6 Key excerpts on "Complex Sentence"

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  eBook - ePub

  A Sentence Diagramming Primer

  The Reed & Kellogg System Step-By-Step

  • Judith Coats(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Page Publishing, Inc.

    (Publisher)

  The Complex Sentence Structure

  Grammatical explanation. Complex Sentences have one independent clause only and one or more dependent clauses. Remember, there may be multiple phrases within the one independent clause, but there will be only one main independent clause. With one main subject and one main verb (even if they are compound), the independent clause is the only one. Then added to the independent clause may be one or many dependent clauses.

  The following is a sample Complex Sentence with one independent clause and two dependent clauses:

  Note: the relative pronoun that is the subject of the adjective clause.

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  Speech to Print

  Language Essentials for Teachers

  • Louisa Cook Moats(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Brookes Publishing

    (Publisher)

  for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. Here are examples of compound sentences:

  Harry molded the dough, and Hanna baked the bread.

  Jeff drove off the road, for he was in a blinding snowstorm.

  Beatrice sold the clunker, but she still had to pay off the loan.

  Linda wrote well, yet she was unable to publish her book.

  We were unable to get seats behind home plate, so we sat in the bleachers.

  They were not wearing parkas, nor were they sporting warm hats.

  A Complex Sentence is one in which one or more dependent clauses are attached to or embedded in an independent clause. Complex Sentences may introduce a dependent clause with a subordinating conjunction, as in the following:

  When I was frightened, I hid under the bed.

  Although she made a good argument, Nancy lost the vote.

  Believing that the world would end, Paul stashed supplies in his basement.

  Until she learned how to bid, Melanie refused invitations to play bridge.

  Complex Sentences may also embed relative clauses, introduced by a relative pronoun that, who, or what.

  Columbus believed that the earth was flat.

  He thought that he would find India.

  The boy who loved animals saved the injured rabbit.

  Beauty loved the beast who treated her kindly.

  The baseball team, which had won 100 games, was leading the league.

  Correlative conjunctions are pairs of words used together to join similar elements. They include both, and; not only, but also; either, or; neither, nor; and whether, or.

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  Towards a Contextual Grammar of English

  The Clause and its Place in the Definition of Sentence

  • Eugene Winter(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Having cleared the idea of a thought and the notion of completeness, we can now take up the composite definitions. I find that we require three complementary requirements to explain the communicative function of independent clause:

  (i) a requirement for grammatical and semantic completeness, (ii) a requirement to be told what you don’t know in terms of what you do know, and (iii) a requirement to take the sentence on trust as true unless otherwise signalled.

  11.4 Definition 1 in Two Parts

  11.4.1 Introduction

  As already stated, the definition of sentence is a definition of independent clause. As such it is also a definition of subordinate clause since subordinate clause is a basic function of its (main) clause, which means it cannot exist as a clause without the (main) clause to which it is subordinated. At its simplest, this first definition requires that a sentence be both grammatically complete and semantically complete within the bounds of their propositional notions about the topic (clause relational units) as these are signalled by the clause. In this two-part definition, the intelligibility of the second part is a function of the first.

  11.4.2 Definition 1.1: Requirement for Grammatical Completion

  This part requires that the clause not merely be grammatically complete but have the grammatical status of independence so that we would expect the sentence to consist of one or more clauses, one of which is at least independent. We see independent clause as the semantic and grammatical unit of utterance, not sentence, since sentence can by definition be more than one clause grammatically grouped together by co-ordination or subordination.

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  Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself

  • David Hornsby(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Teach Yourself

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 8 ). For linguists, syntax means the study of the set of rules governing the way that morphemes, words, clauses and phrases are used to form sentences in any given language.

  However, the distinction between ‘word-level’ and ‘sentence-level’ grammar is far from watertight, and there is a considerable grey area between the two. Linguists sometimes refer to morphosyntax when describing phenomena which straddle both levels: grammatical gender, for example, often manifests itself at word level in inflection, but may also affect relations between items within a sentence in the case of the syntactic phenomenon of agreement (or concord).

