sentence combining

The process of joining two or more short, simple sentences to make one longer sentence--an alternative to traditional grammar instruction.

See also:

• What Is Sentence Combining and How Does It Work?
• Embedding
• Generative Rhetoric
• Introduction to Sentence Combining
• Kernel Sentence
• Transformational Grammar
• T-unit

Examples and Observations:

• Here's a simple example of how sentence combining works. Consider these three short sentences:
  
  
  • The dancer was not tall.
  • The dancer was not slender.
  • The dancer was extremely elegant.
  By cutting out the needless repetition and adding a few conjunctions, we can combine these three short sentences into a single, more coherent sentence. We might write this, for instance: "The dancer was not tall or slender, but she was extremely elegant." Or this: "The dancer was neither tall nor slender but extremely elegant." Or even this: "Neither tall nor slender, the dancer was extremely elegant nonetheless."
  (What Is Sentence Combining and How Does It Work?)



• "While combining exercises can be found in the 1890s, it was not until 1957, when Noam Chomsky revolutionized grammatical theory with his book Syntactic Structures, that the theoretical base was established upon which modern sentence-combining pedagogies would be founded. This base was, of course, Chomskian transformational-generative (TG) grammar."
  (Robert J. Connors, "The Erasure of the Sentence." College Composition and Communication, September 2000)



• "There is substantial research evidence . . . that sentence combining, as an instructional technique, produces at least temporary benefits in richer sentences--which is all that any technique for teaching writing does, unless the teacher follows up by repeatedly guiding students to apply what they have learned."
  (Carolyn Carter, The Absolute Minimum Any Educator Should Know & Teach Students About the Sentence. iUniverse, 2003)



• "The problem I've seen with sentence combining is in how some teachers use it: to focus on correctness. They have students share their sentences and then decide if they're 'right' or not. Instead, I ask students to combine kernel sentences in at least two different ways and then decide which they like better and why. When we share, I ask for several responses so that we can discuss the effects of combining one way over another: Why do they like one sentence more than another? What difference in meaning do the various combinations create? This work with sentences shouldn't be about right or wrong; it's about rhetorical effectiveness and helping students understand how to achieve it."
  (Deborah Dean, Bringing Grammar to Life. International Reading Assoc., 2008)