Composing compound and complex sentences

Composing compound sentences

和简单句不同，并列复合句 (compound sentences) 包含两个或两个以上独立的，彼此地位相当的从句 (the compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses which are of equal status)。这些从句由“并列连词”(coordinating conjunctions), 如 and, but, or 等，连接。 下列句子都是典型的并列复合句：



The evening came, and the work went on.

The evening came, but the work went on.

You could work on, or you could go home.



Either … or… 也是常见的并列连词，表示在两种可能性之间的选择：



You many either do it yourself or you could ask Mary to do it for you.



组成并列复合句的从句本身可以有复杂的结构：



Lack of education was no handicap in obtaining employment and it was no bar to advancement for eager and industrious youth for the Twenties.

She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.



除了表示从句之间“并列”的关系之外，并列复合句还能使句子显得简洁不单调，尤其是用分号 (semi-colon) 来代替并列连词，例如：



There was no reply; the old woman's face was white, her eyes staring, and her breath inaudible; on the husband's face was a look of sheer horror.



Composing complex sentences

并列复合句表示从句之间的“同等地位”，而主从复合句 (complex sentences) 则表示了一种逻辑关系 (the complex sentence makes clear the logical relationship between events or ideas through subordination)。并列复合句以其在主句中充当的成分来命名，如主语从句，宾语从句，状语从句等等。



I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was going on. (名词性从句充当动词宾语)

The essay, as a species of literature, was invented by Montaigne, who has probably little suspicion of the far-reaching importance of what he had created. In his dejected moments, he, turned to rail at what he had written, and to call his essay “inepties” and “sottises”. (名词性从句充当介词宾语)



状语从句可以出现在主句任何位置，并且可以和状语词组互换，但是如果要强调或者明确这种状语关系，状语从句的效果就要大大胜过词组；作者应该从本身的目的出发选择使用从句还是词组，这一点和我们最开始强调的“写作目的”(writing with purposes)是一致的。以下列句子为例，如果把其中的时间状语从句改成词组，那么描述的时间顺序就得不到强调了：



When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock—still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knock at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, —for what had I now to fear?



When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the new few years it grew grayer until attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning.



总之，在通常情况下，如果要强调或明确句子中人物和事件的逻辑关系时，采用主从复合句是一个有效的手法。





思考题：

以上两期谈到了简单句，并列复合句和主从复合句的写作和它们各自的特点。我们在这里再不厌其烦得强调一次：写作手法的选择要以写作目的为依据。没有一个作家会只使用以上的一种句子，以语言简洁著称的海明威也会使用复杂的长一点的句子，而以优美的长句文明的亨利•詹姆斯(Henry James)也会用到短句。



下面请你分析一下以下几个段落句子的使用：



1.       They walked to the end of the ditch. Tom took off his coat and dropped it on the dirt pile. He pushed up his cap and stepped into the ditch. Then he spat on his hands. The pick rose into the air and flashed down. Tom grunted softly. The pick rose and fell, and the grunt came at the moment it sank into the ground and loosened the soil.



2． The sun set: the dusk fell on the stream, and the lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.



3.  It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing.