The Well-Constructed Sentence 3

Clause Subject Predicate Noun phrase Auxiliary Transitive verb Object Intransitive verb Linking verb Complement Head word Subject-verb pair Independent clause Coordinating conjunctions Modifier Prepositional phrase Dependent clause Subordinate clause Subordinating conjunctions Adverb clause Adjective clause Relative clause Noun clause

Populated Prose Active/Passive Voice Five Ways to Check for Problems with Focus Double-check sentences that begin with an abstract subject Double-check sentences with there in the subject position Keep subject phrases short Subject buried in the introductory phrase Verb masquerading as a noun

English has seven coordinating conjunctions: And Or Nor But For Yet So Almost always, the units joined by these coordinating conjunctions are similar in structure.

1.Once we were at college, Maura and I started having long talks on the phone, first about nothing at all and then about everything. 2.In his own redneck way, ‘Bama Gibson was a perfectly nice man, but he was not exactly mayoral material. 3.My grandfather was colored, my father was Negro, and I am black. 4.I am a tribal judge, and things come to me through the grapevine of the court system or the tribal police. 5.Each wave washed in from somewhere unseen and washed out again to somewhere unknown.

As a rule, units in a series should have parallel structure; that is, they should be the same kind of grammatical unit and they should fit into the same “slot” in the sentence. If a writer fails to use parallel structure in a series, the sentence will be awkward and potentially confusing. Two questions: Are the units grammatically similar? Do they fit into the same slot in the sentence?

H e was always looking for money—scamming, betting, shooting pool, even now and then a job. M y mother out of grief became strict with my father, my older sister, and hard on me. D ropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves, and the dead will be disturbed. T he function of a university is to develop analytical skills of students and a place where they should learn to express themselves.

Correlative conjunctions are quite rare in spoken English, and you seldom see them in the work of young writers. Correlative conjunctions join syntactic units and manipulate emphasis; like other coordinators, correlatives call for paralellism. Correlative conjunctions come in pairs: Both/and Either/or Neither/nor Not/but Not only/but also

These correlative conjunctions lend greater weight to the the second unit in the pair: American people ought to know that it is not them but their government’s policies are that are so hated. Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the U.S. government’s record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things—to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry, and unimaginable genocide (outside America)?

Experiment with the placement of correlative conjunctions: Early in the sentence to create some repetition Late in the sentence for maximum efficiency

The number of units in a series has a strong influence on its rhetorical effect. In general, a series with two or three units is unmarked. It does not call attention to itself and merely suggests completeness. A series with four units begins to feel long, and one with five or more conveys a sense of abundance, perhaps excess, perhaps exhaustion. The effect is particularly strong when the writer omits the conjunctions (asyndeton).

Coordinate series are widely used because they make sentences more concise. Sometimes, repetition is what is needed. Clarity, emphasis, or beauty may call for the use of repetition in your writing. Prepositions can help with making repetition function: The preposition functions like a bullet or a number, indicating that we’re moving onto the next unit.