Download Suppose, for instance, that the writer wants to achieve

AP Annual Conference—July 2007—Las Vegas
Presenter: Robby Davis, Lee County High School, Georgia
[email protected] or [email protected]
The Shadow Test: Recalling What We Know of the Language of Grammar and Syntax
from
Diederich, Paul B. Measuring Growth in English. NCTE, 1974.
PART I—Directions: Provide an answer or circle the best answer from the choices given. This test is based on one
sentence:
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me and what can be the use of him is more than I can
see.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
This sentence may be hard to read because one comma has been left out. Where would you put a comma to break up
the sentence into two main parts?
What kind of sentence is this? a. simple
b. compound
c. complex
d. compound complex
What is “I have a little shadow”?
a. the subject of the sentence
c. the first independent clause
b. the first subordinate clause
d. the subject of “him”
What is “that goes in and out with me”
a. the first independent clause
c. a subordinate clause, object of have
b. a subordinate clause modifying shadow
d. a subordinate clause modifying goes
What is “and”?
a. a coordinating conjunction
c. a subordinating conjunction
b. a relative pronoun
d. a preposition modifying “what”
What is “and what can be the use of him”?
a. the second independent clause
c. a subordinate clause modifying shadow
b. a subordinate clause, subject of is
d. a subordinate clause, subject of see
What is “than I can see”
a. the second independent clause
c. a subordinate clause, object of is
b. a subordinate clause, object of more
d. a subordinate clause modifying more
What is “is”?
a. verb of the second independent clause
c. verb of second subordinate clause
b. verb modifying more
d. verb that does not have a subject
What is “more”
a. a coordinating conjunction
c. a subordinating conjunction
b. an adverb modifying “than I can see”
d. a linking verb complement
What is the subject of the first independent clause?
What is the subject of the second independent clause?
What is the subject of the first subordinate clause?
What is the subject of the second subordinate clause?
What is the subject of the third subordinate clause?
What is the verb of the first independent clause?
What is the verb of the second independent clause?
What is “shadow”?
a. the subject of the whole sentence
c. object of have
b. a linking verb complement
d. object of the preposition
What are “in” and “out”?
a. prepositions
b. adverbs c. objects of goes d. adjectives modifying “with me”
What does “with me” modify?
a. shadow
b. have
c. goes
d. in and out
What is “what”? a. a relative pronoun b. an interrogative pronoun c. an indefinite pronoun d. a personal pronoun
What is “of him”?
a. object of the verb “use”
c. prepositional phrase modifying “use”
b. prepositional phrase, subject of “is more”
d. prepositional phrase modifying “can be”
What is “than”?
a. a coordinating conjunction
c. a subordinating conjunction
b. an adverb modifying “can see”
d. a relative pronoun, object of “can see”
“Can be” is a different form of the same verb as
a. have
b. goes
c. is
d. can see
What is “can” in “can be” and “can see”?
a. an adverb
b. an auxiliary
c. the subject
d. the object
The subordinate clauses in this sentence have three of the following functions. Which one do they NOT have?
a. noun
b. verb
c. adjective
d. adverb
2
PART II—Directions: Rewrite the sentence in as many of the following ways as you can. Use the same words that are in
this sentence but change the form and the order of these words as required. Try not to change or omit any of the ideas
expressed by this sentence. Each rewritten version should be a single complete sentence.
1. Start with “I had a little shadow”
3. Start with “The children had”
5. Start with “What can be the use”
2. Start with “I cannot see the use”
4. Start with “Do you have”
6. Start with “Going in and out with me”
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By the way, teachers, years ago the multiple choice section of the English Language and Composition Exam began with a
series of questions asking students to manipulate sentence structures in this way. Here’s a portion of the 1987 MC section.
While no longer relevant for multiple-choice test prep, these types of items are excellent for syntax exercises and discussions.
Questions 1-12. Each of the following sentences is to be rephrased according to the directions that
follow it. You should make only those changes that the directions require. Keep the meaning of the
revised sentence as close to the meaning of the original sentence as the directions for that sentence
permit.
EXAMPLES:
I. Sentence:
Directions:
Coming to the city as a young man, he found a job as a newspaper reporter.
Change Coming to He came.
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
and so he found
and found
an there he had found
and then finding
and had found
Your rephrased sentence will probably read: “He came to the city as a young man and found a job as a newspaper
reporter.” This sentence contains the correct answer: (B) and found. A sentence that used one of the alternate phrases
would change the meaning or intention of the original sentence, would be a poorly written sentence, or would be less
effective than another possible revision.
II. Sentence:
Directions:
Owing to her political skill, Ms. French had many supporters.
Begin with Many people supported.
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
so
while
although
because
and
Your rephrased sentence will probably read: “Many people supported Ms. French because she was politically skillful.”
This new sentence contains only choice D, which is the correct answer. None of the other choices will fit into an effective
sentence that meets the requirements of standard written English and retains the original meaning.
If you think that more than one good sentence can be made according to the directions, select the
sentence that




1.
retains, insofar as possible, the meaning of the original sentence
is most natural in phrasing and construction
meets the requirements of standard written English
is the best sentence in terms of conciseness, idiom, logic, and other qualities found in well-written sentences.
“My production of Hamlet will have only a shadow of the Ghost on stage, with a recorded tape and no actor,” the
director announced.
Begin with The director announced that.
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
2.
my Hamlet will have
his production of Hamlet had
his production of Hamlet would have
his production of Hamlet has
Hamlet were to have
Most of those who run in marathons have little expectation of being among the first to finish.
Begin with Few of those.
3
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
lack expectation
expect to be
expect their being
have no expectation
have much to expect
The S-V-C Structure of English Sentences: Recognizing the Basic Patterns
from
Kolln, Martha. Understanding English Grammar. New York: Macmillian, 1986.
The Ten Basic Sentence Patterns
I.
NP
“be”
ADV
II.
NP
“be”
ADJ (subject complement)
III.
NP1
“be”
NP1
IV.
NP
V-linking
ADJ (subject complement)
V.
NP1
V-linking
NP1
The students are upstairs.
The students are smart.
The students are scholars.
The students seem smart.
The students became scholars.
VI.
NP
V-intransitive
The students slept.
VII.
NP1
V-transitive
NP2 (direct object)
VIII.
NP1
V-transitive
NP2 (i. o.)
IX.
NP1
V-transitive
NP2 (d. o.)
X.
NP1
V-transitive
NP2 (d. o.)
The students read their books.
Exercise 1:
NP3 (d. o.)
The students gave their teacher a gift.
ADJ (object complement)
The students consider the teacher mean.
NP2 (object complement)
The students consider the teacher a monster.
Identify the Basic Sentence Pattern of the following sentences.
