SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 4, Lesson 9

Swanky Sentence Types

Objective

In this lesson, you'll get quick definitions of more complex sentence styles.

As we said in Lesson 8 Sentence Variety, we use the grammatical terms simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex to describe basic sentence structure. Now we'd like to add three more terms--"periodic," "cumulative," and "balanced"--to the structures available to you. Remember to keep unity as a guiding principle for all your sentences, no matter their structure.

The Periodic Sentence

Generally, when we write, we do not know exactly what we are going to say until we say it. Most sentences are composed, thus, in the dark: we begin with the general idea of what we want to say and plow through the words and structures available to us until we either express that general idea, or alter it by changing our minds midway-through. Periodic sentences cannot be composed this way, since they build up, often through two or more parallel structures, to a climactic main clause. Since the area of most impact in many sentences is the end, periodic sentences are useful for placing emphasis in the area of greatest importance. While it is difficult to write in periodic sentences, understanding what they are can help you revise for suspense, rhythmic interest, and impact. Remember that your guiding principal as a sentence writer will be to express your thoughts and ideas in unified sentence-cycles, as we say in Chapter 4, Lesson 7, Sentence Unity. Once you feel comfortable doing that, it's fun to experiment with different sentence types and structures. Periodic sentences often surprise and delight not because they digress and wander, but because they suspend the main, unified idea of a sentence, thereby using the technique of suspense to maintain a reader's attention. Here's an example from Walker Percy's The Message in the Bottle:

Why is it that a man riding a good computer train from Larchmont to New York, whose needs and drives are satisfied, who has a good home, loving wife and family, good job, who enjoys unprecedented "cultural and recreational facilities," often feels bad without knowing why?

If we broke this question down to its most basic parts, it would ask something like "Why does a man feel bad?" But because Percy has separated the subject of this question--"man"--from its verb and object--"feels bad"--with a good many details that qualify and restrict that question, revealing thereby that the question he's asking applies to a very specific kind of man, this sentence contains a lot more meaning than our paraphrase suggests. The information suspended between the sentence's subject and verb makes this sentence periodic. We hope you notice that it's both profoundly moving and unified.

Here's a sentence by Virginia Woolf:

No one perhaps has ever felt passionately towards a lead pencil.

While this sentence is not periodic in the classic sense, it does withhold essential information from readers until the last uttered noun, or breath. That is, the meaning of the sentence is unclear until the verb "felt" is completed. Thus, it is suspenseful--it demands readers' undivided attention by holding back until the last second.

Now look at this series of sentences by Annie Dillard:

The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise.

The first sentence in this example makes a relatively direct statement. The second sentence in this example begins with an introductory clause ("If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever"), but does not define the antecedent of "he" until near the end of the main clause. Withholding the information found in the words "any lunatic at all" suspends the sentence's meaning in the air, making it similar to a periodic sentence. Dillard's last sentence, however, is truly periodic, since its main information (that "the literature of illumination" is "a gift and a total surprise") is withheld until the end. As you can see, periodic sentences are interesting because they are suspenseful.

Trick of the Periodic: Interrupting Clauses and Phrases

Periodic sentences are generally built with a series of interrupting clauses. Let's look at Dillard's last sentence again:

The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise.

As we've already seen, the main information in this sentence is that "the literature of illumination…is a gift and a total surprise." The clauses that break this information up in Dillard's true sentence hold the predicate of this simple sentence at bay, keeping it up in the air like a juggler's orange.

Here's another example by the writer Seymour Krim:

At 51, believe it or not, or believe it and pity me if you are young and swift, I still don't know truly "what I want to be."

Now let's look at a series of sentences by James Baldwin:

I had never before been so aware of policemen, on foot, on horseback, on corners, everywhere, always two by two. Nor had I ever been so aware of small knots of people. They were on stoops and on corners and in doorways, and what was striking about them, I think, was that they did not seem to be talking. Never, when I passed these groups, did the usual sound of a curse or a laugh ring out and neither did there seem to be any hum of gossip.

The first sentence in this example begins directly enough. Since its main clause comes at its beginning, it is not periodic. Note, however, that the way Baldwin elaborates on the policemen produces a rhythm that infuses the sentence with power. Baldwin's second sentence is also a very direct statement. In his third sentence, Baldwin uses two interrupting clauses--"what was striking about them" and "I think"--to suspend the completion of his sentence, while his fourth sentence uses one interrupting clause--"when I passed these groups"--to do this.

Remember to always keep the purpose of your writing and your audience in mind when you revise your sentences. Since these examples come from personal essays, they tend to be more informal. It is, however, quite possible to use interrupting clauses and phrases in more academic writing. One might, for example, move the overt transitional phrases in "for example" and "in conclusion" from the beginning of sentences to the middle of sentences in order to achieve a more periodic pacing.

Exercise

Separate the subject from the predicate of this sentence with a few interrupting clauses without confusing the sentence's unity and clarity:

Elisa was my very best friend.

