Download THE FORMAL WRITTEN SENTENCE According to Sir Ernest Gowers

THE FORMAL WRITTEN SENTENCE
According to Sir Ernest Gowers:
“A sentence is not easy to define. Many learned grammarians have tried,
and their definitions have been torn to pieces by other learned
grammarians”.
The Complete Plain Words, Penguin, 1986 (revised edition) p. 174
That may be so, but millions of people have managed to grasp a satisfactory
working idea of what a sentence is, and the following notes venture to provide
only the basis on which most of us work.
1 INCOMPLETE SENTENCES: SUBJECT AND PREDICATE '- Consider the following:
The crucial problems for students this term are finance, accommodation
and examinations. Also completing coursework.
Also completing coursework is not a sentence, although it begins with a
capital letter and ends with a full stop. It does not make sense by itself.
The person who wrote it should have added it to the list of problems
already noted. accommodation, examinations and completing
coursework. Alternatively, if the writer put completing coursework on its
own for a special reason (for example if it were being regarded as a less
crucial problem than the other three), then words, including a finite
Verb (to be explained below) needs to be added to create a complete statement, as in:
Another, rather less troublesome, problem is completing coursework.
What is it that makes this a sentence when Also completing coursework
is not one? If we look at the sentence again, we see. that it gives us a
topic to be considered (a subject), namely: .
Another, rather less troublesome, problem. ..
It also tells us something about that problem, what it is:
is completing coursework.
What is said about a subject (what is predicated about it) is called the predicate.
A predicate must contain a finite verb (here it is the word is), so before we can go any further we
must consider what a verb is and particularly what a finite verb is.
2 VERBS: FINITE AND NON-FINITE PARTS
The simplest definition of a verb is that it is a doing or a being word: eg (to) travel, (to) be. (Linguists
would regard this definition as over- simple, but it should serve our purpose.) Travels and is are
examples of finite parts of verbs: that is, they are bounded or limited by a subject. 1 We can say he
travels, but not I travels or we travels; we can say he is but not you is or we is. Some parts of verbs,
however, are not bounded by any subject.
They are said to be non-finite parts. Look at the following non-finite parts of verbs, and see if you
can put a subject in front of anyone of them (and make sense).
Suppose that the subject you tried to add was John, we get:
•
John (to) eat his sandwiches.
•
John eating his sandwiches.
•
John eaten his sandwiches.
•
John having eaten his sandwiches.
The infinitive is the base form of a verb. It is usually preceded by to, as in I am going to do my essay,
but to is not an essential part of an infinitive. In the sentence I heard her tell a lie, tell is an infinitive.
None of these groups of words makes complete sense. As a sentence needs a subject, a group of
words whose only verb is non-finite cannot be a sentence.
We can say:
John eats (or is eating) his sandwiches. (He is doing it now.)
John ate his sandwiches. (He ate them some time ago.)
John will eat his sandwiches. (He will eat them some time in the future.)
These parts of the verb are said to be finite, because they are bounded or limited by a subject.
To recap:
In all formal, academic writing, a sentence should make complete sense. It needs
i a subject: someone or something about which a statement is being made;
ii a predicate: something said about the subject -something which contains a finite verb.
Sometimes the subject is not written, but is easily supplied by the
reader, as in:
Put your name at the top of each sheet of paper you use .
Here, obviously, the subject is You.
In speech, the verb in the predicate is also often not spoken but
understood, as in:
John: Are you coming?
Rose: No. (i.e. No, I am not coming.)
Bill: I've passed my driving test!
Pat: Good! (i.e. That is good!)
The verb is also quite often deliberately omitted for some special effect in creative or journalistic
writing. In formal writing, however, a sentence should have a finite verb, expressed not just understood.
A sentence which has only one finite verb is called a simple sentence:
e.g. The new students arrived on 30 September.
Sometimes, however, we have two or more statements, each of which
could stand alone, but which are joined by words like and or but.
These joining words are called conjunctions. And and/but join elements of equal value (not all
conjunctions do this) and are called co-ordinating conjunctions. (If you want to know more about
conjunctions at this stage, consult the Glossary.)
Consider this sentence:
The new students arrived on 30 September and registered for their courses.
We can split this into two statements each of which makes complete sense. (The word they is
understood before registered). Such a sentence is called a compound sentence.
Now consider another sentence:
The students arrived on 30 September / and registered for their courses / but they did not have to
attend classes that week.
Here we have three statements joined by the conjunctions and and but. This is another compound
sentence. Try to pick out the three finite verbs in that sentence, then read the note at the bottom of
the page to see if you were right.
3 CLAUSES: MAIN AND SUBORDINATE
In a sentence, any group of words containing a finite verb is called a clause and any clause
which can make complete sense on its own is called a main clause. ~.
Now, however, look at the following groups of words:
•
When I get home
•
If I have time
These groups of words have subjects and finite verbs, but they do not make complete sense. They
are called subordinate clauses.