___1. In the evening Chicago’s skyline is a beautiful sight.
___2. After the picnic, the teacher rounded up the kindergarteners for the long trip home.
___3. My uncle is moving to Arizona for his health.
___4. Yesterday, Rosa bought herself a lovely knit coat at Macy’s.
___5. She made up her mind almost instantly, after only five minutes.
___6. The asparagus in our garden grows really fast during June.
___7. Our grocer calls asparagus the Rolls Royce of vegetables.
___8. During his second term, Ronald Reagan became the oldest president in our nation’s history.
___9. At first glance, the streets of Washington, D. C., seem very confusing.
___10. The colors on my antique quilt have stayed beautiful through the years.
___11. According to the afternoon papers, the police are looking into the sources of the reporter’s information.
___12. Our art history class was at the museum for three hours on Tuesday afternoon.
___13. Sometimes I find modern art very depressing.
___14. We often have Chinese food on Saturdays.
___15. For most of the morning, the kids have been in a very grumpy mood.
4
Exercise 2:
Identify the Basic Sentence Pattern of the following sentences.
___1. The teacher made the test hard.
___2. The batter hit the ball hard.
___3. My husband made me a chocolate cake.
___4. My husband made me a happy woman.
___5. We set off through the woods at dawn.
___6. We set off the fireworks at dawn.
___7. The teacher is in a bad mood.
___8. The teacher is in the cafeteria.
___9. The students were in a frenzy.
___10. The students were in a riot.
___11. The cook tasted the soup.
___12. The soup tasted good.
___13. He takes his job seriously.
___14. He took the loss of his job seriously.
___15. She acted tired.
___16. She acted brilliantly.
Building and Shaping Sentences: Discovering Syntactical Choices
from
Morenberg, Max and Jeff Sommers. The Writer’s Options: Lessons in Style and Arrangement. New York: Longman, 2003.
Building Mature Sentences with Relative Clauses
Introduction: The relative pronouns are that, which, who, whom, whose.
Models to Consider and Discuss:
1. Original: To communicate between tribes, the Native Americans of the Great Plains
used an intricate sign language. The sign language consisted of a series of mutually
understood gestures.
Revised: To communicate between tribes, the Native Americans of the Great Plains used
an intricate sign language that consisted of a series of mutually understood gestures.
2. Original: The peasant farmers till the Nile Delta. They still work in the ancient ways of
their ancestors.
Revised: The peasant farmers who till the Nile Delta still work in the ancient ways of their
ancestors.
3. Original: The players had won the first Women’s World Cup soccer championship. The
President invited them to the White House.
Revised: The players whom the President invited to the White House had won the first
Women’s World Cup soccer championship
4. Original: John Grisham did not plan to become a writer but trained as a
lawyer. His lawyer novels made him a best-selling author of the 1990s, with over 60
million books sold.
Revised: John Grisham, whose lawyer novels made him a best-selling author of the
1990s, with over 60 million books sold, did not plan to become a writer but trained
instead as a lawyer.
Special Issues:
Consider the differences in meaning:
5
The parents and teachers of our school decided against history books,
which ignore the accomplishments of minorities.
The parents and teachers of our school decided against history books
which ignore the accomplishments of minorities.
Constructing Relative Clauses:
Example
1. A weak economy can cloud the job prospects of college graduates.
2. A weak economy discourages older workers from retiring.
▼
A weak economy that discourages older workers from retiring can cloud the job
prospects of college graduates.
A
1. Dogs often pick up some very bad habits.
2. Dogs copy the behavior of their owners.
B
1. The Chinese eat a diet.
2. The diet contains one-third less fat than the American diet.
C. 1. J. K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel at a table in a café during
her baby’s naps.
2. J. K. Rowling was divorced and living on public assistance in Edinburgh.
Creating Relative Clauses:
Example
Two astronauts flight-tested the space shuttle Enterprise.
▼
Two astronauts flight-tested the space shuttle Enterprise, which was named for
the starship in “Star Trek.”
A. Three or four hundred people were waiting to catch a glimpse of Paris Hilton.
B. The embassy was stormed by an angry, violent mob.
C. The policeman glanced down the street at the limousine.
Building Mature Sentences with Participles
Introduction: A participle is a form of a verb that acts as an adjective.
Present Participles are constructed by adding ing to a base verb.
shake becomes shaking
Past Participles are typically constructed by adding d or ed, but sometimes
irregular verbs require endings such as n or en. Some verbs require individual
forms.
disturb becomes disturbed
throw becomes thrown
sing becomes sung
Models to Consider and Discuss:
The old heavyweight proved an easy knockout victim. He was dazed. He was reeling.
▼
Dazed and reeling, the old heavyweight proved an easy knockout victim.
or
The old heavyweight, dazed by a series of hard punches to his body and reeling from a
powerful jab to his head, proved an easy knockout victim.
Participial phrases can animate a sentence with movement:
Possums employ a whole range of responses to defend themselves from an enemy,
baring their teeth, hissing like and angry cat, clambering up a tall tree, or, as a last resort,
falling into a comatose state, body limp and eyes open.
6
Participial Phrase can suggest relationships:
Disillusioned by the American public’s negative perception of the war, some Vietnam
vets suffered severe mental problems when they returned to civilian life.
We pulled off the interstate, descending the exit ramp to fast-food alley, a long block of
deep-fry dens and burger joints stamped out of plastic.
Special Issues:
Positioning participial phrases:
Keeping one eye on his professor, Ricky quickly scanned the X-Men comic hidden
behind his bulky microbiology textbook.
Ricky, keeping one eye on his professor, quickly scanned the X-Men comic hidden
behind his bulky microbiology textbook.
Ricky quickly scanned the X-Men comic hidden behind his bulky microbiology textbook,
keeping one eye on his professor.
Constructing Participial Phrases
Example
1. He was slowed by Parkinson’s disease.
2. Muhammad Ali moved deliberately among the adoring children at the mall.
3. He signed autographs.
4. He shook hands.
5. He spoke in a soft voice.
▼
Slowed by Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali moved deliberately among the
adoring children at the mall, signing autographs, shaking hands and speaking in
a soft voice.
A
1. A team of scientists relied on DNA extracted from a preserved giant dodo.
2. A team of scientists has concluded that genetically the extinct bird was
just an overgrown pigeon.
B
1. The locomotive lumbered into Grand Central Station.
2. It skidded along the tracks.
3. It splashed sparks onto the passenger platform.
4. It discharged gray puffs of steam.
5. It finally screeched to a halt.
C. 1. Polar bears propel themselves with their front legs.
2. They can dive up to fifteen feet deep into icy arctic waters.
Creating Participial Phrases
Example
I stared at my mom for a minute.
▼
Horrified at her latest fashion statement, I stared at my mom for a minute,
examining the small gold ring in her eyebrow.
A. The door creaked open.
B. The toddler threw his half-eaten banana at the nearby crowd of shoppers.
C. The coach screamed at the referee.
Building Mature Sentences with Appositives
Constructing Appositives:
Example
1. In Rwanda, Dian Fossey lived among and studied gorillas.
2. These animals are shy, beguiling creatures whose numbers have been
decimated by poachers.
7
▼
In Rwanda, Dian Fossey lived among and studied gorillas--shy, beguiling
creatures whose numbers have been decimated by poachers.
A
1. In recent years several computer generated movies have revolutionized
film animation.