  Subjects and predicates

  Calling syntax ‘the grammar of sentences’ is all very well, but sentences prove as difficult to define as ‘words’ did in the previous chapter. We are used, in literate societies with a written-language bias, to thinking of a sentence as something that generally begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, but this does not get us very far. A traditional definition of a sentence as ‘the expression of a complete thought’ is not helpful either: are elderberry wine, exactly or good! not ‘complete thoughts’? In traditional grammar, sentences were required to have a subject and a predicate, i.e. something we are talking about (the subject) and then something said about it (the predicate):

  1  Dinosaurs existed.

  2  Samantha is preparing for her bar examinations.

  3  Paul gave a tip to the waiter.

  Identifying the subject in Latin, Russian or Polish would be straightforward, because the nouns would be case-marked, i.e. inflected according to their function in the sentence. This is no longer true of English (though it used to be), but pronouns – with the exception of third-person singular it – do retain case-marked forms, so we can apply a substitution test. Thus in the list above, the subjects are Dinosaurs, Samantha and Paul, because they alone can be replaced by subject (or nominative) forms (they, she and he

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  Introductory Linguistics for Speech and Language Therapy Practice

  • Jan McAllister, James E. Miller(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  3

  Exercise 7.4 How many clauses do the following sentences contain?

  1. Linguistics is important although it is sometimes complicated.

  2. What is your name and age?

  3. What is your name and when were you born?

  4. Measure two ounces of butter, melt it in a pan and add the onions.

  7.5.1 Elements of the clause

  Descriptions of typical and atypical language development and of language impairment in acquired disorders often include analysis at the level of the clause, because a person who is struggling linguistically may find it difficult to process (produce or understand) all of the constituent parts of the clause accurately. Consequently, many language assessments that SLTs use investigate the clause level; so SLTs need to be able to recognise the elements of the clause .

  In Section 7.4.8 we noted that on one interpretation the ‘verb phrase’ consists of a main verb plus any associated auxiliary verbs and that this corresponded to the verbal element at the clause level. In the context of a discussion of elements of the clause, we often refer to the verbal element simply as the ‘verb’, but be aware that this may be more than a single word. When analysing a clause, we have to specify what this verbal element is, and also identify any other phrases in the clause, the order in which they occur and the relationship between each phrase and the verbal element. Verbal elements combine with the sorts of phrases described in Section 7.4: noun phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverb phrases. At this clausal level of analysis, the phrases are said to have various functions: subject, object, complement and adverbial. The complete set of clausal elements that we are interested in is therefore Subject, Verb, Object, Complement and Adverbial, often abbreviated to SVOCA (see Section 7.5.8 for the notation conventions).

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  Russian Syntax for Advanced Students

  • Marina Rojavin(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  PART IIIComplex Sentences

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003174738-12

  Complex Sentences сложноподчинённое предложéние include two or more simple sentences, one of which is principal while the others are subordinate. These sentences cannot exist separately; they depend on each other. Он с ýжасом уви́дел, что попáл в незнакόмое мéсто. He saw with horror that he had strayed into an unfamiliar place. Subordinate conjunctions (что, чтόбы, как, éсли, так как, and others) or connective words (котόрый, какόй, чей, где, кудá, откýда, почемý, and others) join a subordinate clause to the principal one. Complex Sentences can contain explanatory, attributive, and adverbial clauses.

  Passage contains an image

  10 EXPLANATORY CLAUSES

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003174738-13

  Main topics

  • Words, to which explanatory clauses refer
  • The conjunctions что, бýдто, как, чтόбы, как бы не, чтόбы не, ли
  • The connective words кто, что, какόй, как, где, кудá, откýда, почемý, зачéм
  • То in main clauses

  Explanatory clauses объяснúтельные придáточные предложéния usually refer to a verb, a participle, a verbal adverb, or a short adjective in a main clause. Explanatory clauses function as subjects or objects and fill a missing gap in a main clause, explaining what was said in main clauses; they answer the questions of cases. Ромáн попроси́л Áнну, чтόбы онá рассказáла о своéй поéздке. Roman asked Anna to talk about her trip. О чём Ромáн попроси́л Áнну? What did Roman asked Anna about? The words in main clauses to which explanatory clauses are attached indicate speech, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, or wishes. Explanatory clauses mainly follow main clauses, although they can be placed before them. Что дéлать в э́том слýчае, мы не имéли представлéния. We had no idea what to do in this case

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