Rhetorical Analysis Vocabulary

How to talk about syntax

Simple Sentence

• A sentence containing one subject and one predicate.

• Ex.: “The singer bowed to her audience.”

• Even if there is a compound subject (2 or more nouns) or a compound predicate (2 or more verbs), the sentence is still a simple sentence:

• Ex: “The singer bowed and waved to her audience.”

Declarative Statement

• Make a statement.

• Ex: “The king is sick.”

Imperative Statement

• Gives a command.

• Ex: “Don’t be silly.”

• The implied subject is . . .

• “You.”

Interrogative Statement

• A sentence that asks a question.

• Ex: “Why is the king sick?”

Exclamatory Statement

• A sentence that expresses strong feelings by making an exclamation.

• “The king is dead!”

Phrases, Clauses, and Sentences

• Clause: A word grouping that contains a subject doing a predicate.

• Phrase: May contain nouns and verbals, but not a subject doing a verb.

• A complete sentence always contains at least one clause, but not all clauses are complete sentences.

Some jargon clarified

• Complete Sentence = Independent Clause = Principle or Main Clause

• Incomplete Sentence = Dependent clause = Subordinate Clause

Compound SentenceContains two independent clauses (two complete

sentences) joined by a coordinating conjunction

(F,A,N,B,O,Y,S) OR joined by a semicolon.

Ex: “The singer bowed to the audience, and they cheered

for an encore.”

Ex: “The singer bowed to the audience; they cheered for an

encore.”

Independent clause + Independent clause

Complex Sentence

• Contains an independent clause and one or more dependent (subordinate) clauses.

• Ex: “The singer bowed while the audience cheered for an encore.”

Independent Clause + Subordinate (Dependent) Clause

Compound-Complex Sentence

• Contains two or more independent clauses (the “compound” part) and one or more dependant (aka subordinate) clauses (the “complex” part).

• Ex: “The singer bowed while the audience applauded, but she sang no encores.”

• Independent + Independent + Subordinate (Dependent)

Clause

Practice

Simple, Compound, Complex, or Compound-Complex?

“Even Perry, though he was contemptuous of any

exhibition or piety, felt ‘upset’ when he heard Willie-Jay

sing ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’”

Complex

Practice

Simple, Compound, Complex, or Compound-Complex?

• “The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive.”

• Compound

Practice

Simple, Compound, Complex, or Compound-Complex?

• “Though he wore rimless glasses and was of but average height, standing just under five feet ten, Mr. Clutter cut a man’s-man figure.”

• Complex

Practice

Simple, Compound, Complex, or Compound-Complex?

• “They left the highway, sped through a deserted Holcomb, and crossed the Santa Fe Tracks.”

• Simple!

Practice

Simple, Compound, Complex, or Compound-Complex?

• “As it turned out, the choice was between Dick and nothing, for when Perry’s bus reached Kansas City, on the evening of November 12, Willie-Jay, whom he’d been unable to advise of his coming, had already left town.”

• Compound-Complex

Periodic Sentence

A sentence where the main clause, the main idea, comes at the end of the

sentence.

They can be a powerful persuasive tool, because the reader will read the

evidence before reading the conclusion, and will therefore read with an open

mind before agreeing or disagreeing with the conclusion.

Ex: Considering the free health care, the cheap tuition fees, the low crime

rate, the comprehensive social programs, and the wonderful springs, I am

willing to pay slightly higher taxes for the privilege of living in Canada.

Cumulative Sentence

• Also called “Loose Sentences,” they are sentences where modifiers “accumulate” after the main clause (subject + verb).

• I am willing to pay slightly higher taxes for the privilege of living in Canada, considering the free health care, the cheap tuition fees, the low crime rate, the comprehensive social programs, and the wonderful springs.

Cumulative or Periodic?

• “Though he wore rimless glasses and was of but average height, standing just under five feet ten, Mr. Clutter cut a man’s-man figure.”

• Periodic

Cumulative or Periodic?

• “Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.”

• Periodic

Cumulative or Periodic?

• “He and Perry drove along the main street of Olathe until they arrived at the Bob Sands establishment, an auto-repair garage, where Dick had been employed since his release from the penitentiary in mid-August.”

• Cumulative

Cumulative or Periodic?

• “As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooners wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod*, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul” (Melville 246).*Pequod – The name of the whaling ship in the novel Moby Dick.

• Periodic