The finite verbs are arrived, registered, had. To attend is non-finite. subordinate because they need a
main statement to enable them to make complete sense, as in:
I shall complete my assignment when I get home.
I shall complete my assignment if I have time.
These sentences each contain a main statement {main clause) and a subordinate clause. They are
called complex sentences.
Subordinate clauses tell us various things about a word or words in the main clause. When I get
home tells us the time when the assignment will be done. If I have time tells us the condition under
which the assignment will be done. Consider the following sentence:
I shall leave my assignment where you can easily find it.
Here, where you can easily find it gives the place where the assignment will be left.
A sentence may contain more than one subordinate clause: eg
Because the library is full {Subordinate clause giving a reason)
I shall do my assignment {Main clause)
when I get home. {Subordinate clause giving a time)
This is also a complex sentence: ie a complex sentence contains one main clause {or more) and one
subordinate clause {or more).
4 PHRASES
These are groups of words which make sense but not complete sense and have no finite verb.
Examples are
By working all evening
In the library:
Outside the Union.
They need a main statement {main clause) if they are to make sense: eg By working all evening he
completed his assignment.
This is a simple sentence: it has one clause only, a main clause.
He completed his assignment in the library / because he needed to look up
some quotations.
This is a complex sentence: it has a main clause and a subordinate clause of cause (one giving a
reason).
5 A FURTHER LOOK AT SUBJECTS: PHRASES AND CLAUSES
AS SUBJECTS
Now that we have looked at clauses and phrases we can note that the subject of a verb can be one
of the following:
i) A noun, or a noun plus one or more words describing it:
My tutor read the new book. (My tells us more about the tutor.)
ii) A pronoun:
He read the new book. (He stands for the noun tutor.)
iii) A phrase:
Reading the new book gave him great pleasure. (Reading the
new book is a phrase. It acts as the subject of gave.)
iv) A clause:
What he had to do next was read the new book. (What he had to
do next is a subordinate clause: it has a finite verb, had, but it does not make sense on its own.
It acts as the subject of was.)
6 RUN-ON SENTENCES
In 2.1 we saw an example of a group of words presented as a sentence but which was, in fact, only
a phrase. Just as frequently, however, people present what are actually two sentences (sometimes
even three) as one. Consider the following:
Between twelve and twenty graduates are recruited each year, the type of degree required depends
on the job available.
Here, the comma after year is quite inadequate. A longer pause is needed, as we have two
statements each of which makes sense on its own:
Between twelve and twenty graduates are recruited each year.
The type of degree required depends on the job available.
If we put a full stop after year we get two perfectly grammatical sentences. They are, however, short
sentences, and while short
sentences are usually preferable to long, complicated sentences, too
many of them can make for a very disjointed piece of writing. What would be better here would be to
change the second statement slightly,
so that it can no longer stand alone. If we change depends to the present participle depending, we
get:
The type of degree required depending on the job available.
This does not make sense on its own -but it does make sense when joined to the first statement:
Between twelve and twenty graduates are recruited each year, the type of degree required
depending on the job available.
7 TYPES OF SENTENCE
We have seen that sentences may be:
i) simple
ii compound
iii) complex.
Sentences may also be divided into
i) statements: He is a reliable employee.
ii) questions: Is he reliable?
iii) commands, instructions and requests: Fasten your seatbelts, please. iv) exclamations: How well
you look!
8 THE UNATTACHED (DANGLING) PARTICIPLE PHRASE
As we have seen there are certain parts of verbs which are not attached to a subject. These include the
infinitive and the participles. Before you go on, re-read 2.2 if you have forgotten about these parts (called
the non- finite parts) of a verb. Re-read also 2.3 and 2.4 about phrases and clauses.
It is the present participle which causes most problems, so we shall concentrate on that. Completing, for
example, is the present participle
of the verb to complete. Matter completing the experiments is a group of words which makes sense,
but not complete sense. It is a phrase, and as it contains a participle, it is called a participle phrase. It has
no subject, so when it is joined to other words to make a sentence it
attaches itself to the nearest subject. Take the following sentence:
After completing the experiments the beagles were all killed.
The main part of this sentence is the beagles were all killed. The subject here is the beagles, and they
certainly did not perform the experiments. After completing the experiments, then, is a phrase which is left
dangling without a subject. To correct the sentence we must give it one. We can change the phrase
altogether, and turn it into a clause, eg
After the scientists had completed the experiments the beagles were all killed
or
When the scientists had completed the experiments the beagles were all killed.
Alternatively we can give the main statement a subject to which the participle phrase can sensibly
attached itself: eg
After completing the experiments, the scientists killed all the beagles. Take another example:
Before leaving the office, all electrical equipment should be switched off. Before leaving the office has no
subject of its own, so this sounds as
though the electrical equipment is in the habit of leaving the office. We can change the phrase, to give it a
subject and a finite verb and turn it into a clause:
Before staff leave the office, all electrical equipment should be switched off.
Alternatively, we can give the main statement a subject to which the phrase can sensibly attach itself:
Before leaving the office, staff should switch off all electrical equipment.