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THE ESSENTIALS

OF

PROSE COMPOSITION.

CHAPTER I.

FORMS OF THE SENTENCE.

1. Definition.-What is a sentence? No thoroughly satisfactory definition is possible; all the definitions are merely approximations to the truth. For example, the following definition, which is as good as any :

A sentence is such an assemblage of words as will make complete

sense.

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What is an assemblage of words? Yes, No,' 6 In

deed," the ejaculations "O," "Oh," "Ah," and other single words, are regarded and printed as sentences; yet a single word can scarcely pass for an "assemblage."

Further, what is meant by " making complete sense ? To know readily and surely when the sense is complete, requiring the period or other punctuation-sign equivalent to the period (mark of interrogation or of exclamation), one must be trained in composition. Now to one thus trained any definition of a sentence is superfluous.

Instead of attempting a definition, then, we shall do better to consider the following practical points:

1. For the purpose of training in the art of writing we are to restrict our attention to such sentences as do contain " an assemblage of words," that is, words enough to call for care in the arrangement of them.

2. The sense is "complete" when any addition or omission, even of a single word, would either change the nature of the thought or give to it a different direction.

3. By "completeness" is here meant rhetorical completeness, not mere grammatical completeness. The distinction cannot be defined; it can, however, be illustrated. For example :

We came to our journey's end || at last, || with no small difficulty, || after much fatigue, || through deep roads || and bad weather.

The grammarian assures us that we might break off at any one of the points marked || and still have a complete sentence. True; yet such completeness would be only grammatical; whereas the rhetorician asserts that all the phrases cut off by || are necessary to the rhetorical completeness, for they are all intended by the writer to heighten the reader's impression of the discomfort of the journey. In truth, the sentence is a genuine unit; the unity is merely obscured by awkward arrangement. This awkwardness corrected, the

unity becomes evident :

At last, after much fatigue, through deep roads and bad weather, we with no small difficulty, to our journey's end.

came,

See the remarks on the Periodic Sentence, § 32.

4. The chief difficulty for the young is to perceive, on the one hand, when they have expressed the thought completely; on the other hand, when they are changing its nature or giving to it a new direction. The root of the evil is twofold. The young are not trained enough at school in writing sentences and are not corrected thoroughly for their faults in sentencestructure. Further, they are not trained enough in correct speech. They are suffered to utter almost any form of words from which the hearer can guess or puzzle out a meaning. Scarcely one student in the hundred is taught to speak wellconstructed sentences of a dozen or fifteen words. Hence it is only natural that the young, when set to write, should compose sentences as they speak, namely, at random.

2. Forms in General.-Sentences are classified by grammarians into simple, compound, and complex. This grammatical classification is of little or no service in composing. It will not aid the beginner in making his expression clear, or forcible, or easy.

The following classification, purely rhetorical, will be more serviceable :

I. The Sentence of Unconditioned Statement.

II. The Sentence of Conditioned Statement.
III. The Sentence of Balanced Statement.

UNCONDITIONED STATEMENT.

3. Fundamental Structure; Varieties.-The sentence of unconditioned statement may be a direct command (wish) or question, or it may be a direct assertion. The direct command seldom occasions difficulty. Something in the very nature of an order ensures its being expressed with conciseness and precision. The direct question is practically a direct assertion in inverted order of subject and verb. For example: He has come. Has he come?

Consequently we may with safety concentrate our study upon the direct assertion.

What is involved in a sentence of direct assertion? In strictness, only two things are essential: a subject and a verb. The verb may be either a verb of action, or the verb "to be" with a predicate noun or adjective. With the verb "to be we may place also the verbs which express existence, appearance, or sensation. Thus, the two words, He went, sentence. Also the three words: "He was tired,' "He felt sleepy," or the four words: "He was an apple tastes sweet.”

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Such simple forms present, of course, no difficulty. Most sentences, however, are more developed, and therefore more complicated. In general, the difficulty increases with the complication. To enumerate and classify all the developed

forms would be impossible. It will suffice to examine the commoner and more representative varieties.

a. The subject, the verb, the predicate, is expanded.

The boy and his brother went.

The boy went and returned.
The boy was tired and hungry.

That stone building is both fortress and prison.

b. The verb has a direct object, an indirect object. The boy saw his brother.

The boy gave the book to his brother.

c. The subject, or the object, is described or modified. The angry boy struck his brother.

The boy struck his unresisting brother.

He saw the books on the table.

The description may be given in the form of a relative clause or a participial phrase:

The boy, who was now angry, struck his brother.

He saw the books lying (which were lying) on the table.

d. The verbal action is modified by some adverbial expression of time, place, manner, instrument.

The boy went yesterday.

The child ran up and down.

The children spoke too loudly.

The boy struck his brother with a stick.

In the following sentence,

The boy struck his brother in the street.

the phrase "in the street" is a genuine adverbial expression of place and modifies the verb. But in the sentence:

The boy struck his brother in the face.

"in the face" is not an adverbial expression of place, and does not modify the verb; it is rather a phrase describing the object "brother." The fundamental meaning would be the same were the sentence worded:

The boy struck his brother's face.

The sentence belongs under c.

e. The verb (of the main sentence) has for its object a subordinate sentence, the so-called direct or indirect quotation.

He said to them: "You have come too late" (direct).

He said to them that they had come too late (indirect).

In the example just given the subordinate sentence is one of unconditioned statement. In the following:

The teacher said to his scholars: "If you are diligent you shall get a half holiday."

The teacher said to his scholars that if they were diligent they would get a half holiday.

the subordinate sentence is one of conditioned statement. See § 5.

Your friend says to you, "But how do you know that?" You at once reply, "Oh, because I have tried them over and over again and have always found them to be so."-HUXLEY.

f. Appended to the main sentence is a dependent clause or sentence, expressing the motive or purpose of the action of the verb in the main sentence.

Hester looked, by way of humoring the child.-HAWTHORNE.

I

say this (in order) to put you on your guard.

He feigned great surprise (to the end) that he might the better conceal his exultation.

The able and experienced ministers of the republic, mortal enemies of his name, came every day to pay their feigned civilities to him and to observe the progress of his mind.-MACAULAY.

In the following we find appended, as expression of purpose, a subordinate sentence of conditioned statement :

Now, in this supposititious case, I have taken phenomena of a very common kind, in order that you might see what are the different steps in an ordinary process of reasoning, if you will only take the trouble to analyze it carefully.-HUXLEY.

g. Somewhat similar to f, yet different, is the following

construction :

I am greatly surprised that you should have made so grave a blunder. Here the dependent sentence beginning with "that" expresses the cause or origin of the surprise. The general

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