SENTENCE. A sentence is the form of words in which a thought or a proposition (q.v.) is expressed. A more phrase or group of words, such as "A very high mountain." which only conveys a menning or calls up an idea, hut does not make an affirmation, is not a sentence. Since speech is the expression of thought, the sentence is the proper unit or integer of speech, and thus forms the starting-point in the study of language.
Every single sentence is made up of two parts—the one naming the subject. or the something that is spoken about; the other the predicate, or the something that is said of it—as `•The sun—shines;" " Those who have the greatest gifts, and are of the greatest usefulness—are the most humble." Every sentence must contain a finite verb, -as it is the function of the verb (q.v.) to make affirmations. "The sun shines,"is an example of a sentence in its barest form, containing merely the subject "sun," and the predicate "shines," which are called the principal elements. The enlargement or development of the sentence takes place by means of adjuncts, or secondary elements tacked on to the principal elements—as " Young birds build ness without experience." Sentences may be divided into simple, compound, and complex.
1. A simple sentence has only one subject and one finite verb. Reduced to its essen tials, it is of the form, " The sun shines;" "The clay is cold." 2. A compound sentence consists of two or more simple sentences combined.—as, " The sun gives light by day, and the moon by night;" which contains two affirmations or sentences, "The sun gives light by day," and "The moon gives light by night." 3. A complex sentence consists of one principal sentence together with one or more dependent sentences. In the com pound sentence given above, there are two distinct statements, and as both are put on the same footing they are said to be co-ordinate sentences. But when we say "The moon rose as the sun went down," the going down of the sun is not mentioned on its own account; the only thing directly .iffirmed is that the moon rose at a certain time,
and the going down of the sun is only introduced as marking that time. Such clauses are called subordinate sentences (see CONJUNCTIONS). The subordinate clauses of com plex sentences may be considered as transformations of the elements of the simple sen tence; and according to the nature of the element which has been transformed, they might be called noun-sentences, adjective-sentences, or adverbial sentences—e.g., " The existence of God is denied by none" = i" That God exists, is denied by none:" " Benevo lent men are happy" = " Men who seek the good of others are happy." " The moon rose at sunset" = " The moon rose as the suit went down." Further, the nouns, adjectives, and adverbs that enter into a subordinate sentence, may, one and all of them, be trans formed in their turn into sentences, which will thus be subordinate in a still higher degree—e.g., "Europe rejoiced that Greece was delivered from that oppressive power" = " Europe rejoiced that Greece was delivered from the power that had oppressed her." Here the adjective oppressive in the first sentence has in the second been converted into a sen tence which is directly dependent, not on the principal sentence (Europe rejoiced), but on the subordinate, and is therefore subordinate in the second degree. Subordination is seldom carried beyond the second or third degree, as it becomes perplexing, and weakens the force of the principal assertion. The same sentence is often compound, as containing two or more co-ordinate sentences, and at the same time complex, as con taining one or more subordinate sentences in addition; and to discriminate all these and point out their relations is to give the syntactical analysis of the sentence.