Syntax

Sentence Structure

Functional Sentence Patterns

• declarative

• interrogative

• imperative

• exclamatory

Grammatical Structure

• simple

• compound

• complex

• compound-complex

Rhetorical Structure

• Loose - main idea stated at the beginning of the sentence followed by additional information

• Periodic - Main idea withheld until the end of the sentence

• Balanced - phrases and clauses balance each other in likeness or structure

Loose, Periodic, or Balanced?

• After denouncing his accusers and asserting his own innocence time and time again, the State Department Official resigned.

• Together we planned the house, together we built it, and together we watched it go up in smoke.

• He resigned after denouncing his accusers and asserting his own innocence time and time again.

Rhetorical Techniques

• Antithesis - a contrast used for emphasis

• Example - India is a poetic nation, yet it demands new electrical plants. It is a mystical nation, yet it wants new roads.

Rhetorical Techniques

• Juxtaposition

• Example - The apparition of these faces in the crowd:/ Petals on a wet, black bough.

Rhetorical Techniques

• Parallelism - structural similarity between parts of the sentence

• Example - He was walking, running, and jumping for joy.

Rhetorical Techniques

• Repetition

• Example - ...government of the people, by the people, for the people...

Rhetorical Techniques

• Rhetorical questions - a question which expects no answer

Advanced Rhetorical Techniques

• anaphora - a special kind of repetition using the same words or phrase at the beginnings of successive clauses

• example - We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and the streets, we shall fight in the hills.

Advanced Rhetorical Techniques

• asyndeton - deliberate omission of conjunctions

• example - I came, I saw, I conquered.

Advanced Rhetorical Techniques

• chiasmus - second clause in a sentence is a reversal of the first

• example - Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Advanced Rhetorical Techniques

• epistrophe - the same word is repeated as the end of successive phrases

• example - I believe we should fight for justice. You believe we should fight for justice. How can we not, then, fight for justice?

Advanced Rhetorical Techniques

• polysyndeton - the deliberate use of many conjunctions for special emphasis

• example - ...my mother fixed okra and green beans and ham and apple pie and green pickled tomatoes and ambrosia salad and all manner of fine country food...

Advanced Rhetorical Techniques

• zeugma - the use of a verb that has two different meanings with objects that complement both meanings

• example - He stole both her car and her heart that fateful night.

Other Things to Consider

• Sentence patterns

• sentence length (telegraphic, medium, long)

Analysis PracticeNext morning when the first light came into the sky and the sparrows stirred in the trees, when the cows rattled their chains and the rooster crowed and the early automobiles went whispering along the road, Wilbur awoke and looked for Charlotte.

Analysis Practice

Col Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres; he was clean-shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say.

Analysis PracticeIn the grass and the grain, beside the road, and in some places scattered over the road, there was much material: a field kitchen, it must have come when things were going well; many of the calfskin-covered haversacks, stick bombs, helmets, rifles, sometimes one butt-up, the bayonet stuck in the dirt, they had dug quite a little at the last; stick bombs, helmet rifles, entrenching tools, ammunition boxes, star-shell pistols, their shells scattered about, medical kits, gas masks, empty gas-mask cans, a squat tri-podded machine gun in a nest of empty shells, full belts protruding from the boxes, the water cooling can empty and on its side, the breech block gone, the crew in odd positions, and around them, in the grass, more of the typical papers.

Analysis Practice

She was standing in the middle of the railroad tracks.