2. One was Toy Story.
3. One was Skrek.
4. One was Ice Age.
B
1. The huge waves caused by earthquakes are known as tsunami.
2. They are not tidal waves as many people think.
C. 1. Harry Potter excels at Quidditch.
2. Quidditch is a magical hybrid of soccer and basketball played on flying
broomsticks.
Creating Appositives:
Example
Some two-thousand companies have produced cars in the United States.
▼
Some two-thousand companies have produced cars in the United States, a
number that is no longer likely to grow.
A. Teenagers often wear clothes their parents dislike.
B. College life is a series of shocks.
C. My father injured his back in a car accident
Building Mature Sentences with Absolutes
Constructing Absolutes:
Example
1. The huge combine cut its way steadily through the winter wheat.
2. Its blade was churning.
▼
Its blade churning, the huge combine cut its way through the winter wheat.
A
1. The dragon kite soared across the afternoon sky.
2. Its long green tail whipped in the wind.
B
1. When Mom drives, our Pekingese sits on her lap.
2. One paw is on the steering wheel.
3. His head is out the window.
C. 1. Houdini was locked in the casket.
2. His arms were confined in a straitjacket.
3. His legs were manacled with chains.
Creating Absolutes:
Example
Margot stood motionless at the end of the diving board
▼
Margot stood motionless at the end of the diving board, tears streaming down
her cheeks.
A. Zach brought home Sheffield, his new golden retriever, from the pet shop.
B. The party turned out to be a lot of fun.
C. I walked into the pouring rain.
Building Mature Sentences with Prepositional and Infinitive Phrases
Building Mature Sentences with Coordination and Subordination
8
Building Mature Sentences with Noun Substitutes
Structure and Effect: Analyzing Syntactical Choices
from
Fakundiny, Lydia. “Talking About Style.” The Art of the Essay. Ed. Lydia Fakundiny. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. 713-740.
Four Basic Questions:
1. What is the order of the basic elements in the sentence—subject, verb,
complement (if there is one)? Is it regular or inverted?
2. Is the meaning of the sentence concentrated mainly in its verbs or in its nouns
(and attendant modifiers)?
3. What is the architecture of the sentence? Does meaning build periodically or
cumulatively, by suspension or accretion?
4. How are connections made? How do words, phrases, clauses, sentences link up
grammatically and/or rhetorically?
[Remember to read for both consistent use of specific syntactical elements and incidental instances
that mark a shift from the norm. Look, as well, for shifts from one consistent element to another.]
Order
English sentences tend to move from subject to verb to complement, in that order: S-V-C. “The sea is
deep and dark.” If you invert that and write “Deep and dark is the sea” (C-V-S), something a little
unusual is felt to be happening, a change in mood perhaps, and in tone, even in genre: the inverted
sentence feels not only more somber and more formal, but more poetic.
[Inversion in other instances might create an archaic air, a colloquial texture, an aphoristic impression,
and even a mysterious or uncertain feeling.]
Nominal or Verbal
In nominal (i.e. noun-centered) style, the verbs—grammatically indispensable though they are—pale
into the background by being kept at a minimum, with relatively colorless, weak, or general meanings;
the message of the sentence clusters into its nouns and noun phrases (subject phrases, complement
phrases, prepositional phrases), gliding over the verbs as if they were so much filler glue.
Still, although species may be discrete, they have no immutable essence. Variation is the raw material of
evolutionary change. It represents the fundamental reality of nature, not an accident about a created
norm. Variation is primary; essences are illusory. Species must be defined as ranges of irreducible
variation.
(Stephen Jay Gould—“Of Wasps and WASPs”)
The working verbs here are primarily forms of the verb “to be”: “may be,” “is,” “are,” “must be”; add to
those the bland verbs “have,” “represents,” and the passive “must be defined.” The meaning of the
passage, in its fine exactitude, is concentrated not in its verbs but in its nouns and their related
adjectives: “species . . . discrete,” “immutable essence,” “variation,” “raw material,” “evolutionary
change,” etc.
A dominantly verbal style, on the other hand, exploits the concreteness and specificity of verbs to
create a vigorous and/or evocative prose that dispenses with all but structurally essential nouns; action
and movement tend to subdue, even overwhelm, agency and condition.
The cod attack in mid-depth. The gulls smother the surface and press the capelin back among the
submarine hunters. The murres and puffins fly underwater, their beating wings, turning them rapidly
back and forth. They meet the cod, flail wings in desperate haste, are caught, crushed, and swallowed.
Now seabirds tangle wings. Silver walls of capelin flicker, part, reform. Some seabirds surface abruptly,
broken wings dangling. Others with leg or legs torn off, fly frantically, crash, skitter in shock across the
water.
(Frank Russell—“A Maddens of Nature”)
9
In this passage verbs and their participial forms graphically render the underwater killing melee,
thickening into twos and threes around nouns: in this bloody havoc, identity ceases to matter along with
agency; there is only killing and being killed.
[Verbs=energy. Nouns=impact.]
Architecture
Periodic and Cumulative Sentences
One of the most resonant and riveting arguments in King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” begins: “We
have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.” It’s easy, King points
out, “for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say ‘Wait.’” Then comes this
famous passage—a single sentence:
But when you have see vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown you sisters and
brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black
brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty-million Negro brothers smothering in
an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue
twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t
go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in
her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of
inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by
developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a
five-year-old son who is asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you
take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of
your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by
nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle
name becomes “boy,” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and
mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by
the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next,
and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating
sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
[This] sentence, if you read it aloud, will take your breath away—literally. Trying to get through it all in a
single breath won’t work; take a new breath at each of those long, internally complicated “when . . .”
clauses, and you find yourself unable to pump it all back out because of the powerful sense of being
mid-stream, not yet finished—not finished, in fact, ‘till you get to “then you will understand . . .” That, of
course, is the main clause one waits throughout those ten consecutive subordinate clauses leading up
to it. It’s only with the main clause that the sense is complete and the sentence ends. This kind of
suspension of meaning across the unfolding syntax creates a sentence design known as periodic. . . Its
sustained suspension, the long-delayed completing clause, has the effect if evoking in the very pace
and patterning of language the realities of experience King is attempting to portray: how very long the
wait for racial justice has been, how slow is the passage of 340 years.
And here, utterly different in subject, feeling, purpose, and impact, is another very long sentence (also a
single sentence from the standpoint of grammar—the exclamation mark near the beginning is purely
expressive):
I can see her now! And beyond her, a jumbled shifting picture of the huge casino floor, the pools of its
lights on the green felt of the gambling-tables, the gesticulating beefy figures throwing crap, the
ladderman high on his chair above the baccarat players, the ceaseless movement of the dealers’ hands,
the slow watchful patrol of the floorwalkers and pitbosses, the long, long, line of holiday-makers being
ushered by security men, guns at the hips, toward their evening with Mr. Englebert Humperdink in the
Celebrity Room (itself sealed like a lush bordello) beside the cashiers’ cage—and all around, dimly
glowing, the crowded ranks of the fruit machines, clanking, winking, sometimes attended by dim
crouched figures holding paper cups, and now and then erupting into a shrill ringing of bells, a clatter of
jackpot coins and raucous shrieks of triumph.
