Chaining

The clause,

not

the sentence, is the basic verbal form of statement.

When

teachers define a sentence as subject

plus

predicate, they are

really defining a clause,

and

when

they say a sentence expresses a

complete thought, they

mean

an

independent

clause asserts a propo-

sition. They are thinking of a single clause as a sentence, whereas a

sentence may comprise several clauses. Indeed, a sentence is

the

main

way

clauses are chained.

Sentences

A set of clause-statements

may

be

connected

in

three ways:

1. By making each a separate sentence

and

stringing them:

I saw Bobby's hat. It was in a tree. The wind blew

it

there. Then

it

rained.

2.

By joining several into one sentence

by

conjunctions, relative

pronouns, or punctuation:

I saw Bobby's

hat

and

it

was in a tree,

and

the wind blew

it

there,

and then

it

rained. (The famous run-on sentence of the immature

speaker.)

I saw Bobby's hat, which was in a tree, where the wind blew

it

before

it

rained.

3.

By reducing some clauses to phrases

and

embedding

them

in

others:

In

a tree I

saw

Bobby's hat, blown there

by

the wind before the rain

came.

First, learners predicate ideas separately;

then

they join

them

with

the easier conjunctions;

then

sometimes they join them

with

more difficult conjunctions

and

relative pronouns,

and

sometimes

they embed some

within

others. So

1,

2,

and

3 above represent a

growth order

if

you

keep

in

mind

that

the

difficulty of conjoining (2)

depends

on

the difficulty

of

the

connector

word

(its concept,

that

is),

and

that

the difficulty

of

embedding (3) varies considerably

with

the

kind

of

clause reduction.

To

demonstrate further

the

issue of 2

and

3, let's take another

series having a more abstract topic:

1.

Goodsayer was elected. He

adopted

the

policies advocated by

his

opponent. He

had

harshly criticized

them

when

he

was running

for office.

Notice the repetition

of

subject

and

object so clangingly present

in

children's clause strings

but

muted

here

by

the pronouns. Strings are

47

48

Chaining

uneconomical because

they

keep predicating

the

same nominals.

Personal

pronouns

disguise this,

but

of

pronouns

only

the

relative

can

solve this,

not

the

personal (he above). The

sents

maturer

development

by

conjoining the clauses:

2. After

he

was elected, Goodsayer

adopted

the

policies

that

his

opponent

was advocating,

which

he

had

harshly

criticized

when

he

was

running

for office.

But

the

following version,

which

reduces

and

embeds four clauses

from

the

first, requires substantially more development:

3. Once elected, Goodsayer

adopted

the

policies advocated

by

his

opponent-the

very policies

he

had

harshly

criticized during the

campaign.

It

is

worth

the

trouble to

study

these three sentences

and

compare

the changes, because

the

differences exemplify a great deal about

growth

in

sentence development.

Though

shorter, the last sentence

is

harder

than

the

second

because students have to develop clauses

first before

they

can

learn

to reduce them.

Of

course, a speaker or

writer does

not

normally compare alternatives, as

we

are doing here.

Most composition is more spontaneous

than

that,

and

even

hard

revision

would

not

produce

the

shorter version

until

the

autl:_ior

had

logged considerable composing experience. Compactness comes

harder,

and

when

length is a sign oflooseness, as

in

run-on

sentences,

it

shows immaturity.

This is

not

to say

the

compacter version is always better.

It

has a

different emphasis, partly because it leaves more implicit.

It

might

not

therefore

suit

as well a given intent.

The

point

here is

that

to be

able to

reduce

clauses

and

embed

them

in

each

other,

when

this

relates concepts appropriately, indicates fairly advanced growth.

Of

course, "reducing

and

embedding clauses" is only a

manner

of speak-

ing since

no

one sees people

do

this except occasionally perhaps

in

written

revision,

but

to infer some

such

inner

process gradually

occurring seems reasonable since language users

of

different maturity

levels differ

by

just

such

sample sentences. Inserting links between

clauses is easier

than

reducing

and

fusing clauses,

but

the

conceptual

difficulty of

individual

linking

words-spatial-temporal

versus logi-

cal conjunctions, for

example-must

be

allowed

for.

