Improving Your Style through Combining
Sentences
Gerundives and appositives are grammatical constructions that are usually created by deleting part of one sentence and embedding the remainder into the sentence that precedes or follows it. Often, they are reductions of subordinate clauses. In addition to slightly reducing the average length of main clauses, gerundives and appositives add variety to sentence structure. Gerundives Gerundives are created by taking the finite verb in one clause and making it a verbal adjective in another. Consider the following two sentences from a student's paper: My husband and I wandered through the maze of above ground tombs. We snuggled together to ward off the “ghosties”.Each sentence is one main clause with no subordinate clauses, and the sentences average 10 words per main clause. These two sentences could be combined by making one of them subordinate. [While my husband and I wandered through the maze of above ground tombs,] we snuggled together to ward off the “ghosties”.The change creates one 21-word main clause. By subordinating the "wandered" clause, this version tends to emphasize the "we snuggled." The focus could be shifted by subordinating the other clause: My husband and I wandered through the maze of above ground tombs [while we snuggled together to ward off the “ghosties”.]By deleting the subject of the subordinate clause and changing the form of the verb, we can create a more concise (less wordy) semi-reduced clause: [While wandering through the maze of above ground tombs,] my husband and I snuggled together to ward off the “ghosties”.Note that in the first version, the meaningful subject, which was in the subordinate clause, has to be moved to the main clause where it replaced the pronoun "we." In each example, the semi-reduced clause is one word shorter than the original. Some writers, however, prefer to make such a sentence still shorter by eliminating the subordinating conjunction -- thereby creating a gerundive: Wandering through the maze of above ground tombs, my husband and I snuggled together to ward off the “ghosties”.Note that in the second example, the gerundive had to be moved to the beginning of sentence so that it would clearly chunk to "my husband and I." If the gerundive had been left at the end of the sentence, the sentence would have suggested that the tombs were snuggling together.
Appositives Appositives are created in a way that is similar to gerundives. The primary difference is that in an appositive, a predicate noun in one clause becomes an appositive in another. The following two sentences are from a student's paper: The beautiful overlook is located in Buck. Buck is a small town near Lancaster.These two main clauses average seven words per main clause. They could be combined using a subordinate conjunction: The beautiful overlook is located in Buck, [which is a small town near Lancaster].The change results in a 14-word main clause, but the "which is" does not add anything to the meaning of the sentence. More mature writers therefore often prefer to delete it, thereby creating an appositive: The beautiful overlook is located in Buck, a small town near Lancaster.This change results in a twelve-word main clause, still 71% longer than the average for the two separate main clauses, but more concise than the version with the subordinate clause.
A Note of Caution As you should have noted from the discussion of the class's analysis of your own writing samples, the syntactic styles of class members differ significantly. If your style is simple and you do not use any gerundives or appositives, you should probably try to create a couple in a paper in the process of editing it. On the other hand, if you already have a complex style, remember that you can make your style too tight and complex. I would suggest, for example, that newspaper articles are often syntactically too complex because they use too many gerundives and appositives. The elimination of "meaningless" connecting words ("which is," "that are," etc.) results in new information coming so fast that readers have difficulty processing it. Always keep your intended readers (audience) in mind. Sometimes subordinate clauses are better than gerundives and appositives.
Many sentences
can be combined in a variety of different ways to give them different focusses
and/or logical connections. The following exercises may help you with this.
Mixed Exercises on Combining Sentences Exercise # 1 |
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