Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A complex sentence has one or more dependent clauses (also called subordinate clauses). Since a dependent clause cannot stand on its own as a sentence, complex sentences must also have at least one independent clause. In short, a sentence with one or more dependent clauses and at least one independent clause is a complex sentence.
A cleft sentence is a complex sentence (one having a main clause and a dependent clause) that has a meaning that could be expressed by a simple sentence. Clefts typically put a particular constituent into focus. In spoken language, this focusing is often accompanied by a special intonation. In English, a cleft sentence can be constructed as ...
A sentence with two or more independent clauses plus (one or more) dependent clauses is referred to as a compound-complex sentence. (Every clause contains a subject and predicate.) Here are some English examples: My sister cried because she scraped her knee. (complex sentence) Subjects: My sister, she; Predicates: cried, scraped her knee
They help link ideas, show relationships, and form more complex sentences. The principal coordinating conjunctions in English are: and , or , but , nor , so , yet , and for . These can be used in many grammatical contexts to link two or more items of equal grammatical status, [ 33 ] for example:
In the following examples, the thing in the first sentence that is very relaxing is the cool day, whereas in the second sentence it is the walk, since the introduction of commas makes "on a cool day" parenthetical: They took a walk on a cool day that was very relaxing. They took a walk, on a cool day, that was very relaxing.
A complex sentence is one that has a main clause which could stand alone and a dependent clause which cannot by itself be a sentence. Using a complex sentence is a way to refer to the content of the paragraph above (dependent clause) and then bring in the content of the new paragraph (the independent clause). Here is a typical example:
The sentence is equivalent to the following two sentences: "I saw a person yesterday. The person went home". The shared argument need not fulfill the same role in both clauses; in this example the same person is referred to by the subject of the matrix clause, but the direct object of the relative clause.
The garden-path sentence effect occurs when the sentence has a phrase or word with an ambiguous meaning that the reader interprets in a certain way and, when they read the whole sentence, there is a difference in what has been read and what was expected. The reader must then read and evaluate the sentence again to understand its meaning.