Text Chapter 16
Text Chapter 18
Grammar Text Table of Contents
Chapter 17 – Coordination of Phrases and Clauses (Compound Constituents).
Coordination involves attaching two sentence constituents together with a coordinating conjunction (and, or, nor, but, yet, so, and a few other possibilities including a few pairs like either/or, neither/nor) or punctuation that acts like a conjunction. Phrases (even one-word phrases) or clauses may be thusly joined. When such components are joined thusly, an implied relationship of syntactic or semantic equality exists. Constituents that call for being coordinated thusly are called compound.
Compound constituents can occur anywhere in a sentence. Remember the basic sentence patterns as your think of this. Any constituents in any of the sentence patterns might be compounded.
Examples:
Tom, Dick, and Harry entered the bar. (Compound subjects)
Tom entered the bar and tripped over the table. (Compound predicates)
Tom lifted and threw the large stone. (Compound verbs)
Tom left the bar and the country. (Compound direct objects)
Tom sent his mother and his sister flowers. (Compound indirect objects)
Tom is a man and a coward. [Compound subject complements (Nom)]
Tom is angry and frightened. [Compound subject complements (Adj)]
Tom made his mother sad and angry. [Compound object complements (Adj)]
The class elected Tom secretary and treasurer. [Compound object complements (Nom)]
Modifiers can also be compounded:
The long, tall, incredibly stupid horse tripped over his feet. (Compound adjective phrases)
The wet clothing hung very heavily and quite limply over the line. (Compound adverb phrases)
Some schools are run by the students, for the students, and without the students. (Compound prepositional phrases).
Nonfinite Verb phrases can be compounded:
To die, to sleep, and to dream are Hamletish activities. (Compound infinitive phrases)
Dancing on hearts and swimming in jealousy are two adventurous activities. (Compound gerund phrases)
The person Dancing on hearts and swimming in jealousy is in serious jeopardy. (Compound participial phrases)
Subordinate clauses can be compounded:
When I shop or when I drop, I like to do it at the mall.
(This is getting tedious!) Let’s move on to independent clauses. Here we are talking about compound sentences (that is, two or more independent clauses strung together as a single sentence). I warned you about using too many adjectives phrases and adverbs phrases in your writing. Now I’ll warn you about compound sentences. Excessive compound sentences in writing smacks of immature writing. Bad writing. Stinking writing. Writing that should not be writ. Wrote. Wrotten! Enough said.
Examples:
Bill has a kite and Jim has a Cadillac. (Note: There is usually no internal punctuation if the independent clauses are short.)
An old woman lived in a shoe on 54th Street, and her husband lived in a boot on Orchard Street. (Note: A comma is required between longer clauses in compounded sentences.)
Another old lady, my mother, lives in southern Idaho; and my brother lives with her. (Note: If there is other punctuation in any of the independent clauses of a compound sentence, a semicolon is required between the clauses.)
A third old lady lives in Indiana; her cats live with her. (Note: If there is no coordinating conjunction between independent clauses, a semicolon is required. To use a comma instead of a semicolon is to write a comma splice. In America, it is politically correct for us to be appalled by comma splices.)
That’s everything I want to say about compounding.
Bye!
Chapter 17 Homework: Type 3 sentences that contain a variety of compound constituents. Underline the compound constituents and explain them as I have above.