative clauses or nominal
clauses.
Fragments: There’s a fifth kind of sentence that’s not
really a sentence at all. It’s a fragment sentence, a structurally
incom-plete sentence, and there are many ways to write them. Here’s one way:
I went to the garage and I found my bike. Because
I needed it.
The second
sentence is a fragment; it’s simply a subordinate clause that is punctuated
like a sentence. We use such fragments all the time in conversation:
Why were you looking for your bike?
Because I needed it.
Usually no one
objects, or even notices. In careful writing, how-ever, we should avoid
fragments unless we’re deliberately using them for emphasis. Even then, we
should use them with restraint.
What if we combine
two fragments? Do two fragments make a whole? The following consists of two
subordinate clauses, punctuated like a complete sentence:
When he finally arrives, if the plane is on
time.
Combining two (or
more) dependent clauses still makes a fragment sentence, because a sentence has
to have at least one independent clause. This kind of fragment is never
acceptable, unless you’re Gertrude Stein, and you probably aren’t. (If you are, get in touch with us immediately.)
CLASSIFYING BY
PURPOSE
There is another
way to classify sentences: according to their purposes. Even in these
classifications, sentence structure and punctuation are important.
As we’ve seen, declarative sentences make a statement.
They usually have the subject + predicate
structure we’ve exam-ined (subject first, predicate second), and they usually
end with a period:
I am in trouble.
Interrogative sentences ask a question. They may begin with a question word (Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?) or
with a verb. They typically end with a question mark:
Why do these things always happen to me?
How can these things keep happening?
Do things like this ever happen to you?
As the third
example above shows, many questions (those that can be answered by yes or no) can be formed from declarative sentences by altering the
placement of a verb. An auxiliary verb (like do) is placed before the subject:
You know what I’m talking
about. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Sometimes,
especially in conversation and fictional dialogue, interrogatives are just a
word or two that make sense in context (we hope):
What? Why?
Who, me?
Interrogatives can also be statements that end
in tag questions:
You did forget your textbooks, didn’t you?
I won’t need them, will I?
These two examples
above are not run-on sentences or comma splices. They are correct, completely
acceptable sentences, and they’re a bit more complicated than they might look.
As you see in the
two examples, a tag question is
added to the end of a declarative sentence with a comma, and it repeats the
auxiliary verb and the subject of the declarative. If the declarative is
positive (You did forget your textbooks),
the tag question is negative (didn’t you?).
If the declarative is negative (I won’t
need them), the tag is positive (will I?).
In other words,
negative tag questions anticipate positive answers:
You forgot your textbooks, didn’t you?
Oh—yes, I did.
And positive tag questions anticipate negative answers:
I won’t need them, will I?
No, you won’t.
But we don’t
always get the answer we anticipate, do we? (Or, as the great Fats Waller often
said: “One never knows, do one?”)
An imperative sentence is a command. It
may end with a period or an exclamation mark, and it may be missing the
subject:
Get out of here!
Go!
Scram!
Get lost!
In an imperative
sentence, the missing subject is often an implied second-person pronoun (you) perhaps with an implied auxiliary
verb:
[You must] Get out of here!
[You must] Stop that!
Commands can be
phrased more politely, but they’re still imperatives:
Please don’t do that.
Exclamatory sentences express strong emotion. They
have no distinctive structure or end
punctuation, and they’re often incomplete sentences or just a phrase:
No!
Don’t!
Oh, that’s just great
What the heck?
The four
classifications that we just examined illustrate how inadequate simple terms
and concepts sometimes are in analyzing what language can do. In some cases,
because language is capable of explicit and implicit meanings, sentences don’t
clearly fit in any single category; they may have implicit meanings quite
different from their explicit purpose.
Suppose a teacher in a classroom says to a
student,
You look puzzled.
In that context, this
declarative sentence may contain an implicit interrogative: Do you have a question?
Or suppose the teacher says to a student in
the back row,
I’m watching you.
That could be an implicit
imperative, meaning Stop what you’re doing! Behave yourself!
The teacher might
imply the same imperative idea with a ques-tion: Did you have something to say?
POINTS FOR WRITERS
1. Beginning
sentences with conjunctions.
You may have
learned in school that writers should not begin a sentence with the
subordinating conjunction because,
like this:
Because Linda was late for school, she left
home hastily.
In fact, that is a
perfectly good complex sentence, and good writers do indeed begin sentences
with because. But you shouldn’t do
this:
WRONG: Because Linda was late
for school. She left home hastily.
