Simple sentences . . .
contain only one independent clause. Example:
Mrs. Bergey enjoys teaching writing.
What are Compound Sentences?
They join two or more independent clauses (simple sentences). Compound sentences join ideas of equal importance.
Mrs. Bergey enjoys teaching writing.
Mrs. Bergey wants her students to succeed.
becomes:
Mrs. Bergey enjoys teaching writing, and she wants her students to succeed.
| A compound sentence contains two sentences joined by and, or, or but. These words are called conjunctions. Compound sentences express more than one complete thought. |
What are Complex Sentences?
Complex sentences join one or more dependent clauses to the independent clause. Complex sentences are useful when your writing includes some ideas that are more important than others.
Mrs. Bergey, a teacher at Twentynine Palms Elementary School, enjoys teaching writing.
| A complex sentence contains a clause (a statement) that is not a complete sentence. This is in addition to the complete sentence. "a teacher at |
HINT for succesful writers:
Use a variety of sentences styles in your writing!
The Structure of a Sentence
Remember that every clause is, in a sense, a miniature sentence. A simple sentences contains only a single clause, while a compound sentence, a complex sentence, or a compound-complex sentence contains at least two clauses.
The Simple Sentence
The most basic type of sentence is the simple sentence, which contains only one clause. A simple sentence can be as short as one word:
Run!
Usually, however, the sentence has a subject as well as a predicate and both the subject and the predicate may have modifiers. All of the following are simple sentences, because each contains only one clause:
Melt!
Ice melts.
The ice melts quickly.
The ice on the river melts quickly under the warm March sun.
Lying exposed without its blanket of snow, the ice on the river melts quickly under the warm March sun.
As you can see, a simple sentence can be quite long -- it is a mistake to think that you can tell a simple sentence from a compound sentence or a complex sentence simply by its length.
The most natural sentence structure is the simple sentence: it is the first kind which children learn to speak, and it remains by far the most common sentence in the spoken language of people of all ages. In written work, simple sentences can be very effective for grabbing a reader's attention or for summing up an argument, but you have to use them with care: too many simple sentences can make your writing seem childish.
When you do use simple sentences, you should add transitional phrases to connect them to the surrounding sentences.
The Compound Sentence
A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses (or simple sentences) joined by co-ordinating conjunctions like "and," "but," and "or":
Simple
Simple
Still, it has many poor people.
Compound
Compound sentences are very natural for English speakers -- small children learn to use them early on to connect their ideas and to avoid pausing (and allowing an adult to interrupt):
Today at school Mr. Moore brought in his pet rabbit, and he showed it to the class, and I got to pet it, and Kate held it, and we coloured pictures of it, and it ate part of my carrot at lunch, and ...
Of course, this is an extreme example, but if you over-use compound sentences in written work, your writing might seem immature.
A compound sentence is most effective when you use it to create a sense of balance or contrast between two (or more) equally-important pieces of information:
Montéal has better clubs, but
Special Cases of Compound Sentences
There are two special types of compound sentences which you might want to note. First, rather than joining two simple sentences together, a co-ordinating conjunction sometimes joins two complex sentences, or one simple sentence and one complex sentence. In this case, the sentence is called a compound-complex sentence:
compound-complex
The package arrived in the morning, but the courier left before I could check the contents.
The second special case involves punctuation. It is possible to join two originally separate sentences into a compound sentence using a semicolon instead of a co-ordinating conjunction:
Sir John A. Macdonald had a serious drinking problem; when sober, however, he could be a formidable foe in the House of Commons.
Usually, a conjunctive adverb like "however" or "consequently" will appear near the beginning of the second part, but it is not required:
The sun rises in the east; it sets in the west.
The Complex Sentence
A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. Unlike a compound sentence, however, a complex sentence contains clauses which are not equal. Consider the following examples:
Simple
My friend invited me to a party. I do not want to go.
Compound
My friend invited me to a party, but I do not want to go.
Complex
Although my friend invited me to a party, I do not want to go.
In the first example, there are two separate simple sentences: "My friend invited me to a party" and "I do not want to go." The second example joins them together into a single sentence with the co-ordinating conjunction "but," but both parts could still stand as independent sentences -- they are entirely equal, and the reader cannot tell which is most important. In the third example, however, the sentence has changed quite a bit: the first clause, "Although my friend invited me to a party," has become incomplete, or a dependent clause.
A complex sentence is very different from a simple sentence or a compound sentence because it makes clear which ideas are most important. When you write
My friend invited me to a party. I do not want to go.
or even
My friend invited me to a party, but I do not want to go.
The reader will have trouble knowing which piece of information is most important to you. When you write the subordinating conjunction "although" at the beginning of the first clause, however, you make it clear that the fact that your friend invited you is less important than, or subordinate, to the fact that you do not want to go.
Written by David Megginson
INFLECTIONAL VS. DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
Another important and perhaps universal distinction is the one between derivational and inflectional morphemes.
Derivational morphemes makes new words from old ones (Crystal, p. 90.) Thus creation is formed from create , but they are two separate words.
Derivational morphemes generally:
1) Change the part of speech or the basic meaning of a word. Thus -ment added to a verb forms a noun (judg-ment). re-activate means "activate again."
2) Are not required by syntactic relations outside the word. Thus un-kind combines un- and kind into a single new word, but has no particular syntactic connections outside the word -- we can say he is unkind or he is kind or they are unkind or they are kind, depending on what we mean.
3) Are often not productive -- derivational morphemes can be selective about what they'll combine with, and may also have erratic effects on meaning. Thus the suffix -hood occurs with just a few nouns such as brother, neighbor, and knight, but not with most others. e.g., *friendhood, *daughterhood, or *candlehood. Furthermore "brotherhood" can mean "the state or relationship of being brothers," but "neighborhood" cannot mean "the state or relationship of being neighbors."
4) Typically occur between the stem and any inflectional affixes. Thus in governments,-ment, a derivational suffix, precedes -s, an inflectional suffix.
5) In English, may appear either as prefixes or suffixes: pre-arrange, arrange-ment.
Inflectional morphemes: vary (or "inflect") the form of words in order to express grammatical features, such as singular/plural or past/present tense. Thus Boy and boys, for example, are two different forms of the "same" word; the choice between them, singular vs. plural, is a matter of grammar and thus the business of inflectional morphology. (Crystal, p. 90.)
Inflectional Morphemes generally:
1) Do not change basic meaning or part of speech, e.g., big, bigg-er, bigg-est are all adjectives.
2) Express grammatically-required features or indicate relations between different words in the sentence. Thus in Lee love-s Kim: -s marks the 3rd person singular present form of the verb, and also relates it to the 3rd singular subject Lee.
3) Are productive. Inflectional morphemes typically combine freely with all members of some large class of morphemes, with predictable effects on usage/meaning. Thus the plural morpheme can be combined with nearly any noun, usually in the same form, and usually with the same effect on meaning.
4) Occur outside any derivational morphemes. Thus in ration-al-iz-ation-s the final -s is inflectional, and appears at the very end of the word, outside the derivational morphemes -al, -iz, -ation.
5) In English, are suffixes only.
Some English morphemes, by category:
| derivational | inflectional |
| -ation | -s Plural |
| -al | -s Possessive |
| -ize | -ed Past |
| -ic | -ing Progressive |
| -y | -er Comparative |
| -ous | -est Superlative |
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