An English Grammar Part 83

[Sidenote: _Definition._]

383. A compound sentence is one which contains two or more independent clauses.

This leaves room for any number of subordinate clauses in a compound sentence: the requirement is simply that it have at least two independent clauses.

Examples of compound sentences:--

[Sidenote: _Examples._]

(1) _Simple sentences united:_ "He is a palace of sweet sounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms akimbo; he soliloquizes."

(2) _Simple with complex:_ "The trees of the forest, the waving gra.s.s, and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite."

(3) _Complex with complex:_ "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."

384. From this it is evident that nothing new is added to the work of a.n.a.lysis already done.

The same a.n.a.lysis of simple sentences is repeated in (1) and (2) above, and what was done in complex sentences is repeated in (2) and (3).

The division into members will be easier, for the coordinate independent statements are readily taken apart with the subordinate clauses attached, if there are any.

Thus in (1), the semicolons cut apart the independent members, which are simple statements; in (2), the semicolon separates the first, a simple member, from the second, a complex member; in (3), _and_ connects the first and second complex members, and _nor_ the second and third complex members.

[Sidenote: _Connectives._]

385. The coordinate conjunctions _and_, _nor_, _or_ _but_, etc., introduce independent clauses (see Sec. 297).

But the conjunction is often omitted in copulative and adversative clauses, as in Sec. 383 (1). Another example is, "Only the star dazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like ray" (adversative).

[Sidenote: _Study the thought._]

386. The one point that will give trouble is the variable use of some connectives; as _but_, _for_, _yet_, _while_ (_whilst_), _however_, _whereas_, etc. Some of these are now conjunctions, now adverbs or prepositions; others sometimes coordinate, sometimes subordinate conjunctions.

The student must watch _the logical connection_ of the members of the sentence, and not the form of the connective.

Exercise.

Of the following ill.u.s.trative sentences, tell which are compound, and which complex:--

1. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost.

2. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example, to find a pot of buried gold.

3. Your goodness must have some edge to it--else it is none.

4. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men.

5. A man cannot speak but he judges himself.

6. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life.

7. I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May; that it was Easter Sunday, and as yet very early in the morning.

8. We denote the primary wisdom as intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.

9. Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts.

10. They measure the esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.

11. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.

12. I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred years in one night; nay, I sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium, pa.s.sed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of experience.

13. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his.

14. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, un.o.btrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence than is seen in many lads from the schools.

OUTLINE FOR a.n.a.lYZING COMPOUND SENTENCES.

387. (i) Separate it into its main members. (2) a.n.a.lyze each complex member as in Sec. 381. (3) a.n.a.lyze each simple member as in Sec. 364.

Exercise.

a.n.a.lyze the following compound sentences:--

1. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain.

2. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur that he loves.

3. Love, and thou shalt be loved.

4. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.

5. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth.

6. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives.

7. Whatever he knows and thinks, whatever in his apprehension is worth doing, that let him communicate, or men will never know and honor him aright.

8. Stand aside; give those merits room; let them mount and expand.