SENTENCE STRUCTURE

By: JAVIER ARROYO BURGOS

There are many different ways of organizing words into sentences. For this reason, describing how to put a sentence together is not as easy as explaining how to bake a cake.

One of our goals, is to improve our writing, to make it more sophisticated. One step toward achieving this goal involves sentence structures.

is the way a

sentence is

formed

• We want to write well-constructed compound-complex sentences so that we can express multiple layers of thought. If we write only simple sentences, our work will sound elementary.

• To achieve our desired level of sophistication, we can combine thoughts through coordination and subordination.

COORDINATION

Emphasis between parts of a sentence by using coordinating conjunctions or suitable punctuation or both. Coordination gives equal emphasis to words and ideas as well as clauses.

John and Mary rode their bikes and swam in the pool for exercise, and they were tired at the end of the day.• Coordination (equal emphasis):

John and Maryrode their bikes and swam in the poolJohn and Mary rode their bikes and swam in the pool for exercise , and they were tired at the end of the day.

EXAMPL

E

HOT TIP:When you coordinate, you must assure balance by using the same form in each part. We call the repetition of grammatical structure parallelism. To be parallel all the items must match, must be in the same part of speech, and must follow the same form.• Example: John and Mary rode their bikes

and swimming in the pool. This sentence sounds strange because the verbs are not parallel.

• Corrected: John and Mary rode their bikes and swam in the pool.  

• Example: They like to ride, swim, and cooking together.

This sentence sounds strange because cooking has an ing, and ride and swim do not. These words are not parallel.

• Corrected: They like to ride, swim, and cook together.

SUBORDINATION

Establishes the dependence of one idea on another by shifting emphasis away from supporting elements so that major statements emerge clearly. You can subordinate single words, phrases, and clauses by using subordinating conjunctions (like after, because, if, since, when, although, unless, etc.)

John and Mary exercised. They have bikes. They rode them. They swam in the pool. They got tired. The day ended. • Subordination:   After riding their bikes and swimming in the pool for exercise, John and Mary were tired at the end of the day.

John and Mary were tired at the end of the day because they had ridden their bikes and swum in the pool for exercise.

John and Mary, after riding their bikes and swimming in the pool for exercise, were tired at the end of the day.

EXAMPLE