As clauses are conjoined

and

embedded,

they

require certain

meta-communicative

words-conjunctions

like but,

or,

although,

because, unless or relative

pronouns

like who, which,

and

where. The

statements are

the

communication,

and

these connectors metacom-

municate

about

how

to take

and

relate

the

statements. As we said,

Chaining

49

such

words

are

harder

just as concepts,

but

they

are also

hard

because

they

relate statements to form more complex ideas. Conjunctions

name

explicitly

the

relation, whereas relative

pronouns

merely plug

one

nominal

into two predicates,

naming

nothing

and

relating im-

plicitly instead. See preceding examples.

Growth Sequence

18:

Expanding the repertory

of

clause-connecting

options as follows:

• String

of

separate independent clauses, each a sentence

• Clauses conjoined by coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or)

and time-space conjunctions

• Clauses conjoined

by

logical subordinating conjunctions and

fused by relative pronouns

• Clauses reduced and embedded in each other

Two things are

important

to

the

formulation above. One is to

emphasize

that

mature

learners

not

only

can

do

these

things

but

do

them

appropriately, according to the place

of

the

statements

in

a total

discourse. Complexity for its

own

sake is

no

mark

of

maturity. Com-

plexity is necessary

but

not

sufficient for fullest growth. A string of

single-clause sentences

can

be very effective for making

an

image or

idea

dawn

gradually

on

the

receiver. It understates

and

it

also

stretches out

the

reader's assimilation time. Mature

students

would

for these reasons

employ

such

a string

even

though

they

were capable

of fashioning very intricate

sentence

structures.

The

second

matter

is

the

critical one of subordinating concepts

one to

another

so

that

they

are related

with

the

proper

emphasis.

Stringing makes all statements equal, besides

not

making explicit

the

relations among them.

The

only

connection

is

the

primitive one

of

first-to-last,

which

says nothing

unless

the

statements are about

events,

in

which

case

the

order

of stringing is

assumed

to

be

the

order

of

their

occurrence. Coordinating conjunctions say

that

the

state-

ments

are equal

in

rank

(co-ordinate)

in

addition

to being, say alter-

native (or) or adversative (but). More properly speaking,

the

statements are equal

and

the

conjunctions are coordinating because

equality is

in

the

nature of

the

logical relationships and,

or,

and

but,

if

you

think

about it,

whereas

the

subordinating conjunctions,

such

as proviso (unless), concessions [although),

condition

(ij),

and

the

time-space conjunctions require

that

the

clause

they

introduce

be

subordinate to

the

one to

which

it

is conjoined. (Time-space clauses

50

Chaining

are always adverbial modifiers

of

course,

and

hence

subordinated

to

the

sentence

predicate.)

Now

let's bring

in

the

conventional

terms:

• Single-clause

sentence-"simple

sentence"

• Clauses conjoined

by

coordinating

conjunctions-"compound

sentence"

• Clauses conjoined

by

subordinating

conjunctions-"complex

sentence"

• Clauses conjoined

by

both

coordinating

and

subordinating con-

junctions-"

compound-complex

sentence"

Although

this

progression roughly parallels

our

growth sequence,

it

allows

neither

for

the

embedding

of

reduced

clauses

nor

for

the

variation

in

the

difficulty among conjunctions

and

between

conjunc-

tions

and

relative

pronouns.

This

old

classification

of

sentences does

bring out, however,

subordination

and

emphasis, two critical factors

of

growth

in

making sentences

and

sentence sequences

out

of

basic

statements.

From

his research

with

children's

writing Kellogg

Hunt

con-

cluded

that

sentence growth is

marked

by

(1) increasing modification

of

nouns

by

large clusters

of

adjectives, relative clauses,

and

reduced

relative clauses; (2) increasing use

of

nominalizations

other

than

nouns

and

pronouns

for subjects

and

objects (clauses, infinitival

and

gerundive constructions),

and

(3)

embedding

of

sentences to

an

in-

creasing

depth

(entailed

by

1

and

2). * A

sentence

having a single

word

or

phrase

for a subject

("

Such an

idea

never

occurred

to her.")

is easier to formulate

than

one

having a clause for a subject

("

What

other people

might

think

of

her

actions

doesn't

concern

her.").

