Scott,
I don't think the observation that earlier writers don't have our
modern sense of sentence is at all intended as an "allegation." I'm not
sure why you would think of it that way.
The idea that a sentence is a "complete thought" seems to me just a
shallow definition used for the narrow purpose of getting beginning
writers to avoid sentence fragments. (For the most part it doesn't
work, since many fragments will seem complete in context.) It also
replaces a deeper understanding. It's easier to memorize a definition
than it is to look closely at the complexity of what really happens
when words come together in the making of meaning.
To the extent that sentences are complete thoughts--not dependent on
sentences before and after for meaning and clarity--a text will lack
coherence. >
We have a great deal of flexibility in how much information we load up
into a sentence and a great deal of flexibility in how that information
is organized. Good writing is a complex interweaving of given and new.
It often makes references forward and backward, reminders and promises.
It may very well be that older writers are just as good as we are at
these rhetorical tasks. Bill's point--I think it's a good one--is that
we may be imposing our modern ideas of the sentence in ways that they
would not have intended and would not have recognized.
Much of the writing that remains from older centuries has been
preserved for very good reasons. I don't think we have necessarily
progressed as thinkers. That's a secondary issue.
Craig
------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:39:42 -0400
> From: Scott <[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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>
> I would consider all three incorrect.
>
> 1. A subordinate clause following an independent clause is not set off
> by a comma unless the comma is needed to avoid ambiguity or other
> confusion.
> 2. The first clause is an incomplete thought that requires further
> explication. The second clause is a sentence fragment.
> 3. The first clause is an incomplete thought that requires further
> explication. The second clause is a sentence fragment. Subordinating
> conjunctions do not begin a sentence: they begin a subordinate clause.
>
> Even with my far stricter rules, the facsimiles and originals that I have
> read have what I consider sentences; i.e., express complete thoughts.
>
> My descriptive definition of a sentence is a group of words that express
> a complete thought.
>
> I will readily confess that, when a friend wished to study English grammar
> on his own and asked for three reference grammars, I recommended
> Jespersen,
> Curme, and Pence & Emery. I ran into him at a conference later; he had
> gotten his doctorate in English grammar but averred that he still
> preferred
> my three references and kept them on his desk in his office.
>
> No, I do not think that correct English stopped with the Victorians;
> however, I do think that the teaching of English grammar went to "hell in
> a handbasket" in the '60s when "Do your own thing" went from fringe social
> comment to educational policy. Far too many English teachers majored in
> literature and are prepared to teach that and nothing else. I have been
> away from public secondary schools for a quarter century, but during that
> 25 years I was reading applications for federal employment. In general,
> the applicants not only could not write using correct grammar and usage,
> they could not follow explicit written directions. Almost all of the
> applications that I reviewed were from college graduates. In one five-
> year period I reviewed over 500 applications from one top Southern CA
> university and not a single one both followed directions and remained
> free from egregious errors. One does not expect complete sentences in
> an application; one does expect correct usage and subject-verb agreement.
> Oh, well, what can you expect from applicants who complete 300 semester
> hours of psychology in only three years; I took psychology courses for
> 40 years and did not accumulate nearly so many.
>
> I am still waiting for someone to furnish references in medieval Romance
> or Germanic languages. I am aware that Medieval and Early Modern German
> embeds what we would consider independent clauses into sentences.
> "I can do all things through him, he makes me strong" vs.
> "I can do all things through him who strengthens me"
>
>
> Scott
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:10:14 -0400
> From: "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Sentences are modern inventions. NOT; was ATEG Digest - 24
> Jun
> 2008 to 25 Jun 2008 (#2008-144)
>
> 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.=20
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
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