Good Sentences

What is a good sentence? How do we know one when we see one? What can we learn from good sentences? Can we become better readers and writers by stopping occasionally to notice sentences and to examine them? We address these questions here by examining sentences from all types of sources.

Good sentences are the focus here. Sometimes we look at long ones and other times we look at short ones. And then sometimes we look at a good paragraph or two. After all, paragraphs are made from sentences and sometimes the collective meaning of those sentences transcends the meaning of any individual sentence. Let’s consider one such sequence of paragraphs.

 

This sequence of paragraphs is from Father Joe, written by Tony Hendra. The topic of this sequence of paragraphs is newness. Let’s consider the sequence first. It begins with Father Joe commenting on newness:

“People are always changing themselves and their world, dear. Very few of the changes are new. We rather confuse change and newness I think. What is truly new never changes.”

“You speak in riddles, aged progenitor.”

“The world worships a certain kind of newness. People are always talking about a new car, or a new drink or p-p-play or house, but these things are not truly new, are they? They begin to get old the minute you acquire them. New is not in things. New is within us. The truly new is something that is new forever: you. Every morning of your life and every evening, every moment is new. You have never lived this moment before and you never will again. In this sense the new is also the eternal.” (Hendra, 2004, p. 240)

Sometimes the collective meaning of the sentences of a paragraph or of those of a sequence of paragraphs transcends the meaning of any individual sentence in the sequence. The collective voice is truer and we need to listen for it.

 

At this time of year in North America, or maybe specifically in the United States, newness and wanting are ever present. Father Joe’s comments, however, go far beyond the feelings associated with any holiday in whatever culture. What Father Joe gives us here is insight into the source of newness. His words here are a gift that comes unwrapped and without a name tag, but the surprise of the gift is not lessened by the absence of the wrapping. This is a gift we can use for the rest of our lives. The words “Thank you” are inadequate here. Unless of course we think of them whenever we are reminded of Father Joe’s words and how those words continue to teach us.

 

If you would like to read more, the complete reference follows. At any rate, perhaps in the new year we can strive to discover our newness.

 

Reference: Hendra, T. (2004). Father Joe. New York: Random House.

posted by: sentenceguy at 21:29 | link | comments |

After a long absence from this blog, "sentenceguy" returns with a doozy of a sentence to consider.

Charles Dickens first published his novel Bleak House in 1852. The sentence here appears in Chapter VI, as the first sentence in a characteristically Dickens kind of paragraph. The sentence is striking for its structural complexity on the one hand and simplicity on the other. The paragraph describes in detail the interior of a house, and this sentence starts it off: 

It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them. 

First, consider the sentence as divided into its eight clauses in this table representation: 

IND	It was one of those delightfully irregular houses
DEP 1		where you go up and down steps out of one room into another
COOR		and
DEP 2		where you come upon more rooms
DEP 3			when you think
DEP 4				you have seen all
DEP 5					there are
COOR		and
DEP 6		where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages
COOR		and
DEP 7		where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them.

Only one independent clause appears in this sentence: “It was one of those delightfully irregular houses.” Its subject-verb combination is “It was.” As the noun “one” functions as a complement of the subject “It,” the verb pattern in this clause is SVC. This is a fairly innocent beginning.

The first dependent clause in this sentence is “where you go up and down steps out of one room into another.” As this clause modifies the common noun “houses” in the independent clause, this is an adjective clause. The subordinator in this clause is “where.” Its subject-verb combination is “you go,” and it forms the SV verb pattern as no objects or complements appear here.

The second dependent clause in this sentence is “where you come upon more rooms.” This clause also modifies the common noun “houses” in the independent clause, so this is also an adjective clause. The subordinator here is “where.” The subject-verb combination here is “you come upon,” and this clause forms the SVO pattern as the common noun “rooms” functions as an object of the verb “come upon.”

The third dependent clause in this sentence is “when you think.” At three words, this is the next to the shortest clause in this sentence. As this clause adds a time reference to the sentence, it is an adverbial clause of time. Its subordinator is “when,” and its subject-verb combination is “you think.” As the next dependent clause functions as an object of the verb “think,” the verb pattern here is SVO. 

The fourth dependent clause in this sentence is “you have seen all.” At four words, this is the third shortest clause in this sentence. This clause functions as an object of the verb “think” in the third dependent clause, so this clause is a noun clause. The subordinator here is the “zero” subordinator. If this clause had a visible subordinator, it would be “that.” In this case, the pronoun “all” functions as an object of the verb “have seen,” so the clause forms the SVO structure. 

The fifth dependent clause in this sentence is “there are,” and at two words it is the shortest clause in the sentence, whether dependent or independent. This clause modifies the pronoun “all” in the previous dependent clause, which means that this is an adjective clause. The subordinator here is the “zero” subordinator. If this clause had a visible subordinator, it would be “that.” If the subordinator “that” appeared in this clause, it would be the subject of the verb “are.” But as the clause is in its original form here, it has no subject. In this case, “there” appears in the subject position even though it is not the subject. In fact, “there” functions as a complement of the subject that is absent, so the clause forms the SVC structure except “S” is missing. This is only possible here because the clause includes the “there is/there are” structure. With any other structure, a subordinator would have to be present to fill the role of the subject of the clause.

The sixth and next to last dependent clause in this sentence is “where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages.” This clause reverts back to the pattern that the first two dependent clauses establish here. Just like those two clauses, this clause modifies the common noun “houses” in the independent clause, so this clause also is an adjective clause. As in those clauses, the subordinator here is “where.” The subject-verb combination here is “provision…is,” and this clause forms the SVC pattern as the adverbial of location “there” functions here as a complement of the subject “provision.”

The seventh and final dependent clause in this sentence is “where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them.” This clause maintains the pattern of the first, second, and sixth dependent clauses. Just like those three, this one modifies the common noun “houses” in the independent clause. This clause is also the fourth dependent clause in this sentence with “where” as its subordinator. The subject-verb combination here is “you find,” and this clause forms the SVO pattern as the hyphenated noun “cottage-rooms” functions as an object of the verb “find.” 

Lest we forget, three coordinators appear in this sentence. The first coordinator in this sentence is “and” which appears immediately after “another.” The second coordinator is “and” which appears immediately following “there are.” The third coordinator is “and” which appears immediately after “passages.” Each of these coordinators appears between two dependent clauses: the first appears between the first two dependent clauses, the second between the fifth and sixth dependent clauses, the third between the sixth and seventh dependent clauses.

To wrap up, this sentence from Bleak House is typical of those that Charles Dickens liked to could construct. In the sentence we find seven dependent clauses. Of those, five are adjective clauses of which four have the same subordinator, “where.” With such repetition, the clauses form a sort of list in the sentence of characteristics of the “houses” that he mentions in the independent clause. Of the other two dependent clauses here, one is an adverbial clause and the other is a noun clause. So, in this sentence we find all three kinds of dependent clauses represented. With just one independent clause and seven dependent clauses, the sentence type here is complex. Although “1+7” may be somewhat uncommon, especially among authors other than Dickens, the sentence type remains complex.

 

posted by: sentenceguy at 15:21 | link | comments (3) |

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