Jan Morris—“Fun City”
With the word “floor” ends a perfectly satisfactory sentence—short (and cut into by the exclamation
mark) but grammatically complete: “I” = subject; “can see” = verb; “her . . . And . . . a jumbled picture”
10
= direct object complement. All that follows (“the pools of it lights . . . the gesticulating beefy figures .
. . the ladderman . . . ,” etc., etc.) is pure elaboration; this long string reopens the sentence by building
detail upon detail to amplify its complement. Rather than delaying completion of the sentence, this one
achieves grammatical completeness at the start, then lets details accumulate afterwards (theoretically
ad infinitum), after the basic sentence has already closed. This kind of sentence is known as cumulative,
also called running or loose. It tends to create the illusion—only an illusion—of utter spontaneity, as
though the mind were spinning itself out naturally, portraying itself in the very process of thinking.
Making Connections
Polysyndeton/Asyndeton—Coordination and the Lack of Coordination
Here are two brief quotations from W. E. B. DuBois’s “On Being Black,” an essay of subtle stylistic artistry:
I arise at seven. The milkman has neglected me. He pays little attention to the colored districts. My white
neighbor glares elaborately.
You are apt to have the company of a sheriff and a couple of meek or sullen black prisoners on part of
your way, and dirty colored section hands will pour in toward night and drive you to the smallest corner.
The two passages not only look different on the page, they have a very different momentum when you read them;
they engage the mind in distinct ways. The first passage is made up of four very short, grammatically simple
sentences set end to end; the spaces between them are indeterminate, as are the logical relationships that
underlie the sequence. The unexpressed link between the first and second sentence is surely temporal: “When
(or “whenever”) I arise at seven (I discover that) the milkman has neglected me.” The third sentence appears to
make an inference from the second—or is it the other way around? And what is the link between the neighbor’s
glare and the milkman’s neglect? Is the former the result of the latter, or is it, in some intricate sociopolitical way,
the cause of the latter? It is only by attending to the essay as a whole that the reader can begin to construe and
interpret these unexpressed relationships; the power of this prose lies in recording with such apparent simplicity
what is by no means simple—what is, for this essayist, the central riddle of his social existence. Now for the
second passage: it is, most obviously, a single sentence compounded of two clauses (“You . . . your ways” +
“dirty . . . corner”) each of which, in turn, contains two smaller compounded elements; these compounds, at both
the clausal and the phrasal level, are created by the conjunction “and.” One moves through this sentence with
great ease—no spaces, no pauses (except for the brief syntactical one at the medial comma). The idea is to say
what it’s like to travel in a Jim Crow car, and the sentence gets through it all in one smooth step. One may be as
hard put to diminish logical relationships among the parts as in the first passage, but this sentence doesn’t invite
that kind of scrutiny; it averts it by a unity of effect, of things adding up and falling into place with terrible
coherence.
The first passage suppresses connections by omitting conjunctions; this is known as asyndeton (from the
Greek, “not bound together”). The second passage emphasizes connections by repeating the coordinating
conjunction “and”; this is polysyndeton (“many/much + “bound together”). Other coordinating conjunctions that
can create similar effects are so, or, nor, for, but, yet. In a general sense polsyndetic writing is artful coherence,
asyndetic writing a mode of artful incoherence. To understand how each might be working in a given essay, one
needs, of course, to consider the whole discourse—its subject, voice, form, purpose, stylistic shifts and range. . .
. A characteristic feature of polysyndeton—connection by coordinating conjunctions—is the leveling of the
sentence’s structural hierarchies. . . . The mere fact of connection takes over as the ranking of sentence elements
collapses; the longer it gets, the more the sentence seems merely to be running on and on.
Hypotaxis—Subordination
[C]oordinating conjunctions are not the only means of grammatical connection; there are the subordinating
conjunctions (if, when, although, because, while, as, so, that, etc.) and the relatives pronouns (that, which, who,
whom, by which, etc.). These grammatical links clarify hierarchical patterns in complex sentences to show exactly
how elements are ranked in relation to each other. Where this means of connection predominates, the result is
hypotaxis (from the Greek, “to arrange under”). On the face of it, a hypotactic style may demand more from its
reader than a style formed out of short, disconnected elements or pieces loosely joined by “and,” “or,” and the
like. Try these two excerpts from Baldwin’s “Equal in Paris,” the first one a single sentence, the second a shorter
sentence followed by a very long one:
As in movies I have seen, I was placed against the wall, facing an old-fashioned camera, behind which
stood one of the most completely cruel and indifferent faces I have ever seen, while someone next to me
and, therefore, just outside my line of vision, read off in a voice from which all human feeling , even feeling
of the most base description, had long since fled, what must be called my public characteristics—which, at
that time and in that place, seemed anything but that.
11
I knew very well what Americans saw when they looked at me and this allowed me to play endless and
sinister variations on the role which they had assigned me; since I knew that it was, for them, of the
utmost importance that they never be confronted with what, in their own personalities, made this role so
necessary and gratifying to them, I knew what I was doing; so that I moved into every crucial situation
with the deadly and rather desperate advantages of bitterly accumulated perception, of pride and
contempt.
Both passages bristle with relative pronouns and subordinating conjunctions (in italics). It is these logical
links that enable Baldwin to render so precise a dramatic situation in the first sentence, so exact and
finely analyzed an interior reality in the second passage. Hypotaxis, because it builds logical
relationships among sentence elements rather than merely linking them serially, is able to articulate
ideas with great conciseness and clarity—but only if the reader pays close attention. It’s in that sense
that hypotactic styles are demanding: your wits must be fully engaged in the syntax; it will not let you
daydream between clauses or encourage you to glide along a smooth path of “ands.” But a good
stretch of hypotaxis leaves very little unsaid: there are no spaces to get lost in, no gaps to construe, no
loose joints to wonder about.
Parallelism
Parallelism with Parataxis
In hypotactic prose the syntax presses towards maximal fullness and specificity of articulation by linking
clauses grammatically with apt conjunction. In its structure and effects, this style is the antithesis of the
short, disconnected, incoherent sentence stream discussed [earlier]: “I arise at seven. The milkman has
neglected me.” In opposition to hypotaxis, this kind of asyndetic style is known as parataxis. One way,
of course, to make explicit connection suppressed by parataxis would be to transform such sentences
grammatically into a long hypotactic one; another way—a very important and interesting one in the life
of English prose style—is to retain the grammatical asyndeton and to suggest connection and
relationship by rhetorical means. That means, almost infinitely variable and rich, is parallelism: giving
similar form to elements having similar function or status. Any syntactic entity can participate in a
parallel series: a sentence, a dependent clause, a subject phrase, a verb phrase, a complement
phrase, a phrasal modifier, a single word.
Here, from Bacon’s “Of Studies,” is a series of three short paratactic sentences bound by parallelism:
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make
judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar.
Bacon’s analysis of how studies may be misused—and by implication, how they may be rightly used—is
clear and coherent despite the lack of grammatical connections.
