英语修辞与写作·7.5　长句与短句

7.5　长句与短句

7.5A　句子长短同句子结构的关系

句子的长短和句式结构密切相关。一般说来，简单句比较短，复合句较长。写作上忌讳的是重复使用类似长度的相同句型，例如下面这段学生的作文里就存在这个毛病：

I took a great deal of courage when I registered for class on June 11. But I am also pleased that I have finally decided to take the step. On that day I purchased all the textbooks that I would need for this class. I wanted to be sure that I would have all the material I needed.

这段作文句式单调、呆板，有3个方面的原因：

第一、整个段落中的4句话都是由“主句+从句”组成的复合句；

第二、各句都是以“I”做主语的“主—谓”句型；

第三、各句字数是14－15个。

为此，应对这个段落加以改写，下面是可采用的一种方式：

Although it took great courage of me to register for class on June 11, I'm pleased to have taken the step. On that day I also purchased all the textbooks arranged for the class, so that I would have the necessary material.

7.5B　长句与短句的不同功能

1） 从修辞角度看，长短句的不同功能主要表现为：

第一、短句的特点是具有速度和力度感，在文章的紧张或戏剧性关头连用短句能收到良好的效果。例如Joan Didion在写到圣安娜风（Santa Ana，一种吹自沙漠的干热飓风）即将到来时人们的不安心情：

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to the flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons and hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks ...

第二、长句适用于细节描写，人们在从容不迫地进行叙述或说明论点时也往往使用较长的句式，让事实充分展现，让说理深入透彻，而且在这样的几个长句之后出现一个短句，则有助于调整节奏；在段末出现时常常是对前述各句的一个小结。例如Robert Benchley的“How to Get Things Done”一文在节奏上就给读者一个“紧张而有秩序”的感觉，其原因之一是连续的长句之后出现短句，有的句子仅几个或一个单词（如“Now.” “Hello, what's this!”），让读者在紧张中感到一阵轻快和幽默，下面这个例子中的段末短句既是小结，又隐含着问题：“果真是这样么？”因而它具有承上启下的功能：

But the fact remains that hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country are wondering how I have time to do all my painting, engineering, writing and philanthropic work when, according to the rotogravure sections and society notes I spend all my time riding to hounds, going to fancy-dress balls disguised as Louis XIV or spelling out GREETINGS TO CALIFORNIA in formation with three thousand Los Angeles school children. “All work and all play,” they say.

The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one ...

2） 在写作中恰当地使用长句和短句，是一个应当认真学习的技巧，更是一种从大量实践中获得的能力，是人类思维和交际习惯的客观反映，为此，优秀作家的作品都是长短句综合运用的范例。下面再引Joan Didion的一段文章，其中不仅长句、短句用得恰到好处，各句在结构上也富于变化：

This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country. The San Bernardino Valley lies only an hour east of Los Angeles by the San Bernadino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the coastal California of the subtropical twilights and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the hot dry Santa Ana and that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves. October is the bad month for the wind, the month when breathing is difficult and the hills blaze up spontaneously. There has been no rain since April. Every voice seems a scream. It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.

练习七　（Exercise Seven）

I. Preview Questions:

1. What is the purpose of having sentence varieties in rhetoric?

2. Is periodic sentence usually a short simple sentence or a long complicated one?

3. How is the loose sentence different from the periodic sentence?

4. Is the cumulative sentence similar to the periodic sentence or the loose sentence?

5. What rhetoric effects can an anticlimax sentence achieve?

6. Can you cite an example of an elliptical sentence?

7. What effects do you think the rhetoric device of repetition can achieve?

8. Have you learned anything about Quintilian?

II. Read the following and decide whether each of the statements is true （T） or false （F）:

In effective sentences the component words, phrases, and clauses are put together not only according to the grammatical principles of coordination and subordination, but also according to certain stylistic principles. There are three basic ones: serial structure, parallel and balanced structure, and hierarchy structure.

First of all, however, we should note that while different, none of these sentence types is better or worse than the others in any inherent, absolute sense. Each works well for some purposes, poorly for others. And none represents an ideal style. A skillful writer uses them all well, knowing when one works better than another.

A second warning: with regard to style, classifications are rarely adequate. The reality is too subtle. The English sentence, like Shakespeare's Cleopatra, possesses infinite variety. It cannot be reduced to rules. And that is a good thing.

