How to Write a Sentence.

Understanding Structure.  Great writers understand that the sentence is how you accomplish a masterpiece.  Just as Michelangelo began with a brush stroke and Beethoven began with a note-great writers begin with a sentence.

The Sentence  The structure is what gives a sentence its meaning. Without structure words cannot express true meaning.  It is syntax that gives words the power to relate to each other.  The words are a miner’s pick which digs a hole-when you come out the other side-you have a sentence.

I was already on the second floor when I heard about the box.  What is interesting about this sentence?  How many of you could stop reading after that first sentence of a story, or an essay?

Sentences are:  A) An organization of items in the world.  B) A structure of logical relationships.  For example: Look around the room and pick out four or five items. Write them down in your writer’s notebook. Your turn

My example  My words are “pen” “chair” “garbage can” and “printer”. Your turn: Now create a sentence using at least four words.

My example  I probably did not write: “Chair the shall pen before undoing printer the can garbage from and proper up remove into throw using it I.” Why not? Because the structure is not logical.  My example:  Before using the printer I shall remove the pen from the chair and throw it in the garbage can.  That is a logical sequence-the words are the same-yet now the content is available because of the logical order of the words.  The number of sentences that can be made is infinite, but how the words relate to each other is finite.  So its about words relating to each other: relationships. Your Turn: Share your sentences

Structure  My guess is you were all able to organize the words and create a sentence.  So we “know” the order-we just don’t “know” the order…..ya know?  In other words, can anyone explain why their words in the sentence are organized that way?

Take this for example:  I shall set the printer on the chair and get my pen out of the garbage can.  Each of the words in the original list now exists in a logical relation to the others. “Shall” is now joined to a verb, “set,” to form an action; “printer” is now the object of that action, which is performed by “I”; “chair” is now part of a prepositional phrase (a phrase temporally and spatially relating objects to one another)- “upon the chair”- which names the place where the action of the setting occurs. “And” introduces a sequence that is, structurally, a mirror image of what precedes it. “Pen” is the object of “shall get” and “out of the garbage can” names the place where and the manner in which the pen has been gotten. No word floats without an anchoring connection within an overall structure.

Relationships  There is the person or thing performing an action,  there is the action being performed,  and there is the recipient or object of the action.  That is the basic logical structure of many sentences: X does Y to Z.  Ex: Mr. Ham Punched the student. Your Turn: Write a short sentence (five words in length) that fits the relationship sequence. Share your sentence and explain the relationship.

But what about……  Simon drinks slowly. Remember the relationship sequence-doer, doing, done to? Explain? ○ Is there a doer? ○ Is there a doing? ○ Is there a done to? Oops!

Explanation  Slowly isn't the object-it gives information about the act of drinking; it says how the drinking is being done.; it is done slowly.  Take my previous example: Before using the printer I shall remove the pen from the chair and throw it in the garbage can. ○ “Before using the printer” gives information about when the action of removing occurred, and “into the garbage” gives information about where the action of throwing ends up.

Your turn  Write the sentence in you writer’s notebook: “Arriving at the house, I opened the car windows.” ○ Label the doer, doing, done to. What is left? What is its purpose?

Answer-  Doer- “I”  Doing- “opened”  Done to- “the car windows” Arriving at the house gives information about the “Doer” I. The person doing is the one arriving at the house-gives information.

So….  It may not matter entirely that you know the parts of speech. What matters is you know the relationships between the words. Knowing the terms and identifying them gives the illusion of understanding.  Real understanding comes with the knowledge of sentence structure and logical relationships.

If….  One understands that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships and that the number of relationships involved is finite, one understands too that there is only one error to worry about, the error of being illogical, and only one rule to follow: make sure that every component of your sentences is related to the other components in a way that is clear and straight forward.

Understanding:  Is not learning a bunch of rules-but by coming to know the limited number of relationships your words, phrases, and clauses can enter into, and becoming alert to those times when the relationships are not established or are unclear: when a phrase just dangles in space, when a connective has nothing to connect to, when a prepositional phrase is in search of a verb to complement, when a pronoun cannot be paired with a noun.

For Example  Your Turn: Write in a word that you think fits with the following three words I have provided for you. Do this in your writer’s notebook.  Colorful ____________________  Quickly_____________________  He_____________

Example  Noam Chomsky famously offered the sequence: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”. Does the sentence make grammatical sense? Doer? Doing? Done to? (or in this case an explanation on how its done). Is it in the correct sequential order?

Yes  It is a well-formed structure without meaning.  Chomsky contrasts:  “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”  with  “furiously sleep ideas green colorless.”

“furiously sleep ideas green colorless.”  Because the above example from Chomsky exhibits no logical relationships whatsoever-it makes no sense.  Without form there is no content  Form, form and form is what matters.  The only mistake in grammar is making no sense.

Take this for example:  From the first stanza of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky:” ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Write the poem in your writer’s notebook

The Poem  Makes no sense in content-but the organization, the sequence is logical.  In your writer’s notebook, re-write the poem by replacing the words with words that make sense. In a way that makes a meaningful sequence. Work with an elbow partner to create the new poem.