英语修辞与写作·7.2　掉尾句和松散句

7.2　掉尾句和松散句

7.2A　掉尾句

1） 掉尾句（Periodic sentence）是一种把关键意思放在整句末尾、因而要读完全句才能了解该句完整含义的句子结构；从语法上看，掉尾句是一个不可分割的语言单位。例如：

Just before I went away to college, my father took me aside, as I had expected, and said, as I had not expected, “Now, Son, if a strange woman comes up to you on a street corner and offers to take your watch around the corner and have it engraved, don't do it.”

这个长句是掉尾句，一直要读到最后的句号才能明白全句的意思，而其中父亲对儿子的话也是一个掉尾句，只有听他讲到“don't do it”才能明白他要说什么。

2） 掉尾句的特点是把整句的主要部分（如复合句的主句或主句的主要成份）置于末尾处，形成整句的高潮，从而达到突出该部分内容的目的，所以，掉尾句属于一种修辞强调句。例如：

But if life hardly seems worth living, if liberty is used for subhuman purposes, if the pursuers of happiness know nothing about the nature of their quarry or the elementary techniques of hunting, these constitutional rights will not be very meaningful.

（Aldouds Haxley）

作者是用3个if引导的从句引出主句，达到突出主句的目的。

3） 掉尾句是一种比较正式的书面语体，结构上没有固定模式，多数情况下是把较长的状语提前，而把较短的主句留到最后。注意下面这个掉尾句却是以并列结构形成的长主语先出现，后面再出谓语，同样铿锵有力：

Whoever wishes to be made well acquainted with the morbid anatomy of governments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble and wretched, should study the history of Spain.

（Thomas Babington Macaulay）

7.2B　松散句

1） 松散句（Loose sentence）不同于掉尾句，它不要求把某个部分特意留到句尾，而是想到哪里说到哪里。例如：

Angela Mina lives in a very poor country where many children born die before their first birthday. Over 75% of all children suffer some forms of malnutrition, and unclean water, disease, civil conflict, and natural disaster are all challenges to the survival for many children and their families.

（The Atlantic, Jan. 1993）

并列句是一种松散句，它的分句各自表达比较完整的意思，并且前后次序常常可以颠倒。主句在前、从句在后的复合句也可算是一种松散句，因为一般说来主句表示的是整句意思的主体部分，而从句是表示次要部分，如补充、修饰等。松散句中的分句通常可以改成独立的句子。

2） 同前面的掉尾句相反，松散句不属严谨的正式文体，而适用于一种自然朴实的文风。例如：

He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much of himself as of anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern parts where he got his living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very popular.

这是英国作家Joseph Conrad的小说Lord Jim的开头一段。作者使用了一连串松散句，把他的故事以轻松的口气随意道来，直到最后一句的后半部分，即从and开始作者才改变句子结构，以倒装掉尾句的形式使“he was very popular”得到强调。这个小小的段落表明，优秀作家是多么善于做到句式多样化！