Compound sentence (linguistics)

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In the English language, a compound sentence is composed of at least two independent clauses, but no dependent clauses. The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (with or without a comma), a correlative conjunction (with or without a comma), or a semicolon with no conjunction.

Examples

• He finally bought the book, or so I thought.
• :The two independent clauses are joined by a comma and the coordinating conjunction "or".

• Either he goes or I go.
• :The compound sentence is held together by the correlative conjunction "either…or".

• Mary understands math; she has studied it for years.
• :Here the two are joined by a semicolon with no conjunction.

Contrast

• He finally read the book that I gave him.
• :that I gave him is a dependent clause. This is a complex sentence, not a compound sentence.

Run-on sentences

It is common for proponents of prescriptive grammar to caution against the use of run-on sentences, which are defined as a compound sentence with "too many" independent clauses. While the exact specification of "too many" is obviously subjective, a commonly given number is three.

Examples:

Bob gave me a book and I read it and I didn't like it and I gave it back to him.

Grandma came to visit and we went to the zoo and we saw the ferrets and my friend Emily has a ferret.

It can be argued, however, that at least when teaching children, this advice against run-on sentences is not entirely a prescription on their grammar, but also a way of teaching that clauses in a sentence should be semantically related, not just a stream of consciousness. Therefore, although both examples above have the same number of independent clauses, the second is more of a run-on than the first.

Note that the term run-on sentence is not usually used for complex sentences with large number of clauses. For example,

Bob gave me a book, which I read and I didn't like, so I gave it back to him.

is not a run-on sentence.

See also

• Simple sentence
• Complex sentence
• Complex-compound sentence

External links

• [The Structure of a Sentence]

 

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