"Here, for example, is the sentence “John hit the ball” pumped up into
something unreadable but perfectly formed:
In the middle of the sixth inning of a crucial game in the pennant race,
John, the league leader batting third, weakly but precisely hit on the nose
the ball pitched with great velocity by the sure-to-be Hall of Fame hurler
who had won his last five starts in an overwhelming fashion while going the
whole nine innings and who therefore presented an intimidating image to
anyone facing him, especially as the shadows lengthened over the mound,
obscuring the mechanics of his delivery and rendering it difficult even to
see the spheroid as it curved its sinuous way toward the plate, behind which
were the umpire, ready to say “ball” or “strike,” and the catcher, prepared
for whatever was about to happen.
Constructing this monster is easy, and I have found that freshman students
have no trouble doing something similar with the three-word sentences of
their choice. Giving an analytical account of how the construction was
accomplished takes more work, and would require, for example, coming to see
(and explaining) that everything following the word “ball” is a modification
of it. What ball is it? It is the ball “pitched with great velocity by the
sure-to-be Hall of Fame hurler who.” Everything from “who” to “anyone facing
him” modifies or describes or characterizes the hurler (who, we must
remember, has been brought in to further specify what ball it is that has
been hit). Everything from “especially” to the end of the sentence modifies
or fleshes out the intimidating image the hurler presents. And everything
remains tethered to the word “ball,” the object of “hit,” the action
performed by John, whose biography precedes his appearance in the sentence.
Within the overall structure there are all the smaller units, like “as the
shadows lengthened over the mound,” and they too have their own internal
structure that must also be explicated."(A full analysis of this sentence
would fill many pages.) The more times you perform this exercise, always
with different three-word sentences as the base, the easier it becomes, and
the easier it becomes, the more practiced you will be in spotting the
structure of relationships that gives sense and coherence even to verbal
behemoths like this one.
How to Write a Sentence, Stanley FIsh
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AGI
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