[Bacon’s sentence also illustrates anaphora, emphatic parallelism by initial repetition. This is a favorite
device of rhetorical connection. However, parallelism with parataxis can be observed in many
variations:
Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds.
Emerson—“Illusions”
Malaria was endemic, typhus never absent, bubonic plague a regular visitor, dysentery, without benefit of
plumbing, a commonplace.
Huxley—“Hyperion to a Satyr”
The Ordinary lets us live out our humanity; it doesn’t scare us; it doesn’t excite us; it doesn’t distract us—it
brings us the safe return of the school bus every day, it lets us eat one meal after another, put one foot in
front of the other.
Ozick—“The Riddle of the Ordinary”]
Balance
A special case of parallelism with unusually strong connective force is balance: the paring of syntactic
elements whose similar form expresses similar or associated ideas, as in the following:
Their characteristics are respectable; their motives, I am willing to believe, were laudable.
Macaulay—“On the Royal Society of Literature”
The gaiety and frolic of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friendship: and the ardor of a
youthful appetite becomes an elegant passion.
Hume—“Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion”
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Macaulay sets two clauses side by side without grammatical connection. The first subject balances
the structurally identical and semantically associated second subject; the verb “are” is balanced with
the verb “were”; the parenthetic clause, “I am willing to believe,” in the second member creates a
pleasing asymmetry. In the more subtle Hume excerpt, two grammatically compounded clauses
achieve an easy forward movement of thought along two balanced parts.
Chiasmus
A skillful variation of balance is chiasmus: the inverted or crossed parallel. Here are two straightforward
examples (members of the chiasmus are in italics):
In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments and monuments which had no poets.
Addison—Spectator No. 26
But this act of comparison means that our attitude has changed; we are no longer the friends of the writer,
but his judges; and just as we cannot be too sympathetic as friends, so as judges we cannot be too severe.
Woolf—“How Should One Read a Book”
But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the
outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood.
King—“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Balance with Antithesis
Perhaps the most elegant variant of parallelism is balance with antithesis: similarity (even identity) of
syntactic form with difference (even opposition) of meaning.
Alas, art is long, and life is short.
Franklin—“The Ephemera”
The truth of it is, that a man in much business must either make himself a knave, or else the world will
make him a fool . . .”
Cowley—“The Dangers of an Honest Man in Much Company”
For instance, when mistaking certain things called gravity, canting, blustering, ostentation, pomp, and the
like for wisdom, piety, magnanimity, charity, true greatness, etc., we give to the former the honour and
reverence due to the latter.
Fielding—“An Essay on Nothing”
An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but
does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is code that
majority compels a minority to follow and this it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.
King—“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
[The economy of balance with antithesis creates a powerful bond between idea and syntax, so
powerful that it creates a feeling of palpable logic.]
Structure and Effect: Analyzing and Employing Syntactical Choices
from
Martin, Harold et al. The Logic and Rhetoric of Exposition. New York: HRW, 1969. 187-195.
Consider the following:
. . . failed overseers, one-armed tinkers, bankrupt country storekeepers, reformed drunks, Godmaddened paralytics, they were a bleak and undone brotherhood of true believers with scarcely a
dollar to divide among them and only the hope of the soul’s rescue through total immersion to preserve
them and their goiterous women and pale, straw-haired, worm-infested children from absolute
disintegration.
--William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner
Human beings have a remarkable ability to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences which for the most part
they themselves have never heard or spoken before. For instance, unless you had read Styron’s book it is highly unlikely that
you had ever encountered the sentence about the brotherhood of true believers, or any other sentence that is like it in a
superficial. Yet presumably you had little trouble recognizing it as an English sentence or understanding it. The foregoing
sketch of English structure indicates why Styron’s sentence, like all complex ones, has a structure like this:
13
phrase structure rules
▼
underlying structures
▼
transformations
▼
final form
There are a limited and manageable number of phrase structure rules and transformations; because these can combine in an
endless variety of ways, there is an infinite number of final sentence forms. Yet the mind can relate any of those final forms
to the simple underlying structures.
Here’s another way to look at the matter. There are relatively few basic ways to get an experience or fact or situation into
English words and structures:
the woman read a novel
the road is long
the cat slept
the thief has a limp
the milk is in the refrigerator
Forms like these (built up according to the phrase structure rules) offer the only way we have to represent our thought and
experience in language. Forms like these also make up the underlying structures of all English sentences. So it is fair to say
that the underlying structure of a sentence carries all of its basic meaning—all of its meaning which can be put into
propositions. However many transformations an underlying structure goes through, the meaning it embraces is still
conveyed by the sentence in its final form. For instance, the phrase “God-maddened paralytics,” from Styron’s sentence,
conveys to a reader the same meaning as its underlying structure, “God had maddened the paralytics,” even though “Godmaddened” works as an adjective, while in the underlying structure “God” is a noun and “maddened” is a verb.
On the other hand, the final form of a sentence does convey meaning of a different kind—shading, emphasis, angle
of vision, attitude: in short, the speaker’s or writer’s personal way of looking at things. For instance, consider the difference
between
The overseers had failed. The tinkers had one arm. The country storekeepers were bankrupt. The
drunks had reformed. God had maddened the paralytics.
and
failed overseers, one-armed tinkers, bankrupt country storekeepers, reformed drunks, Godmaddened paralytics.
The two versions communicate the same information. The first one, however, seems to emphasize the individual calamities
that afflict the men, while the second makes the men seem all of a type, sharers of a general disaster. This effect the second
version owes to the two main ways in which the underlying structures are altered and combined. The varying predicates
(“had failed,” “had one arm,” “were bankrupt,” and so on) have all been transformed into modifiers, and placed in identical
positions before their nouns. Functioning as adjectives, they make the disaster seem almost like innate qualities of the men.
And, since the modifiers are all in the same form, they suggest that the overseers, tinkers, drunks, and the rest are all pretty
much in the same fix. The other transformation that collaborates in this effect is conjunction, which coordinates all the nouns,
and so implies that all the men are more or less alike. We can say, then, that the two versions convey exactly the same
information but do so with quite different inflections because of the different relationships between underlying structure and
final form.
All this adds up to something important for the writer, if he is interested in his style and in the overtones of what he
is writing. Suppose that he knows roughly what information he wants to include; that is to say, that he knows what
propositions are to form the base of what he writes. In effect, then, he has in mind his underlying structures but not the final
form of his sentences. So an enormous range of choices is open to him—choices of structure and arrangement which are also
choices of emphasis, point of view, and the rest. Naturally, the writer does not—no writer could—first get clearly in mind all
his underlying structures and then run them through a series of transformations. (Transformations are not mental processes,
simply rules.) But he can make himself aware of the choices open to him and of the consequences that follow one choice
or another. Playing with grammatical possibilities for style and rhetoric helps build this kind of awareness.
