Beyond the Compound Sentence
The compound sentence is common in conversation, where gestures and tone of
voice add sparkle. In an essay, however, a steady stream of compound sentences can be
deadly. Having read thousands of student essays, I can report that students depend too
much on compound sentences when they write. As might be expected, the most common
errors in student essays are comma splices and run-on sentences, which are nothing more
than incorrectly punctuated compound sentences.
Skillful writers keep compound sentences to a minimum. Some good essays have
only two or three compound sentences in all. Skillful writers have other choices in their
repertory. Instead of compound sentences, they can write short sentences. Although
students rarely use them, short sentences can be surprisingly effective. Good short
sentences are preferable to compound sentences or their defective cousins, the comma
splice and run-on sentence.
Occasionally, compound sentences can be useful, but they should be limited to
closely related main clauses joined properly. A comma and a coordinate conjunction can
join main clauses; a semicolon by itself can also separate main clauses. Too many
compound sentences can be monotonous; therefore, writers should learn more about
sentence variety.
Adding free modifiers yields sentence variety. Francis Christensen, a scholar of
sentence variety, describes the mechanics and dynamics of sentence variety in his book
Notes Toward a New Rhetoric. Christensen asserts that professional writers favor the
cumulative sentence, which is formed by loosely attaching free modifiers to a main
clause—sometimes before the main clause, often after the main clause, and occasionally
between the subject and predicate of a main clause.
Good examples of sentence variety are easy and fun to find in publications like
Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, and National Geographic. Every good piece of writing can
serve to illuminate the particulars of sentence variety. In the August 1972 issue of
National Geographic, I found an article by Melville Bell Grosvenor entitled “The Isles of
Greece: Aegean Birthplace of Western Culture.” Reading it with an eye on sentence
structure, I soon found wonderful examples of sentence variety, well worth imitating.
Grosvenor provides short and long sentences, as well as medium-length
sentences. He writes some three-word sentences like this: “Donkeys came by.” He is
just as capable and clear when he launches into a 48-word sentence expanded with a
series of three subordinate clauses. “I was launched on a voyage of adventure into a sea
where Ulysses had sailed, where the driving oars of shackled slaves had powered Persian
war galleys to their rendezvous with death at Salamis, and where Crusaders had swept
eastward to wrest the Holy Land from Saracen hands.” Although sentence length is only
a rough measure of sentence variety, readers appreciate the mix as they navigate
syntactical waters.
Grosvenor’s mastery of free modifiers is evident in every passage. In the samples
which follow, free modifiers are in bold print to make them stand out. Often he amplifies
a main clause with tagged-on verbal phrases. “Then a whole train [of donkeys] clopped
past, bearing small children waving wild flowers.” Using a present participle like
bearing to set up a free modifier is a popular way to compose cumulative sentences.
• On a chair sat a huge pelican, rattling his beak.
• The crew was ashore, watching a fisherman tenderizing his day’s catch of
octopuses by beating them on a rock.
Expanding the sentence with a verbal phrase beginning with a past participle is also
effective. “Today Delos is a place of silent ruins, adorned by a row of marble lions.”
In cumulative sentences, the main clause sets the stage for the free modifier,
which then provides the juicy details—the rattling beak and tenderized octopuses.
Sometimes Grosvenor uses noun phrases as free modifiers to clarify an unusual term.
“Leaping and cheering as happily as anyone was a papas, a Greek Orthodox priest in a
long robe, full beard, and tall black hat.” This noun phrase employs a series to
enumerate descriptive details. Grosvenor is also adept at using free modifiers as
interrupting appositives. “Nuns of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the state religion of
Greece, live a more secluded life than the papas.” The commas before and after the
appositive operate the same way that parentheses do.
Grosvenor also uses introductory elements, such as the subordinate clause at the
beginning of the next sentence. “When Athens in its day of greatest power assembled
an Aegean empire, it established its treasury at Delos.” In a beautiful sentence,
Grosvenor sets up the main clause and then adds an adjective phrase and a noun phrase to
create a poetic effect. “For two months I would cruise the Aegean, bluest of all earth’s
blue seas, windswept paradise of ancient islands among which our Western
civilization was born.” The main clause sets the stage, allowing the secondary free
modifiers to deliver the interesting details of color, weather, history, and myth.
Grosvenor chooses to compose sentences such as these, instead of compound sentences.
Compound sentences, whether they are punctuated correctly or not, evade the
challenge of providing sentence variety. Once students see the light, they can become
skillful writers. Instead of stringing main clauses together like this: “I went to my
grandma’s house, she gave me a bowl of cereal and I gave her a pie from McDonald’s,”
students can write mature sentences like this one composed by Letty Cano, an ENGL
1301 student: “Every morning when I arrived at my grandma’s house, I was greeted
with a nice bowl of warm Cream of Wheat, sweetened to perfection, never too runny
or too thick, while she was greeted with a hot apple pie from McDonald’s.” Cano’s
sentence is a cumulative sentence like those of Grosvenor. She starts out with an
introductory subordinate clause, provides one sturdy main clause, and then adds three
free modifiers to fill in all the delicious details. Like the bowl of warm Cream of Wheat,
this sentence has been sweetened to perfection. It is an original creation, proving that we
do not need to slide thoughtlessly into the ruts of the conversational compound sentence,
not when there are other choices.
James Gonzales, EPCC English Instructor