In

the

second

example,

the

nominalization,

in

italics, is a clause

embedded

in

the

clause of

the

whole

sentence

and

containing, as its

own

subject, a

nominal

phrase

("other people") like

that

serving

in

the

first example as subject of

the

whole

sentence ("Such

an

idea").

Growth Sequence

19:

Toward increasing versatility in constructing

sentences, exploiting more nearly the total resources inherent in

modifying, conjoining, reducing, and

embedding

clauses; and

toward increasing comprehension

of

sentences

of

such range.

* Kellogg Hunt, Grammatical Structures Written

at

Three Grade Levels, National

Council

of

Teachers

of

English, Champaign, IL, 1965

Chaining

51

Syllogisms

A special case of conjoining clauses was

touched

on

when

we

spoke

of conditional tenses joined

by

if.

When

two or more conditional

clauses are

linked

to each other

and

to a conclusion clause, a syllo-

gism is created.

"If

high

spending

contributes to inflation,

and

if

advertising

and

credit stimulate high spending,

then

advertising

and

credit contribute to inflation."

At

the

material level,

such

a conjunction of conditions

may

be

stated

in

a sentence like this:

"If

heavy

rain

falls a long

time

on

loose

dirt,

and

if

the

terrain is steeply tilted, a

mudslide

will

occur." Note

that

this

logical relationship

may

be

expressed

by

other conjunctions

and

by

adverbs: "A

mudslide

occurs because heavy

rain

falls a long

time

on

loose

dirt

and

because

the

terrain is steeply tilted." Or:

"The

rain

falls a long time

on

loose dirt,

and

the

terrain is steeply tilted;

so

[therefore] a

mudslide

occurs."

The

point

is

that

underneath

these

various conjunctions

and

adverbs there lies a single logical relation-

ship. This relationship is called

entailment-certain

things being so

entail other things being so. (See

on

page

43

Susanne Langer's men-

tion

of entailment.)

It

is

important

to realize

that

what

is

the

same

at

the

conceptual

level-entailment-may

be

expressed at

the

verbal

level as causality, conditionality, or something else.

Syllogizing

may

be, first of all,

implicit

or explicit and, second,

may

take several forms.

It

is

an

important

sort of logical growth to

look for,

but

the

teacher

can

expect

it

to be revealed

in

more

than

one

verbal way,

if

made

explicit at all. A syllogism

may

perfectly well

exist

in

a discourse

without

being verbalized

in

a single sentence. It

may

be

embodied

in

another

kind

of linguistic linking

than

conjoined

clauses-in

one of

the

other kinds

of

chaining discussed next.

Transitional words

Besides conjunctions

and

relative pronouns, certain adverbs connect

clauses

and

do so explicitly as conjunctions (moreover, however,

nevertheless, so, therefore, accordingly,

and

others referring to ideas

in

previous clauses),

but

these differ

in

being situated within a clause,

not

between

clauses, so

that

they tie clauses together only

by

throw-

ing

an

idea

bridge,

not

by

connecting grammatically. These are

what

we

might call transition words, because

they

are

added

to a clause to

relate statements explicitly

in

the

same

way

that

whole sentences

may

be

stuck into a discourse to effect transitions from one

main

idea

or

part

of

the

organization to another ("Leaving aside for

the

moment

the objections to

this

idea, let's

now

turn

to

....

").

52

Chaining

Transitions, too, constitute

meta-communication

and

hence

do

not

occur to speakers or writers too egocentric to realize

that

an

audience

might

not

know

how

to

connect

their

clauses

unless

guided.

On

the

other

hand,

mature

communicators may choose to

omit

some transitions as being

unnecessary

, heavy, or verbose for

the

ideas

and

the

audience

involved, or

may

wish

to

speak

implicitly to

make

their

audience

think

more

and

work

out

connections for it-

self-obviously

a sophisticated stance,

indeed

a very confident one.

