A couple of months ago, I was talking about the problems with the
"complete thought" definition with a colleague who's known me for years,
and I tossed in "How does anyone know if they're having complete
thoughts?" Her immediate reply was, "Bill, yours are run-ons."
Bill Spruiell
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: {spam?} RE: Sentences are modern inventions. NOT; was ATEG
Digest - 24 Jun 2008 to 25 Jun 2008 (#2008-144)
"The Sentence - A Discussion" - a perfect topic for grammarians. At
least for now.
Both sentences? Right? (Including the preceding!)
Geoff Layton
> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:10:14 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Sentences are modern inventions. NOT; was ATEG Digest -
24 Jun 2008 to 25 Jun 2008 (#2008-144)
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Scott:
>
> We're not questioning that Medieval writers had thoughts as complete
as
> ours (or at least, I know I'm not questioning that, and I doubt anyone
> else would). It's just that the relation between "complete thought"
and
> "sentence" isn't as straightforward as it's sometimes presented.
Compare
> the following:
>
> 1. Most of us wanted pizza, although Bjarki wanted surstromming.
> 2. Most of us wanted pizza. *Although Bjarki wanted
> surstromming.
> 3. Most of us wanted pizza. However, Bjarki wanted surstromming.
>
> I'd have enormous trouble trying to support the claim that "although"
> gives you one complete thought in #1, but "however" leads to two
> complete thoughts in #3, and that anyone who wrote #2 (both parts, not
> just the second) was having incomplete thoughts. That *issue* would
not,
> I think, have come up in the medieval period -- you wrote it, and it
> made sense, so it was complete.
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott
> Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:40 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Sentences are modern inventions. NOT; was ATEG Digest -
24
> Jun 2008 to 25 Jun 2008 (#2008-144)
>
> Having read facsimiles and a few original medieval documents, I am
well
> aware that they did not have our modern sentence structure nor did
they
> necessarily start with a capital and end with a period. The primary
> point is that they did have complete thoughts and wrote them. That we
> may choose to punctuate them by joining two independent clauses with a
> colon or semicolon in lieu of having two short sentences is irrelevant
> to the concept that medieval writers did not, as a general rule, write
> in sentences.
>
> I must be missing some critical point. All I read are allegations.
> Unless someone gets on line and starts citing a number of medieval
> MSS that do not have complete sentences) preferably MSS in Latin,
> German, or Romance languages (Koine is too argumentative), I tend to
> consider such allegations specious.
>
> Scott
> I'm from MS not MO, but show me anyway.
>
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