A truism we’ll often hear in English teaching is that the brief, concise, and unembellished sentence is preferable to long and complex ones. We must keep in mind though that pursuing sentence brevity for its own sake doesn’t necessarily mean good writing, for it often leads to oversimplified, choppy, and dull prose. Indeed, we can make our writing stronger, clearer, and more elegant by judiciously combining sentences instead.
Take this passage: “The Philippines is a republic in the southwest Pacific Ocean. It is to be found between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. It comprises more than 7,100 islands. It has islands that range in size from small rock formations to the 41,845-sq.mi. Luzon Island. This island is the biggest. Only 730 of the islands are inhabited. Eleven of the islands account for most of the total land area. These islands also account for most of the population.”
We’ll either turn readers away or lull them to sleep if we habitually write in that manner. Now see and read those sentences judiciously combined: “The Philippines, a republic consisting of 7,100 islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, lies between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. The islands range in size from small rock formations to the 41,845-sq.m. Luzon Island, which is the biggest. Only 730 of the islands are inhabited, and 11 of these account for most of the total land area and most of the population.” This time the prose has come to life and, despite using exactly the same facts and details, it makes for much better, more interesting reading.
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COMCombining or joining sentences enriches their content and texture. When information or words are added to modify nouns and pronouns in a sentence, they are called
adjective clauses. We use the relative pronoun “who” or the conjunctions “which” and “that” to introduce adjective clauses—“who” when the antecedent noun or pronoun is a person, and “which” or “that” when it’s a thing or place.
Adding an adjective clause to a sentence with the use of “who” is simplicity itself. How do we combine these two sentences: “Albert Einstein was a German-born Swiss-American theoretical physicist. He developed the Theory of Relativity”? By simply replacing the pronoun “he” in the second sentence with the relative pronoun “who”: “Albert Einstein was the German-born Swiss-American theoretical physicist
who developed the Theory of Relativity.” Of course, in sentences where the antecedent noun is a thing or place, we use “that: “The kids caught the mouse
that had eaten the cheese.”
When we use “who” and “that” as combiners, the added clauses are called
restrictive clauses, which means they are necessary to the meaning of the combined sentences. On the other hand, added clauses not absolutely necessary to their meaning are called
nonrestrictive clauses. They merely give additional information and can be taken out without altering the basic idea of the sentence.
When such clauses are combined with “who” or “which” (“that” cannot be used in this case), they should be set off with commas to indicate their nonrestrictive character: “The kids,
who are classmates on vacation, caught the mouse that had eaten the cheese.” “The kids caught the mouse,
which had eaten the cheese.” No problem knocking off such nonrestrictive “who” and “which” clauses: “The kids caught the mouse that had eaten the cheese.” “The kids caught the mouse.”
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COMIn American English, only “who” or “that” can be used as restrictive combiners.* A very common pitfall is to use “which” as a combiner this way: “The small rodent
which has the scientific name Tragulus aquaticus is indigenous to the Philippines.” This is grammatically unacceptable. The correct way is to use ‘that”: “The small rodent
that has the scientific name Tragulus aquaticus is indigenous to the Philippines.”
(Next:
When the subject is a very long noun form) December 13, 2018
This essay, 1,121st of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the December 6, 2018 print edition of The Manila Times
, © 2018 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