And

once again,

the

presence of

the

words-hence

or

so,

say-does

not

guarantee

the

presence of

the

concepts they

stand

for.

A trick of

weak writers is to plaster

their

composition together

with

there/ores

and

moreovers

in

lieu of thought.

Punctuation

Colons, semicolons,

and

sometimes commas also

connect

state-

ments.

They

are

much

less explicit

than

word

connectors,

but

they

have some meaning. A colon

tends

to act as

an

equation

mark

and

hence

assumes one meaning of to be (identity),

and

a semicolon or

comma

implies

unusual

closeness

between

clause-statements. With-

out

indicating the nature of the relation,

this

binding

nevertheless

invites readers to

supply

for themselves a conjunction of time, cau-

sality,

contradiction

,

and

so

on,

according

to

context.

Paragraphing

Paragraphing is another

way

of

implying

relations

between

state-

ments. A paragraph break, for example,

between

one statement

and

another means

that

the

thought

takes a bigger

jump

than

is

usual

between

sentences or

that

thought

is shifting to another time or

plane

or domain. Placing one

statement

at

the

beginning of a paragraph

and

another

within

may

mean

that

the

first is

superordinate

or more

general

and

that

the

next one is subordinate or more concrete. The

first sentence

might

state a generality

and

the

second

state

an

in-

stance or consequence

of

it.

The

relative positioning

may

obviate

the

need

of

"for example" or "so." The sheer

order

in

which

statements

are

chained

means

something of course, since juggling the order

would

usually

make considerable difference

in

the

intelligibility of

the

message. Paragraphing imposes

upon

this sequence other pat-

terns

of

significance

by

clumping

together statements so

that

dis-

tance, salience,

and

subordination

vary among

them

and

hence

imply

certain interrelations.

The

ways of chaining sentences

that

comprise

paragraphs

can

comprise the organization of

an

entire discourse.

Chaining

53

Organization

The

possibilities

of

paragraphing are the possibilities

of

organizing a

whole

discourse.

The

continuity

may

vary

in

length,

but

once

beyond

the

sentence (with its special grammatical rules

of

relating)

the

ways

of

chaining statements are

the

same as for composing

the

units

of

any

other

linear

medium-serial

order, juxtaposition,

and

pattern.

These

are universal factors

of

form

and

constitute

what

English teachers

mean

by

"organization"

in

a composition. Form establishes relations

by

sheer

selection

and

arrangement,

without

naming relations. Form

speaks-but

implicitly. So clause-connecting

throughout

an

entire

continuity

of statements is

nothing

less

than

the

overall form

of

a

complete discourse,

and

the forms

with

which

people

compose

dis-

courses are general forms

common

to

many

other media.

Ascending and descending forms In music,

we

speak

of

the

first

statement

of

a

theme

and

of its later variations. This form compares

to

an

opening

statement

of

the

main

idea

of

a discourse followed

by

the

elaborating

of

its

implication

in

substatements. Either a

whole

discourse, a subdivision of it, a paragraph, or even a

sentence

could

be organized

this

way-from

higher

to lower abstraction.

It

is

the

deductive form exemplified

by

the

famous

"topic

sentence,"

which

sets a frame

within

which

details, implications, consequences,

evidence,

and

so

on

are

then

expounded.

Within a

sentence

this

works

out

as a

main

clause followed

by

subordinate clauses

and

by

modifiers:

They just had

to

peer over the rim, although the canyon terrified

them, leaning

far

forward over planted

feet,

heads tipped back

for

balance, eyes turned down their cheeks.

Within a

whole

discourse, paragraphs

would

so descend.

The

opposite form

may

be equally right,

depending

on

intent

and

content.

It

is

the

inductive

order,

by

which

a

theme

is gradually

built

up

through

partial statements

until

arrived at climactically.

Within

a

sentence, modifiers

and

subordinate clauses

would

prepare

for

the

main

clause,

which

would

come

at

the

end

as climax (the so-called

periodic sentence).