As we saw earlier, a
subordinate clause has to be connected to an independent clause unless you’re
deliberately writing a fragment.
You can also begin
sentences with coordinating conjunctions, but don’t overdo it. We’ve done it
twice in the last page or so:
But you shouldn’t do this.
And, even then, we should use them with
restraint.
The initial conjunction
connects the idea of the sentence to the preceding sentences—it’s one way to
create paragraph coherence. It also contributes to a
somewhat less formal tone, which is
desirable in some contexts.
A sentence that
begins with a coordinating conjunction is not a fragment sentence. It is a
stylistic variation that you should use with restraint.
2. Commas in
compound structures.
When a sentence
contains a compound phrase of two parts, commas are usually not necessary:
My brother and your sister are planning a
party.
When there are
three or more parts in the compound structure, we typically use only one
conjunction to join them all, and commas separate the parts:
My brother,
your sister, and their friends are
planning a party.
As you may have
noticed in the examples earlier, compound sentences use a comma to mark the end
of every independent clause except the last:
Now you’re behaving yourself, but
you have to leave anyway.
You’re behaving yourself now, yet
you have to leave, and you can’t
come back.
When the two
clauses are short and simple, we can omit the comma:
I am angry and I am leaving.
When the clauses
are long and complex, the commas separating the clauses become more important.
They help the reader understand where one clause begins and another ends.
When a subordinate
clause begins the sentence, the comma separates the subordinate clause from the
independent clause, unless the subordinate clause is brief and the sentence is
unam-biguous without the comma:
Because I could not stop for Death, I
hid behind a tree. (Emily Dickinson,
improved.)
The sentences
below challenge our comprehension (at least a little) because they each need a
comma to mark the end of a subordinate clause. Read these sentences and decide
where the commas should go:
Because you’ve already eaten
dinner at our house tonight will be postponed.
After you’ve eaten the dog should be fed right
away.
Yes, we deliberately wrote these sentences to be
difficult without the comma. But such sentences do occur in our everyday
writing. Commas are important in these cases because they clarify the structure
of the sentence for the reader. (If you haven’t yet worked it out, both of
those last two examples need a comma after eaten.)
EXERCISES
1. Go
back to the beginning pages of this chapter and reread the definitions of an independent clause, a dependent clause, and
a sentence. Then try to write the three definitions from memory, and use the
book to check your work.
2. Classify
the following sentences according to their structures. Each sentence will be simple, compound, complex, or
compound-complex. Refer to the definitions in this chapter when you need to.
Here are a few points to help you:
Pay attention to punctuation, which often
helps.
Watch for conjunctions of all
kinds; don’t confuse preposi-tions with conjunctions.
Remember
that a compound phrase of some sort (like a compound subject or compound direct
object) may be in a sentence that does not itself have compound structure.
Finally, there is
at least one fragment sentence here that can’t be classified any other way.
Classify every incomplete sentence you find as a fragment.
My family owned a cocker spaniel when I was young.
Before the meeting, we will set up the room,
and you should prepare the refreshments.
Before the meeting begins, we will set up the
room, and you should prepare the refreshments.
He has done well since graduation, and he
credits his success to the university.
As if he is our supervisor.
Since graduation, when he began working here,
while Arthur was the supervisor of both departments.
Louise and Sharon went to the garage and found their car.
Either Arthur and Gwyn find a way to solve
this problem themselves, or they must seek help.
Both spring and fall are their favorite
seasons for camping and fishing in the mountains.
We sat nervously as we waited for our interviews.
During our interviews, the applicants
occasionally answered poorly, but in general they did well.
After they left the office, they returned, for
Louise had for-gotten her portfolio.
3. Return
to the sentences in 2, and
identify the complete subjects and
predicates in all the clauses of all the complete sentences. Put subjects in
brackets and underline predicates.
4. Classify
the following sentences according to their purposes: Each sentence will be declarative, interrogative, imperative, or
exclamatory. (Don’t worry about possible implicit meanings.) Refer to the
definitions in this chapter when you need to.
What a mess!
What are you shouting about?
I forgot my portfolio, and now the office is
closed.
Just relax and get it tomorrow.
Listen!
The boys’ choir is singing.
What music those children make!
Didn’t Count Dracula say that once?
Are you comparing the boys’ choir to wolves?
Stop twisting my words!