The Cumulative Sentence

If you adopt the advice covered in Lesson 5 Nominalization and Passive Voice and begin most sentences with clear subjects (actors) and predicates (actions), you can also build interesting sentences by tagging on modifiers. When you do this, you'll be writing cumulative sentences--sentences that begin with straightforward declarations and then add on modifying details, distilling and refining the main statement:

Hank Doctor was my husband's best friend on the Seneca reservation. He was raunchy, hard drinking, outrageous in behavior and looks. His hair was long and scraggly, his nearly black eyes were genuinely wild, and his blue jeans were always caked with dust and falling down his hips. His wit was wicked, his laugh raucous, dangerous, infectious. (Diana Hume George, "Wounded Chevy at Wounded Knee")

This entire passage gradually adds on details, refining the first idea expressed. But look at what happens in many of the sentences--the way George gradually refines the information expressed in generally simple sentences. In "He was raunchy, hard drinking, outrageous in behavior and looks," George elaborates the information in "he was raunchy" with "hard drinking" and "outrageous in behavior and looks." In "His wit was wicked, his laugh raucous, dangerous, infectious," she does much the same thing--giving us the details of "wicked" by modifying it with the adjectives "raucous," "dangerous," and "infectious."

Here's another example by Henry David Thoreau:

I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. (Henry David Thoreau, "Walking")

Notice that the main information of this passage is that the speaker "can easily walk…any number of miles…without going by any house." Everything that follows that statement is meant to elaborate on that main idea, and is, as such, generally descriptive, giving us the details that seem to want to prove it.

Exercise

Elaborate on Thoreau's sentence by adding modifiers to its end, then compare your answers to ours:

I often do my grocery shopping at night.

The Balanced Sentence

As we have seen in several SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook lessons in Chapter 4 Grammar, grammarians break the structures of sentences down into several types: the simple, the compound, the complex, and the compound-complex. A simple sentence expresses one main idea (The children were asleep); a compound sentence expresses two separate, but equal ideas (The children were asleep, and I was also tired); and a complex sentence expresses several unequal ideas (Although the children were asleep, I had too much work to do to go to bed myself.) In a process called subordination, we produce complex sentences by combining dependent clauses with independent clauses. Here's an example of a complex sentence:

Although many are called, few are chosen.

Because "although many are called" cannot stand on its own, it is a "dependent" clause--it needs something to be added to it to be considered complete. On the other hand, we could just say "few are chosen" without needing anything else to have a grammatically complete sentence--this makes that clause in our original sentence an "independent" one. You'll notice that the independent clause in all complex sentences is the most meaningful and emphatic. If you were asked what the meaning of the sentence above is, you would have to say something about few being chosen--you wouldn't need to tell us that "many are called." This is what we mean when we say that complex sentence "expresses several unequal ideas." Although there's nothing at all wrong with complex sentences, sometimes compound sentences may be more effective: with them you can equalize ideas, revealing that the first thing you say is no more important than the second or third thing you say.

Balancing Ideas

In a process called "coordination," we can use the coordinating conjunctions--for, an, nor, but, or, and yet-to join two or more equal ideas together. The acronym FANBOY will help you to remember the coordinating conjunctions. Compound sentences are often very graceful and interesting rhythmically. Here are two sentences that express four equal ideas:

I heard the news that Dr. Sam was coming for a visit, and rushed around my house picking up toys and dusting the furniture with an old t-shirt. I thawed a roast in the microwave and took a five-minute shower.

These two sentences provide equal information--it seems no more important that Dr. Sam is coming for a visit than that the writer "rushed around [her] house." The second sentence also provides equal information--implying that thawing a roast and taking a five-minute shower are equal activities. If we revised the first sentence to make it complex, it would read something like this:

When I heard the news that Dr. Sam was coming for a visit, I rushed around my house picking up toys and dusting the furniture with an old t-shirt. Then I thawed a roast in the microwave and took a five-minute shower.

The structure of our subordinated sentence suggests that rushing around is important for the visit to be a success, which we know from the context of the two sentences is true. The writer obviously feels that she needs to prepare for Dr. Sam's visit.

Structuring Balanced Sentences

It is often more effective rhythmically to put the shorter ideas before the longer ones in coordinated or balanced sentences. This sentence begins the essay "Hauntings" by Alastair Reid:

My memory had always been to me more duffel bag than filing cabinet, but, even so, I have been fairly sure that if I rummaged enough I could come up with what I needed.

If we reversed the structure of this sentence, moving the longer one to the beginning, it would sound like this:

I have been fairly sure that if I rummaged enough I could come up with what I needed; my memory had always been to me more duffel bag than filing cabinet.

We've used a semicolon rather than the "but" to help our revision to make at least a little sense, but still we hope you notice that the original sentence is more graceful. Remember always to keep your purpose and audience in mind when you write, and to combine the techniques covered in SMARTHINKING's Chapter 4, Style to produce the tone that best suits that purpose and audience.

Exercise

Revise these complex sentences by turning them into compound sentences, then click to check your answers with ours:

Since it had been snowing all night, the children came out of their houses.
Although I don't know why, every spring I seem to get depressed.

Summary

In addition to the types of sentences grammarians define (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex); rhetoricians have named others that may be useful to students as they consider revising their own sentences for unity and variety. Three of these are the periodic, cumulative, and balanced.