Last Updated June 29,1999
 


MIMC:
Main Idea in the Main Clause

       To begin, let me note that I owe the acronym "MIMC" to Wanda Van Goor, of St. George's Community College, in Largo, MD. See her excellent Fifth ATEG Conference Presentation. But because not all teachers agree that the main idea in a sentence is usually placed in the main S/V/C slots, I need to argue the point here. If one thinks about it, it really doesn't take much argument. In fact, the case can be made simply by Joke #7 in the exercises. If people don't generally put the main idea in the main clause, then that joke makes absolutely no sense!
     In order to establish that I am not tilting at a strawman, I need to demonstrate the opposition. Volume 12 of Syntax in the Schools contained several articles on the topic. Because back copies are available from ATEG, I want here simply to demonstrate that there is opposition to my view, rather than to reargue those articles. Bill Robinson, of San Francisco State University, writing on "Rhetorical and Grammatical Dependency in Adverb Clauses," claimed that:

the virtually standard textbook practice of telling students that subordinate clauses are somehow less important or carry less weight or bear less intensity or whatever than independent clauses is, on the whole, incorrect.  Again, Hunt exposed the essential fallacy of this notion with a number of obvious examples, concluding, "It is not on grounds of 'meaning' or 'importance,' then, that subordinate clauses can be isolated, but on grounds of formal structure alone" (74).  (V.12 No.1, Sept., 95. p.3)
My response ("Sorry, Bill, Subordinate Clauses Subordinate," V.12 No.2, No., 95) was followed by objections to my views by both Bill Robinson and by Martha Kolln. (V.12 No.4, April 96). There are, in other words, responsible, influential teachers of grammar who claim that we should not be telling students that main ideas generally go in the main S/V/C pattern.
     Is what they claim a problem? The answer to that is both "no," and "yes." It is "no" because, in the curent state of grammar instruction in our schools, whatever grammar teachers say is meaningless. The most common response I received to the series of articles was that teachers themselves cannot even identify clauses, so the whole discussion was meaningless. If, however, we can help teachers to identify clauses, should teachers focus students' attention on the MIMC principle? Note that I say "focus students' attention," for if the teachers are using the KISS approach, their students will be able to decide the question for themselves. In this case, "yes," not showing students that the main idea is most often best put in the main S/V/C slot is, I would suggest, not just a problem, but also irresponsible.
     As long ago as 1984, Trevor Gamble published an article in English Journal in which he stated:
Teachers also found problems with texts which employed multiple choice questions with      subordinate clauses. Students had difficulty determining the main idea of the sentence and thus     the question; the subordinate clause led to ambiguity and confusion. (Source)
I couldn't say it any neater. Students certainly need to look at the question, if for no other reason than to clear up their confusion and improve their reading ability.
     Once they do, I'm willing to bet that students (or anyone else who wants to look and think about it) will decide that the main idea is generally best placed in the main S/V/C slot. But what is wrong with these other grammarians, and what, exactly, is meant by "main idea"? In looking over the series of articles, I think I have spotted at least one place where they go wrong.
     An important point was expressed by David J. Cranmer, Asst. Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at the New England Institute of Technology. He wrote:
Ed speaks of a text as "a hierarchical arrangement of meanings. Oversimplifying, we might say that the thesis is at the top, the topic sentences at the next level, the main clauses at the next, and subordinate clauses below them (which is why they are called subordinate)." It seems to me that the four elements in Ed's list (thesis, topic sentences, main clauses, subordinate clauses) do not form a hierarchical arrangement of meanings. I agree that thesis and topic sentences are recognized by their meaning, that is by their content and their function within the text. But main clauses and subordinate clauses  are recognized on formal grounds, not on meaning, that is not on the basis of content and function within the text. Thus, main clauses and subordinate clauses can not enter into meaning hierarchies.
     From my theoretical presepective it would be better to recognize that there is no inherent subordinating "meaning" to subordinate clauses (contra what Ed notes in the quote above). (V13 No.1, Sept. 96, p.6.)
Professor Cranmer has finger on the key point in the problem, but unfortunately, his finger slips in the course of his argument. I immediately agree that subordinate clauses are recognized on formal grounds, not on meaning, but there is a major distinction between recognition of form and interpretation of meaning. Robinson (above) made this same slip, confusing recognition with interpretation. And it is, I would suggest, precisely students' inability to recognize the "formal grounds" of subordination that causes the problem discussed by Gamble.
     I still stand by my hierarchy of meaning --  the thesis is at the top, the topic sentences at the next level, the main clauses at the next, and subordinate clauses below them. Consider, for example, the sentence in bold from Joke #4 in the exercises:
The American government, in studying the migratory habits of birds, bands them with a metal strip inscribed: "Notify Fish &  Wild Life Service, Washington, D.C." The bands used to read, "Washington Biological Survey," abbreviated to "Wash. Biol. Surv." The inscription was changed to the present one shortly after a farmer shot a crow and disgustedly wrote the U.S. government: "Dear Sirs: I shot one of your pet crows the other day and followed the instructions attached to it and surved it. It was turrible. You should stop trying to fool the people with things like that."
Grammatically, the subordination in that sentence can easily be changed:
Shortly before the inscription was changed to the present one, a farmer shot a crow and disgustedly wrote the U.S. government:
I'll admit that the difference is not great, but the sentence was probably written in its original form because in the preceding sentences, the inscription, not the farmer, was the focus of attention -- the main "meaning." The main clause summarizes the main idea of the first part of the joke, i.e., the inscription was changed, and then the subordinate clause leads us into the cause for that change, the farmer's letter. That letter, in turn, is the focus of the next three main clauses -- or are they main clauses? They are, after all, the direct object of "wrote."

Adjectival Clauses -- Restrictive and Non-Restrictive

      Grammarians generally agree that "restrictive" refers to clauses which are necessary for understanding the sentence. They restrict, or limit, the meaning of the word they modify. In "The president who chopped down the cherry tree was the greatest ever," "who chopped down the cherry tree" is a restrictive, adjectival clause. Is it the main idea that the writer is trying to express? Is that idea equivalent in importance -- for the writer-- to the idea that Washington was the greatest ever? The very purpose of a restrictive clause is to help to define an element in the text that is contextually more important than itself!
     Non-restrictive clauses are even less important.  Brock Haussamen, who had done some interesting work on restrictives, states:

In fact, however, many relative clauses fall in between the two extremes; they contain information which may not eactly restrict or define the antecedent but which is nonetheless essential in the sentence. (93)
Although he is not directly interested in the question of the importance of the meaning being conveyed, this sentence means that non-restrictive clauses (which are always subordinate) present information that is NOT essential in the sentence. If it is not essential, then it is probably less important than the meaning conveyed by the main S/V/C slots.

      I intend to return to this quesiton and explore it with other examples and from still other perspectives, but my main point is that a text is a hierarchy of meanings. That hierarchy is not divided  by a Rubicon between the paragraph and the sentence levels. The signalling system changes at the sentence level -- syntax, as I have argued, takes command. That is why the students whom Gambell describes need instruction in syntax (rather than, as he suggests, multiple choice questions written without subordinate clauses).
     If, by the way, you are using the KISS approach, you need not, indeed should not, take my word on this question. The KISS approach will give you the ability to identify main and subordinate clauses -- then you can explore the question for yourself.

See also the discussion of adverbial clauses, and of conjunctions.
 

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