Here, for example, is a list of basic propositions, which we can take, roughly, as underlying structures (their subject is
William Jennings Bryan):
I confess something
People talk of sincerity
The talk fatigues me
The fellow may have been sincere
Then P. T. Barnum was sincere
Such uses disgrace the word
The word is “sincere”
Such uses degrade the word
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In fact Bryan was a charlatan
In fact Bryan was a mountebank
In fact Bryan was a zany
Bryan had no sense
Bryan had no dignity
Bryan had a career
The career brought Bryan into contact with the first men of his time
Bryan preferred the company of ignoramuses
The ignoramuses were rustic
I watched Bryan at Dayton
Something was hard to believe
Bryan had traveled
People had received Bryan in societies
The societies were civilized
Bryan had been a high officer of state
Bryan seemed only a poor clod like those clods
Those clods were around him.
A theology delude Bryan
The theology was childish
Bryan was full of hatred
The hatred was almost pathological
Bryan hated all learning
Bryan hated all human dignity
Bryan hated all beauty
Bryan hated all things
The things were fine
The things were noble
Bryan was a peasant
The peasant had come home to the barnyard.
Choosing these units of content determines what will be said about Bryan, and to some extent determines the tone. It would
not be easy to achieve an amiable or flattering tone with this material. But a wide range of expressive possibilities remains
open.
Suppose, for instance, that the writer wants to achieve a swift, continuous rhythm and a sense that all the content is closely
connected, of a piece. The writer might produce a version like this one, which relies heavily on the conjunction and relative
clause transformations:
1.
This talk of sincerity fatigues me, and I confess it, for if the fellow was sincere, then P. T. Barnum
was sincere, and such uses disgrace and degrade the word “sincere,” but in fact Bryan was a
charlatan, a mountebank, and a zany, who had no sense and no dignity, and though his career
brought him into contact with the first men of his time, he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses.
I watched him at Dayton, and it was hard t believe that he had traveled, and that people had
received him in civilized societies, and that he had been a high officer of state, for the he seemed only
a poor clod like those who were around him, and he was deluded by a theology that was childish, and
he was full of a hatred that was almost pathological, of all learning and all human dignity and all
beauty and all things that were fine and noble, and he was a peasant who had come home to the
barnyard.
This style seems to blend all the material together, as if the writer is caught in a flow of ideas but is unwilling or unable to
sort them out. And, of course, sharp emphasis is absent.
For an almost opposite style—one that puts great emphasis on each new item, word, or phrase, one might try deleting
connectives and unnecessary phrases wherever possible, actually stripping down the underlying structure and leaving them
pretty much separate:
2.
I confess. This talk fatigues me—talk of sincerity. If the fellow was sincere, so was P. T. Barnum.
Sincere! Such uses disgrace the word. Degrade it.
In fact Bryan was a charlatan. A mountebank. A zany. He had no sense, no dignity.
He had a career. It brought him into contact with the first men of his time. He preferred the
company of ignoramuses. Rustic ignoramuses. I watched him at Dayton. Hard to believe: he had
traveled; people had received him in civilized societies. A high officer of state.
He seemed only a poor clod. Like those around him.
A childish theology deluded him. He was full of hatred. Almost pathological hatred. Of all
learning. Of all human dignity, beauty, fine and noble things.
A peasant. A peasant come home to the barnyard.
15
Here the mind of the writer seems stunned by each new fact or idea; he offers each in its turn as if it spoke for itself and
needed no interpretation. Here too, the tone is very different from that of version 1. The author seems much more indignant
and superior.
Another way to render the material is to rely as heavily as possible on embedded adverbial structures of cause, time, and so
on:
3.
This talk of sincerity fatigues me, I confess, because such uses disgrace and degrade the word. If
the fellow was sincere, then so was P.T. Barnum. Having no sense and no dignity, Bryan was a charlatan,
a mountebank, and a zany, and thus, although his career had brought him into contact with the first
men of his time, he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. Since he seemed only a poor clod like
those around him, it was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had been a high officer of
state, and that, traveling, he had been received in civilized societies. Because he was deluded by a
childish theology, he was full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, human dignity, beauty,
fine and noble things. He was a peasant who had come home to the barnyard.
The writer of this version is doing what neither of the other did—connecting the bits of content intellectually, seeing
relationships and causes. The view of Bryan that results is also different: the man’s character seems more rationally
comprehensible, more subject to analysis and explanation, than in the first two versions, where Bryan appeared almost as a
freak.
Versions 4 and 5 are a contrasting pair. Version 4 gets through the main business of each sentence—subject and verb—rather
quickly, and appends “extra” material in structures that follow the noun they modify, creating what are traditionally called
“loose” or “cumulative” sentences. (Notice that the modifying structures are created by the relative clause transformation.)
Version 5 amasses clauses and phrases before the main underlying structure, building what are traditionally called “periodic”
sentences.
Analyze the transformations used in versions 4 and 5 and try to characterize the effects of both versions.
4.
I confess myself fatigued by this talk of sincerity. If the fellow was sincere, P. T. Barnum was
sincere—the word disgraced and degraded by such uses. Neither sense nor dignity had Bryan, a
charlatan, a mountebank, a zany. He had a career that brought him into contact with the first men of
his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at
Dayton, that Bryan, a high officer of state, a traveler, had been received in societies that were civilized.
He seemed only a poor clod, like those around him. Bryan, full of an almost pathological hatred, hating
all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, and all things fine and noble, deluded by a childish theology,
was a peasant come home to the barnyard
5.
That this talk fatigues me of sincerity fatigues me, I confess. If the fellow was sincere, if P. T.
Barnum was sincere, the word “sincere” is disgraced and degraded. A charlatan, a mountebank, a
zany with no sense and no dignity, brought by his career in contact with the first men of his time, Bryan
preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. That he had traveled, that he had been received in
civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state, was hard to believe, watching him at
Dayton. Like those around him, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all
beauty, all fine and noble things, Bryan was a peasant come home to the barnyard.
Exercises:
Here are five more versions. Try to determine the transformational choices presented in each and analyze the kinds of effects
those choices achieve. Then try to write a version or two of your own.
6.
I am fatigued, I confess, by this talk, disgracing and degrading the word, of sincerity. The fellow
may, perhaps, have been sincere, but so, then, was P. T. Barnum. Bryan, in fact, was a charlatan—he
had no dignity; a zany—he had no sense; a mountebank. He preferred, though is career had brought
him into contact with the first men of his time, the company rustic ignoramuses. It was hard watching
him at Dayton, to believe that he had traveled, that he had been a high officer of state, for he seemed,
like those around him, only a poor clod. A theology, a childish one, deluded him, and a hatred almost
pathological filled him. All learning, all human dignity, all beauty he hated, and all fine, all noble, things.
He had come, a peasant, home to the barnyard.
7.
When sincerity is talked of, I am fatigued, I confess. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T.
Barnum. The word “sincere” is disgraced and degraded by such uses. It may be asserted that Bryan was
16
a charlatan, a mountebank, and a zany with no sense or dignity. By his career he was brought into
contact with the first men of his time. The company of rustic ignoramuses was preferred.
Bryan was watched by me at Dayton, and it was not easily believed that he had traveled, had
been received in societies that were civilized, had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor
clod like those around him. He was deluded by a childish theology, and full of an almost pathological
hatred. All learning, human dignity, and beauty were hated by Bryan. All fine and noble things were
hated, too. He was a peasant come home to the barnyard.
