THE CLASSIFICATION OF SENTENCES ACCORDING TO STRUCTURE
We have seen that a sentence may consist of one proposition or of
several, and that all its propositions may be independent or one or
more of them may be dependent. This freedom of combination gives rise
to three distinct types of sentences, classified according to the
number and the kind of propositions they contain. These are _simple_,
_complex_, and _compound_.
1. _A simple sentence_ is one that consists of one independent
proposition.--“Lightness of touch is the crowning test of
power.”--_Higginson._
2. _A complex sentence_ is one that contains at least one dependent
proposition. It usually contains a complete independent proposition
also, and it may contain any number of dependent propositions.
(a) With the independent proposition complete,--“What inspiration
gilds his features as he descends the mount with the Tables in his
hand.”--_Lord._
(b) With the independent proposition incomplete because the
dependent proposition is its subject.--“That Chaucer, being at
Milan, should not have found occasion to ride across so far as Padua
for the sake of seeing the most famous literary man of the day, is
incredible.”--_Lowell._
3. _A compound sentence_ is one that contains at least two independent
propositions. It may also contain one or more dependent propositions.
In that case it is often called _complex-compound_.
(a) Compound sentence,--“It is a strange tale, but it hath the
recommendation of brevity.”--_Jerrold._
(b) Complex-compound.--“Times of heroism are generally times of
terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not
work.”--_Emerson._
=Difficulty in Classifying Sentences.=--It is sometimes difficult for
a beginner to determine whether a sentence is complex or compound,
that is, whether a certain one of its propositions is independent or
dependent. Take, for instance, two such sentences as the following:
“The ground is wet this morning because it rained last night”; and,
“The ground is wet this morning, hence it rained last night.” Out of
each of these expressions we get a statement of cause and effect,
but the two sentences are not therefore alike, for a sentence is to
be considered not only logically but grammatically, before we can
decide what kind it is. It is clear that in each sentence the first
proposition is independent, so we shall examine only the second.
Now, in the first sentence the second proposition is intended to
tell _why_ the ground is wet, just as the words _this morning_
tell _when_ it is wet. Why a certain state exists may be told by a
phrase as well as by a proposition, because it is only a modifying
circumstance. It might be told here by the prepositional phrase _from
last night’s rain_. If this second proposition, then, is put into the
sentence merely to tell something about some part of the independent
proposition, it is clearly subordinate, and therefore dependent.
In the second sentence the second proposition does not express any
modification of any idea in the first proposition. It states a
conclusion drawn from the fact stated in the first proposition, and
in the author’s mind the conclusion is of equal importance with the
fact that supports it. We may even supply the conjunction _and_ before
_hence_, which shows that the two propositions are coördinate, so if
one is independent the other must be.
It may be said that if the conjunction _hence_ is taken as a part of
the following proposition, the proposition cannot stand alone any more
than can the proposition introduced by _because._ But _because_ must
be taken as a part of its proposition because it indicates the special
modifying circumstance--not time, or place, but cause--which the author
intended that proposition to denote, whereas _hence_ is not a part of
the following proposition because that proposition is not intended,
as we have shown, to be a modifier of any part of the preceding
proposition, but a conclusion drawn from the whole of it. _Because_,
indicating subordination is a subordinating conjunction and always a
part of the proposition it introduces. _Hence_, indicating equality,
or grammatical coördination, is a coördinating conjunction and never a
part of the proposition following it.
* * * * *
=The Partially Compound Sentence.=--Since there are three well defined
types of sentences, it is natural that there should be forms lying in
between any two of these types and partaking of the nature of both.
One of these forms, the complex-compound sentence, we have already
spoken of. Another form is found in the following sentence,--“The
diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no
persons.”--_Emerson._
Here there are several subjects but only one assertion made, hence
only one proposition. The sentence resembles both the compound
sentence and the simple sentence, but is, strictly speaking, neither
one. It is called _partially compound_, and may be considered a fifth
kind of sentence. Sometimes it contains only one subject but two or
more predicates,--“He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock,
and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps
homeward.”--_Irving._
Exercise 3
Classify the following sentences according to structure, giving in each
case the grounds for your decision.
1. I could never fathom how a man dares to lift up his voice to preach
in a cathedral.--_Stevenson._
2. Great feelings hath she of her own,
Which lesser souls may never know;
God giveth them to her alone,
And sweet they are as any tone
Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.--_Lowell._
3. When you emerge from the portals of St. Mark’s, you enter upon
spaces of such sunny length and breadth, set round with such
exquisite architecture that it makes you glad to be living in this
world.--_Howells._
4. Education, to accomplish the ends of good government, should be
universally diffused.--_Webster._
5. If a country finds itself wretched, sure enough that country has
been misguided.--_Carlyle._
6. These winds in the winter season frequently freshen into tempests,
and, sweeping down the Atlantic coast and the winding Gulf of Mexico,
burst with the fury of a hurricane on its unprotected shores, and on
the neighboring West India islands.--_Prescott._
7. The Puritan prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker; but he
set his foot on the neck of his king.--_Macaulay._
8. You get entangled in another man’s mind, even as you lose yourself
in another man’s grounds.--_Lamb._
9. Not what we think, but what we do,
Makes saints of us. --_Alice Cary._
10. He reeled, and staggering back sank to the ground;
And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell,
And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all
The cloud. --_M. Arnold._
11. Only the learned, who were very few, could read Latin; hence
there came to be great ignorance of the Bible, and all sorts of
superstitions and false beliefs took possession of the people, and the
Bible came to be almost a forgotten and unused book.--_Munger._
12. Wherever the Anglo-Saxon race goes, there law, industry, and
safety for life and property are certain to arise.--_Dickens._
13. The islands of the lagoons seemed to rise and sink with the light
palpitations of the waves like pictures on the undulating fields of
banners.--_Howells._
14. The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night. --_Longfellow._
15. Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over
the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat
moored to some familiar shore.--_De Quincey._
16. Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the
Aztecs.--_Prescott._
17. As night set in, the wind whistled in a spiteful, falsetto key,
and the rain lashed the old tavern as if it were a balky horse that
refused to move on.--_Aldrich._
18. Feudalism was an institution of the Middle Ages, which grew out
of the miseries and robberies that succeeded the fall of the Roman
Empire.--_Lord._
19. Tennyson delights to sing of heroic deeds and to celebrate noble
souls.