This issue was discussed a couple of years ago.  I thought (and still
think) that Aristotle's idea that a sentence was a combination of
a subject and predicate that could be judged as being either true or false
was essentially correct.  Of course, allowance has to be made for
questions and commands, viewing them as transformations of declarative
sentences, and also for paradoxes like "This sentence is false" or "Green
ideas sleep furiously."  I think that the latter could be said to have the
formal qualities of a true or false statement.  I later found that Pinker
in The Language Instinct also uses true-or-falseness as the test of  
sentencehood.     


On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Hadley, Tim wrote:

> Ed (Vavra) is right, of course--Considering the possibilities inherent in compound-complex sentences, it would be better to say, "A sentence contains _at least_ one complete thought," as in this example:
>  
> >Having explained what a sentence was, the teacher took up the students' papers and placed them on the desk while the students were preparing their materials for their next assignment.
>  
> --several "thoughts" (actions) going on at once in such a sentence. 
>  
> It has always seemed to me that the "complete thought" of that old statement was meant to suggest something more along the lines of a "grammatically correctly stated and demarcated action(s) or state(s)," which would, of course, normally include a subject and a predicate. But calling it a "complete thought" was a weak way of expressing that idea.
>  
> But I may be way off the mark. If so, you guys can correct me.
>  
> Tim
>  
> Tim Hadley
> Research Assistant, The Graduate School
> Ph.D. candidate, Technical Communication and Rhetoric
> Texas Tech University
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Edward Vavra
> Sent: Mon 10/10/2005 3:10 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Each sentence contains a thought
> 
> 
> Ed,
>     My problem with "Each sentence contains a thought" is that most sentences contain several thoughts. I can't remember if I gave the following explanation on this list recently, but .....
>  
> He lives in a house. (1 thought)
> The house is green. (1 thought)
>  
> He lives in a green house. (1 thought?)
>  
> Ed
>  
> 
> 
> >>> [log in to unmask] 10/10/2005 2:54:41 PM >>>
> 
> Dear Folks,
>      I have my own ideas on this, but I wondered what some of you might say---succinctly, if possible---to someone who made the assertion:  "Each sentence contains a thought."  They are talking about the written language and about American English.
> 
> Ed To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" 
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