8.
People talk of sincerity. I confess something. This talk fatigues me. The fellow may have been
sincere. Then so was P. T. Barnum. Such uses disgrace the word. They degrade it. In fact, Bryan was a
charlatan. He was a mountebank. He was a zany. Bryan had no sense. He had no dignity. His career
brought him in to contact with the first men of his time. Bryan preferred the company of rustic
ignoramuses.
He had traveled. He had been received in civilized societies. He had been a high officer of
state. I watched him at Dayton, and this was hard to believe. There were poor clods around Bryan.
Bryan was like them.
A theology deluded Bryan. The theology was childish. He was full of hatred. The hatred was
almost pathological. Bryan hated all learning. He hated all human dignity. He hated all beauty. He
hated all fine and noble things.
Bryan was a peasant. The peasant had come home to the barnyard.
9.
I confess: this talk of sincerity fatigues me. Was the fellow sincere? Then so was P. T. Barnum. Such
uses disgrace and degrade the word “sincere.” In fact, Bryan was a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany.
Did he have any sense or dignity? No. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time;
did he not prefer the company of rustic ignoramuses? I watched Bryan at Dayton. It was hard to
believe: he had traveled, been received in civilized societies, been a high officer of state. A poor clod,
like those around him, was what he seemed. He was deluded by a theology, a childish one. The hatred
he was full of was almost pathological. Did he not hate all learning? Did he not hate all human dignity?
All beauty? All fine and noble things? A peasant, surely, come home to the barnyard.
10.
My confession is that this talk of sincerity fatigues me. If the fellow possessed sincerity, then so did
P. T. Barnum. Such uses of the word are a disgrace and a degradation. Bryan’s having so sense or
dignity was a fact, as was his being a charlatan, a mountebank, and a zany. His career brought him
into contact with the first men of his time, but his preference was for the company rustic ignoramuses.
Watching him at Dayton, it was hard to believe: his having traveled, his having been received in
civilized societies, his having been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around
him. A childish theology deluded him. He was full of an almost pathological hatred: a hatred of all
learning, of all human dignity, of all beauty and all fine and noble things. He was a peasant who had
come home to the barnyard.
Finally, here is the passage the way H. L. Mencken originally wrote it, in an essay titled “In Memoriam: W. J. B.”
This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum. The
word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany
without sense or dignity. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred
the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had
traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He
seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost
pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a
peasant come home to the barnyard.
Having worked through ten versions of the same passage, you may be interested in how Mencken himself continued it:
Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not. What animated him from
end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition—the ambition of a common man to get his
hand upon the collar of his superiors, or, failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes. He was born with a
roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits. His whole career was devoted to raising those
half-wits against their betters that he himself might shine.
17
It should be easy to see the same marks of style here that characterize the previous section of the passage. (How does
Mencken achieve the epigrammatic quality of his prose? How would the writers of versions 1-3 have rendered this second
part?)
The ten versions of Mencken presented here are only ten out of an enormous number of possibilities. For all practical
purposes, the writer has an infinite number of ways in which he can render any extended set of ideas or observations. If he
were actually to view his task as that of scanning all the possibilities before choosing one, he would quickly lose all sense of
style and grind to a stop. But it is a good idea to keep in mind the constant availability of choices, so that you do not become
a prisoner of just one habitual style. And conscious practice of the sort urged here can help a good deal to keep choices open
and even turn up some unexpected ones.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Below, I’ve pasted the brief section from my recently submitted-and-approved syllabus that highlights a Focused Study (i.e., Unit)
on Syntax. The materials and concepts in this packet, along with essays from the students’ readers and samples from previous AP
Exams, are the means by which I execute this unit.
 Focused Study on Syntax
o
Series of exercises guided by student’s texts and teacher’s resources.
 Exploring the syntactical choices available to a writer and improving the reader’s
ability to recognize a writer’s syntactical choices.


o
o
Using sentence building mechanisms (relatives, participles, appositives, absolutes, coordination,
subordination, etc.) to style sentences.
Examining the probable rhetorical effects of each building mechanism.
 Focus on the vocabulary for describing a writer’s syntactical choices.
Selected readings that allow a focus on syntactical choices.
Possible in-class essay assignments:



From the 2006 AP Exam: Hazlitt on “the want of money”
From the 1993 AP Exam: Comparing the fictional marriage proposals
From the 1989 AP Exam: Analysis of King’s introduction to Why We Can’t Wait
I recommend using those previous exam prompts that feature a comparison of two stylistically different passages dealing with the
same topic as exercise pieces for focusing on syntax (or diction or organization, for that matter). I’ve found that students are often
more successful comparing two passages at first. As we progress to single passages, I encourage them to try analyzing the single
passage by comparing it to what it is not. (Here’s the 1993 Exam item mentioned above:)
18
19
For 2007 Exam—Question 2—The Sanders/Rushdie prompt
Excerpt from a student’s response to 2007 Exam, Question 2—AP Reader’s sample NNNN (9)
. . . Sander’s most simple and also most effective rhetorical strategy is his use of higher level,
creative and flexible syntax. His two main syntactical tools are parallel structure and antithesis.
Parallelism is an excellent method for comparing and contrasting two arguments, and Sanders
utilizes it everywhere to emphasize the parallelism of a common American dream and the
relationship between history and the modern era of migration. The first paragraph is imbued with
examples of parallel structure, as is the rest of the piece: “the worst fate is to be trapped on a farm, in a
village, in the sticks . . .” or “Americans have dug the most canals, laid the most rails, built the most
roads. . . .” Antithesis fits into parallel structure; Sanders uses contrasting opinions to refute
Rushdie’s opinions and develop his own argument, especially in the last paragraph. This strategy of
presenting an argument and then arguing the exact opposite is immensely effective for Sanders. . .
For 2006 Exam—Question 2—The Hazlitt prompt
Excerpt from a student’s response—AP Reader’s sample BB (9)
Rife with lugubrious prose, Hazlitt’s desolate dissertation on the travails resultant
from monetary deficiency seems an almost personal account of suffering, loss, and
hardship. The extended, continuous sentence that consumes the majority of the passage
contains numerous cynical situations, mimicking the poor man’s journey through life.
Throughout the sentence, “it is” and “or” continually remind the reader of the subject
matter: the want of money. Doom, gloom, and even resignation to failure seep from the
crevasses of this oppressively dark passage. . .
These structural elements work in conjunction with the repetition of “it is” and
“or” to form one lengthy sentence; this sentence serves as the body of the passage and the
medium through which Hazlitt conveys his sentiments. As Hazlitt proceeds through the
long, but not convoluted, sentence, he formulates a wide variety of hypothetical
situations, each of which results in its victim’s demise. Often, a situation will consist of
two parts. Initially, something promising masquerades as a feasible possibility. Just as
rapidly, however, Hazlitt tears down the wall of hope and replaces it with a rotten plank
of lost ambition and deserted desire. In Hazlitt’s eyes, money is not an extravagance,
but a necessity. He deems the lack of money equivalent to forsaking one’s every wish,
spurring an inevitable descent to the realm of manual labor and physical toil.
