Spruiell, William C wrote:
> I suspect that the comments about sentences in that piece were actually comments about punctuation. If so, I'm not really sure how to maintain the claim that clearly demarcated sentences are necessary for clear thought, given that -- in all probability -- Plato, Aristotle, etc. didn't mark sentence boundaries in writing at all. Languages always have clause complexes; writing systems may or may not orthographically mark these in various ways. 
Arabic is another example of a language that does not clearly demarcate 
what sentence boundaries. Until the modern period, Arabic had no 
punctuation marks at all, and none appear in the Quran. The frequent 
appearance of verbless sentences in Arabic may also complicate attempts 
to define the Arabic sentence. I teach English to Arabs and spend a lot 
of time trying to get students to write in "sentences", very loosely 
described as a string of no more than ten words containing a noun and a 
verb. That "rule" usually works and establishes a point from which we 
can proceed. At the very least, it prevents students from slipping into 
Joycean mode, which can be quite inventive but, unfortunately, violates 
the canon of the good sentence imposed by EFL grammars.

Mark

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