Whenever someone asked her

to

sing once again, perhaps

at

tea time

in the old sunroom, perhaps at a garden gathering in the morning,

imploring, saying she had

no

right

to

withhold that

gift,

her plump

hand would

go

to

her throat, and her head would slowly

wag

no.

Following

the

same

model

on

larger scales, a paragraph or a

whole

discourse

would

start

low

and

build

high, suspensefully, revealing

only

enough

per

statement

to carry

the

receiver to

the

next,

broader

54

Chaining

view,

whether

the increments are

physical

details of a complex ob-

ject, causes

of

some effect, or arguments leading

toward

a conclusion.

Various orders The direction

that

the

chaining moves

between

low

and

high

abstraction,

whole

and

part, generality

and

instance, is

of

great significance for

composition

and

comprehension, for

the

op-

posed

approaches orient

the

receiver very differently.

The

growing

learner has to

understand

that

these options exist

and

what

effects

they

have. Chaining

need

not

follow

the

order

in

which

events,

images, or thoughts originally or logically occur, because rhetorical

ends

must

be served. A reader

may

see a

scene

more clearly

if

the

writer starts

with

a

panoramic

shot

and

then

zooms

in

on

details,

but

like William

Faulkner

and

Stephen

Crane

on

occasion,

the

writer

may

want

the

reader to experience

with

the character

the

feeling,

precisely, of

not

being

on

top of a situation.

An

effect of dawning,

produced

in

many

poems, comes from forcing

the

receivers to orient

themselves

by

minimal

cues

that

imply

perhaps

several possibilities

that

must

be

considered

and

checked

out

as

the

statement

continuity

proceeds. A logical

conclusion

might

go

either

at

the

beginning or

at

the

end

of a discourse,

depending

on

whether

the

reader's knowing

the

conclusion

first makes following

the

arguments

much

easier or

on

whether

the

writer

wishes

readers to

work

through

in

their

own

minds

the

steps

by

which

the

conclusion

was reached.

It

may

be better to derange

the

order

in

which

events occurred

and

start

in

the

middle,

as

Homer

did

with

the

Iliad,

then

flash back

to

the

beginning, or to

cut

back

and

forth among different periods, as

Marcel Proust

and

Kurt Vonnegut do,

in

order to juxtapose events

in

a new,

mental

relation. Inductive

and

deductive

orders

may

be

com-

bined

as

when

a

main

statement is

built

up

by

evidence

then,

once

established

and

warranted,

applied

to various domains to see

what

it

will

turn

up. Repetition is also

an

important

formal device

common

to

both

writing

and

music

as

the

"motif."

Growth Sequence

20:

Toward using and responding to the full

rhetorical possibilities for chaining statements

by

grammar, transi-

tional words, punctuation, paragraphing, and organizational form,

according to the commitment

of

the whole discourse,

Emphasis

must

be

on

good

judgment

in

playing options. No

particular

sentence

construction, paragraph structure, or organiza-

tional form

is

better

than

another except relative to

the

communica-

tion

needs

of

the

content

and

intent. Growth does

not

consist

of

merely

acquiring

the

tools

of

metacommunication

to

name

or state

connections explicitly. These tools constitute

the

technical prereq-

Chaining

55

uisite

but

alone are

not

enough. Always,

the

learner

must

learn to

judge, as either sender or receiver, if metacommunication is desir-

able. Too often teachers incline to value only the explicit, because

they

can

see

it

and

thereby

know

what

a student's thought is,

but

explicitness is definitely only half

of

the

matter. Since

not

all

can

ever be said, discoursing is always a matter

of

ascertaining

how

much

will do

the

trick properly.

A concept may play different roles

in

a complex of concepts, may

be

more or less conscious

in

the

speaker, may

be

more or less explicit

in

a discourse,

and

so may for these reasons

be

conveyed by a single

word, a phrase, a simple sentence, a complex sentence, a continuity

of sentences, a metaphor, a motif, or a formal

pattern

in

the organi-

zation of the total work. A learner grows

in

mastery of composing

and

comprehending these alternatives for matching thought

with

speech.