VARIETY IN SENTENCE
STRUCTURE
Taken from THE LIVELY ART OF WRITING by
Lucile Vaughan Payne
Loose
Sentence, Periodic
Sentence, Combination
Sentence, Expanding
subject, verb, and object, Exercises
Two sentence patterns are of major
importance:
- The Loose Sentence
- The Periodic Sentence
Every sentence in the English language will fit
into one of these categories or will be a combination of both. Once you
understand the two patterns, you can write any kind of sentence you like without
the slightest fear of going astray.
You can master these patterns easily if you
first get a grip on one important principle: The principle of the basic
statement (main idea).
The following are basic statements:
1. Bells rang.
2. Love is blind.
3. The cat scratched Sally.
4. John gave his mother
flowers.
5. The teacher considered him a good
student.
Every English sentence contains a basic
statement. It may stand alone as one short sentence as in the examples above, or
it may be buried inside a longer sentence. It is the kernel that you have left
after you chop away everything in a sentence except its essential meaning; it is
the kernel you build on when you want to make a sentence longer.
THE LOOSE SENTENCE: This sentence is a basic statement with a
string of details added to it.
Basic statement: Bells rang.
Loose sentence: Bells rang, filling the air with their clangor, startling pigeons
into flight from every belfry, bringing people into the streets to hear the
news.
Basic statement: The teacher considered him a good student.
Loose sentence: The teacher considered him a good
student, steady if not inspired, willing
if not eager, responsive to instruction and conscientious about his
work.
THE PERIODIC SENTENCE: In this sentence, additional details
are placed before the basic statement. Delay, of course, is the secret weapon of
the periodic sentence.
Basic statement: John gave his mother
flowers.
Periodic sentence: John, the tough one, the sullen kid who scoffed at any show of
sentiment, gave his mother
flowers.
Basic statement: The cat scratched
Sally.
Periodic sentence: Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the loveable
cat scratched Sally.
THE PERIODIC (INTERRUPTIVE): In this sentence, additional details are added
inside the basic statement:
Basic statement: Love is blind.
Periodic sentence: Love, as everyone knows except
those who happen to be afflicted with it, is blind.
THE COMBINATION: In this sentence, additional details
are added before and after the basic statement.
Once you have learned to recognize and use the
two major sentence patterns, you can forget about adhering to them strickly. You
can combine elements of both if you wish.
Suppose you are working with a short, simple
sentence--A sentence reduced to the barest basic statement: John was angry.
This short sentence may sound exactly right
inside your paragraph--just short enough and sharp enough to have the force you
want. In that case, leave it alone. But perhaps that nagging inner ear tells you
that it isn't quite right; it needs something. Thus, you make it a shade more
periodic:
John was suddenly, violently angry.
Or you make it even more periodic:
John,
usually the calmest of men,
was suddenly, violently angry.
Or you decide to add detail at the end:
John,
usually the calmest of men, was
suddenly, violently angry, so angry
that he lost control completely.
Now the sentence is both periodic and loose. You
could shake it up still more by moving some of the detail up front:
Usually the calmest of men, John
was suddenly, violently angry, so angry that he lost
control completely.
EXPANDING THE SUBJECT, VERB, AND OBJECT
Periodic structures usually expand the subject or
verb. Loose structures expand the verb or object.
Expanding the Subject:
The easiest way to start the details flowing is
to think of the subject as being followed by a pause. Make yourself hear that
pause. It is exactly the same kind of pause that occurs in your own conversation
every day, in sentences like the following. Notice these sentences are periodic
(interruptive)and they expand the subjects.
That boy, the one wearing glasses, is in my
history class.
This piecrust, tough as it is, tastes pretty
good.
Here's another example: The class (pause)
read the assignment.
The class, a mixture of juniors and seniors in advanced math, read the assignment.
The class, usually noisy and inattentive,
read the assignment.
The class, with a subdued rustle of books and papers, read the assignment.
When expanding the subject, consider these
methods of expansion: description, appositive, adjective, prepositional phrase,
participles, etc.
Expanding the Verb:
Expand the verb by showing how its action
progresses. Any phrase that tells how or when a verb acts is related
grammatically to the verb.
The class read, listlessly at first, and then with growing interest, the assignment.
The class read, after trying unsuccessfully to divert the instructor, the assignment.
Expanding the Object (or the rest of the
sentence):
The class read the assignment, a full chapter.
I saw Mr. Hassenfeffer, the instructor.
The class read the assignment, a full chapter, with a dismaying number of
difficult-looking statistical tables.
I saw Mr. Hassenfeffer, the instructor, flat-nosed, beady-eyes, on guard every
minute.
Remember, written sentences should have the sound of speech--intelligent, highly
ordered speech that sounds completely natural to the listening inner ear of the
reader. The means to this naturalness is through variety in sentence patterns:
basic statements, loose (cumulative) sentences, periodic sentences,
combinations. By learning to add detail in various ways to a basic statement,
you can create any of these patterns; by alternating them, by striving
consciously for variety, by listening to your sentences as well as looking at
them, you can create the natural cadence of the human voice. The big obstacle
that most student writers must overcome is the conviction that any sentence,
once written, is an immovable and unchangeable object, like a chunk of concrete
or an engraving on steel. Remember, a sentence is a thing of movable parts, an
endlessly adaptable structure that is completely subject to the writer's will,
shrinking or expanding to fit the sound and sense he or she chooses to give
it.
So relax, loosen up. Play boldly with sentences.
Combine, convert, shift, change, add, subtract, divide, multiply. Take chances.
The more you experiment, the more you will learn.
DO THE FOLLOWING
EXERCISES
Write a loose (cumulative) sentence at lest
twenty words long using each of the basic statements. Do not change the basic
statement; just add to it.
- The moon rose.
- The man was dead.
- She liked the song.
- They had a good time.
Using the following basic statements, write four
periodic sentences at least fifteen words long:
- Mary left the room.
- Hate is based on fear.
- The man was dead.
- The circus was his life.
Select four of the eight sentences you have just
written and add details that will make each one a combination of the loose and
the periodic.
Expand the subject on the sentence
below:
- The old man shuffled out of sight.
Expand the verb of each of the following
sentences.
- The girl walked across the playground.
- The boy talked about fishing.
Add a simple appositive to the noun at the end of
each sentence below:
- He liked the car.
- John read the book.
- They listened to the lecture.
- He called the dog.
Using prepositional phrases and participles, add
detail to each of the appositives in the four sentences you have just written.
Make each sentence at least fifteen words long.