Concordantly, at the beginning of most phrases (punctuated by semicolons), Hazlitt
invokes an “it is” or an “or,” reminding the reader that, just as this construction is
inescapable, so too is the life path of one devoid of funds. Enumerating such professions
as “seal-engraver” and assuring failure in the fine arts, Hazlitt drags the reader into
an abyss that eventually reaches the ultimate nadir: “to grow crabbed, morose, and
querulous . . . and to quit the world without anyone’s asking after your will.” The
sentence ends, but the passage continues as disenchanted gentlemen “raise a
monument” to the poor man’s death . . .
Excerpt from a student’s response—AP Reader’s sample XXX (8)
. . . In addition to this diction, Hazlitt uses several syntactical strategies to convey his point about
poverty. The most obvious of these is his one massive, extended sentence, which reaches across two or three
standard-sized paragraphs. This huge sentence models the massive obstacle course the impoverished must face
in life; because of Hazlitt’s negative word choice, the life of the poor is present as a continual, unending
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stream of oppression. This stream-like idea of misfortune is further mirrored by the asynditon in the passage.
This asynditon mirrors the idea that there are no breaks for the poor, no pauses, no rests, and this simply
allows the despondency of the passage to build for over 40 lines. This compilation of misfortunes without end
is enough to convince almost anyone of the horror of poverty, and is certainly enough to dissuade any idealistic
notions of happiness within poverty. . .
Excerpt from a student’s response—AP Reader’s sample Q (9)
. . . The entire passage is in fact composed of only three sentences, yet the passage is fifty-one lines.
Hazlitt makes a list of all the pitfalls of pauperdom in order to overwhelm the reader with revelations studded full
of despair and woe. Hazlitt wishes to overwhelm the reader, to show him the overwhelming nature of a world one
cannot navigate without money. The reader feels as powerless and ineffectual as he would doubtless feel were he
in such a position as described here in. Hazlitt lists a great number of boring and tedious occupations, which
serves to deepen the reader’s perception of despair. The author uses this wave of misery and tedium to
effectively portray the circumstances which he would likely avoid by use of money, and suggest such a solution to
the reader as well. . .
Excerpt from a student’s response—AP Reader’s sample KKKK (9)
. . .The piece, “On the Want of Money,” is composed solely of three sentences: first his claim, the
second his evidence, the third his almost contradictory significance. However, the second is of such an
excessive length that it appears to be a passage of some complexity and intellectual fervor, and indeed it
is, though its true wit is not at glance attained. For the second sentence, the great body of evidentiary
detail, is of import for two reasons—one being that its length provides for a progression away from the
seemingly unambiguous initial claim, slowly but steadily surely towards the final statement: and the second
being that, when the final statement is finally achieved, following along anticipated period, its expectance in
the mind of the reader amplifies its weight to greater echelons than it could individually obtain, and reveals
the third sentence for what it truly is, the beating exclamatory heart of the essay.
And within that highly potent second sentence lies the great rhetorical genius of Hazlitt. At first it
appears example upon example upon example, each referring to “the want of money” and supporting
Hazlitt’s supposed stance of inevitable misery with such. Yet, as unpleasant as many of the observations
appear, they become more and more exotic and liberating in an apparent contradiction to his claim. The
mastery of the individual clauses is that each is of such familiarity that it supports Hazlitt’s credibility and
takes on an air of factuality, while at the same moment bearing such detail that it seems imaginative and
obscure, and achieves its main purpose of being slightly enviable. When he tells of trips “to the East of
West Indies” or employment “transcribing Greek manuscripts,” the pains and punishments of such seem to
diminish, especially when much of what Hazlitt describes as a consequence of life, with or without money.
His allotment of wanting money as the source of persons “to be full of enthusiasm and extravagance in
youth, of chagrin and disappointment in afterlife” is intentionally false, for it is existence that induces
vigorous youth and resigned senility, not wealth. Our pathos is afire as we realize that money and the want
of it, which we incessantly blame for our misfortunes, does not cause us “to be a burden to [our] relations”
nor “to grow crabbed, morose, and querulous, dissatisfied . . . with [ourselves].” Money is an illusionary
demon, Hazlitt says, with only as much power as you give it. . .
Excerpt from a student’s response—AP Reader’s sample HHHH (8)
. . . No doubt the most striking rhetorical strategy Hazlitt employs is his use of mere three sentences in the
passage, beginning with an infinitive verb tense and continuing by repeating “or to be . . .”; “or to be . . . “; “or to be . . .”;
over and over again. The repetitive nature of the both the syntax and the ideas effectively drives the reader deeper and
deeper into a dark tunnel of despair, forcing him or her to cynically agree that no good can possible come of being poor.
The author, while not explicitly promoting such an absolute view of poverty (or even lack of extraordinary wealth) uses
the effect to his advantage; Hazlitt presents no beneficent view of poverty for the near entirety of the passage, instead
detailing all the terrible consequences of being poor over and over again and all together, keeping the reader in the same
sentence so he or she cannot experience the relief of escape from this despairing view of life without money. . .
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ANSWERS for exercises above.
Page 1 “The Shadow Test—Part I”
after the word “me”
D—compound complex
C—the first independent clause
B—a subordinate clause modifying “shadow”
A—a coordinating conjunction
B—a subordinate clause, subject of “is”
D—a subordinate clause modifying “more”
A—verb of the second independent clause
9. D—a linking verb complement (predicate nominative or subjective complement)
10. “I”
11. “what can be the use of him”
12. “that”
13. “what”
14. “I”
15. “have”
16. “is”
17. C—object of “have”
18. B—adverbs
19. C—“goes”
20. A—a relative pronoun (introducing a noun clause)
21. C—prepositional phrase modifying “use”
22. C—a subordinating conjunction
23. C—“is”
24. B—an auxiliary (a modal)
25. B—verb (a subordinate clause can never be a verb)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Page 2 “The Shadow Test—Part II”
1. I had a little shadow that went in and out with me, and what could be (could have been) the use
of him was more than I could see (could have seen).
2. I cannot see the use of a little I have that goes in and out with me.
3. The children had little shadows that went and out with them, and what could be (could have
been) the uses of them was more than I could see (could have seen).
4. Do you have a little shadow that goes in and out with you, and is what can be the use of him
more than you can see?
5. What can be the use of a little shadow I have that goes in and out with me is more than I can see.
6. Going in and out with me is a little shadow I have whose use is more than I can see.
Pages 2-3—samples from 1987 exam
1. C—his production of Hamlet would have
2. C—expect their being
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Page 3—Exercise 1
1. III
2. VII
3. VI
4. VIII
5. VII
6. VI
7. X
8. V
9. IV
10. IV
11. VI
12. I
13. IX
14. VII
15. II
Page 4—Exercise 2
1. IX
2. VII
3. VIII
4. X
5. VI
6. VII
7. II
8. I
9. II
10. I
11. VII
12. IV
13. VII
14. VII
15. IV
16. VI