Serial structure means that a sentence is built by the simple addition of more or less equal units, one after the other. It exists in three basic varieties: the segregating, the freight train, and the cumulative sentence.

In its purest form the segregating style consists a series of short sentences, each consisting of a single idea. Skillfully handled, this style can be very effective. For example, an English essayist once interviewed the novelist Philip Guedalla and described Guedalla's method of writing in this passage:

He writes, at most 750 words a day. He writes and rewrites. He polishes and re-polishes. He works in solitude. He works with agony. He works with sweat. And that is the only way to work at all.

（Beverly Nichols）

These short repetitive sentences are as strong and seemingly as monotonous as hammer strokes. The monotony suits the point, for what Nichols says is that writing is often tedious, wearing toil.

Another advantage of the segregating style is its potential for dramatic description and narration. By isolating individual details of a scene or an action, the short sentence enables — even forces — us to look very closely.

The freight-train sentence consists of several （three or more） independent clauses. As a style in English literature multiple coordination goes back a thousand years or more to Anglo-Saxon narrative, which is useful when you wish to join a series of events, ideas, impressions, feelings, or perceptions as immediately as possible, without judging their relative value or imposing a carefully ordered logical structure upon them.

In its usual form of the cumulative sentence, a main clause precedes a series — even quite long — of appositive, modifying, or absolute constructions which accumulate details about the scene, person, or event being described, eg:

A creek ran through the meadow, winding and turning, clear water running between steep banks of black earth, with shadow places where you could build a dam.

（Mark Schorer）

Statements:

1. The freight-train sentence consists of three or more independent clauses.

2. The segregating style is monotonous and rarely used by skillful writers.

3. All effective sentences follow not only grammatical rules but also stylistic principles.

4. Cumulative sentences most often appear in description when the writer begins with a general picture and fills in the picture with details.

5. Every sentence type has its advantages and limitations, and no one works better than another in any case.

6. According to Beverly Nichols, writing is by no means a tedious, wearing toil.

7. Multiple coordination has a tradition of more than 1000 years in English literature.

8. Conjunctions like “and”, “but”, “as”, or “nor” are usually used in freight train structures.

III. Fill in each blank with an appropriate word:

One way to achieve sentence variety is to move adjunct phrases of manner, place, or time to the beginning of the sentence. You can use （1）____________sentence structures as well: to get special emphasis, to achieve greater clarity, to break the monotony of using two, three or even （2）____________similar patterns at one place. You can also provide clarifying or colorful details by adding modifiers to elements of the subject, the predicate, or to the sentence as a whole. The latter — the addition of modifiers （3）____________a simple sentence serves as the base clause of an expanded sentence — can be accomplished in two ways.

One is to pile up modifiers before the base clause, resulting in what is usually called a periodic sentence, as in the following sentence （4）____________the base clause is italicized:

When all classes are over, after the students have left, and as few staff members are around, the campus is quiet and serenely beautiful.

Another （5）____________to add sentence modifiers is to state the base clause first, then pile up modifiers after it, e.g.:

They were silent and intent, facing the wind, feathers ruffling, eyes turned upward.

A sentence in this form is called a cumulative （or loose） sentence; most sentences follow this pattern, perhaps because when we start speaking or （6）____________a sentence, we usually think of the main idea first.

Expanded or complex sentences are found in all kinds of communication, formal writing in particular.

IV. Transform the following sentence patterns as required.

1. Mr. Sampson is rumoured to have been involved in a bribe scandle.

　→__________________________（a complex sentence）

2. I believe him to be innocent.

　→__________________________（a complex sentence）

3. He was offered a professional contract after winning two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Olympic Games held in Beijing, according to the newspaper reports.

　→__________________________（a periodic sentence）

4. The road requires that it should be maintained regularly.

　→__________________________（simple sentence）

5. One cannot accomplish anything if he doesn't take pains.

　→__________________________（a simple sentence）

参考答案

Ⅱ. 1. T　2. F　3. T　4. T　5. F　6. F　7. T　8. F

Ⅲ. 1. other　2. more　3. to　4. where　5. way　6. writing

Ⅳ. 1. It is rumoured that Mr. Sampson has been involved in a bribe scandal.

2. I believe that he is innocent.

3. According to newspaper reports, after winning two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he was offered a professional contract.

4. The road requires maintaining regularly.

5. One cannot accomplish anything without taking pains.