John,
You've presented an interesting perspective on an important
question, but I have trouble with your distinction between clause and
sentence. There have been discussions of this on this list before, but
I still hold that main clauses (which may or may not be the equivalent
of a sentence) are pyschologically real, and in fact, the essential unit
of communication. I base this on a psycholinguistic model. See:
http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/ENL111/Syntax/PLModel/Int000.htm
I hope to see more responses to your question, but I also have to
wonder if we can simply make a leap from oral to written language.
Psychologically, oral sentences appear in context. When my wife says
"Bread," she may mean "Bring home bread," or "Do you want some bread."
Both of the latter are clauses, but they are so only because of context.
Writing does not quite work that way.
I wish, by the way, that more people were helping with KISS
grammar, for this would be an excellent research study. I say KISS, of
course, because KISS has a set, standard definition of clause, etc. I'm
just thinking of some students' papers that I read yesterday. They were
filled with splices, run-ons, and fragments. It would take some time and
thought to analyze those errors and explore their causes, but it would
probably be time well-spent.
Ed
P.S. I have another explanation of these errors on the web, based on an
analysis of 31 samples of seventh graders writing. See:
http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/ED498/R/1986/W7/W7Stats_Sum.htm
My conclusion at the time was that most of the run-ons and splices
occurred where adults might well use a colon, semicolon, or dash. In
other words, the students sensed a logical relationship in the ideas
expressed in the main clauses, but had not been taught how to punctuate
the sentences.
>>> [log in to unmask] 02/09/04 05:40PM >>>
Does anybody find fault with the following line of reason?
-- Speakers signal clausal boundaries by intonation and (sometimes)
pauses.
-- Sentence boundaries are clausal boundaries by definition, and are
signaled in the same manner.
-- So sentences are not psychologically real for speakers--only clauses
are.
If the above is true, then the intransigence of comma splices and even
run-ons is much easier to understand.
John
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