Definition:
A group of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point but is grammatically incomplete. See also:
- Crot
- Using Fragments Effectively
- Verbless Sentence
- Coetzee's Fragmented Invective
- Correcting Phrase Fragments
- Editing: Correcting Fragments
Etymology:
From the Latin, "to break"Examples & Observations:
- "I'm home, but the house is gone. Not a sandbag, not a nail or a scrap of wire.
(Tim O'Brien, "LZ Gator, Vietnam." The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 2, 1994) - "Today I woke up half a century old. I am not ready. Too much yet to do. Too much everyday living. Too much left unsaid, unimagined.
"Late afternoon. The sky hunkers down, presses, like a lover, against the land. Small sounds. A far sheep, faint barking. Time to drive on, toward Strathpeffer, friends, a phone call from my father.
(Judith Kitchen, "Culloden," Only the Dance. Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1994) - "Since the term 'sentence fragment' carries with it a pejorative association, let me use the term 'minor sentence.' A minor sentence is any punctuated sentence which does not contain at least one independent clause."
(James Alatis, Language, Communication, and Social Meaning. Georgetown Univ. Press, 1992) - "Departures from 22 North American gateways. Connections to over 170 European destinations. Making the world seem ever smaller."
(ad for Lufthansa) - "The sentence fragments used for their stylistic effect are not the kind that teachers mark with a marginal 'frag'; those are usually the result of punctuation errors, often a subordinate clause punctuated as a full sentence. But experienced writers know how to use fragments deliberately and effectively--noun phrases or verb phrases that add a detail without a full sentence and invariably call attention to themselves."
(Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar. Allyn and Bacon, 1999)
Pronunciation: FRAG-ment
Also Known As: sentence fragment, minor sentence
