Our word \u201csentence\u201d comes from the Latin word for \u201copinion.\u201d In late 14th-century Middle English, Chaucer describes a theology student at Oxford as \u201cfull of high sentence,\u201d that is, full of solemn moral pronouncements. We see that meaning carried forward in the word \u201csententious,\u201d a pejorative term for an opinionated, moralistic jerk. We see that meaning too in the word\u2019s penal denotation: as our friends Byron Benedict and Lowell Ford know, a \u201csentence\u201d can be a very definite judicial pronouncement.<\/p>\n
How do we get our word \u201csentence,\u201d a formal grammatical concept, from a word for \u201copinion\u201d and \u201cmoral pronouncement\u201d? I don\u2019t know. I doubt that anyone does. But we can hypothesize: the sentence is the way we say something about something.<\/p>\n
(I know, that sounds pretty obvious, right? A friend once noted that I have a genius for the obvious, which I suspect was some kind of left-handed opinion.)<\/p>\n
The sentence is a statement, and the word \u201cstatement\u201d comes from the Latin word for \u201cstand,\u201d which carries us a little further: the sentence is a statement where we take a stand.<\/p>\n
In contrast, a sentence fragment, an incomplete sentence, is simply a series of words in which we don\u2019t actually say something about something, where we don\u2019t express an opinion or take a stand. Let\u2019s give it a try. Here are two words we see a little too frequently in the headlines these days:<\/p>\n
Donald Trump.<\/em><\/p>\n Those two words alone are not yet a sentence. They constitute a sentence fragment. They announce something, a subject of discussion, but the two words just sit there, passive, inert, unengaged. There\u2019s no sentence until I turn those two words into a grammatical subject by adding a predicate.<\/p>\n (Reader, be warned: we are about to dip into a little grammar here, but bear with me. Grammar is a lot of fun, once you get to know it. Just like etymology. As my friend Virginie Duverger says: \u201cj\u2019adore la grammaire.\u201d)<\/p>\n To become a sentence, \u201cDonald Trump\u201d needs a \u201cpredicate.\u201d (We are talking about grammar here; what the real Donald Trump needs I decline to say.)<\/p>\n The subject of a sentence is the thing we\u2019re telling a story about. The predicate is the story we tell about that subject. Having announced our subject, we can\u2019t just let it sit there. We have to activate it, put it into action.<\/p>\n Here, again, etymology helps lead us deeper into the nature of the sentence: \u201cpredicate\u201d comes from the Latin word for \u201cto declare\u201d or \u201cto preach.\u201d The priest who brought me into the Roman Catholic Church, the late Thomas Coskren of Providence College, was a member of the Dominican Order, also known as Ordo Praedicatorum: the Order of Preachers. To predicate is to preach. (And Father Thomas was the best predicator I\u2019ve ever heard.)<\/p>\n When we add a predicate to our subject, we preach, we state our opinion, we make a declaration about the subject.<\/p>\n (My son Harry points out that, in speaking, sometimes a subject can be fully predicated without adding anything more. Say the words \u201cDonald Trump\u201d with an incredulous or dismissive tone of voice, and \u2018nuff said:<\/p>\n Donald Trump??? <\/em><\/p>\n In print, of course, we have to use several question marks to substitute for the incredulity communicated by our tone of voice.)<\/p>\n In writing, absent any vocal inflections, we usually need to add a verb or verb clause to create a full predicate that says something about our subject. Some verbs can form a predicate by themselves:<\/p>\n Donald Trump walks.<\/em><\/p>\n But not all verbs.<\/p>\n Donald Trump would.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s not an opinion, not yet, and it doesn\u2019t tell a story. We don\u2019t know what \u201cDonald Trump would.\u201d The sentence remains incomplete, a sentence fragment. We\u2019re close to having a sentence here, but we\u2019re not there yet. We need a direct object:<\/p>\n Donald Trump would not know good government if it bit him on the ass.<\/em><\/p>\n OK, so now that\u2019s a pronouncement; now we\u2019re preaching. We\u2019ve completed our sentence. We\u2019ve stated our opinion (okay, okay, MY opinion) by adding the direct object \u201cgood government\u201d (and with a little conditional clause thrown in at the end just for emphasis).<\/p>\n What about a sentence that\u2019s less opinion and more of a fact?<\/p>\n Donald Trump has a comb-over.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s not so much an opinion as a fact, but I\u2019m not sure the difference between opinion and fact is really significant here. Michelle notes waggishly that The Donald\u2019s comb-over is both a fact and a fiction: a fact that it\u2019s a comb-over, and a fiction that The Donald has hair growing out of the top of his head.<\/p>\n Between fact and opinion, and between fact and fiction, there\u2019s often a lot more interplay than we generally acknowledge. Think \u201creality\u201d show. And we have a special word for an opinion that we all share: we call it a \u201cfact.\u201d<\/p>\n Opinions, pronouncements, taking a stand, telling the story, preaching: the sentence is where we say something about something.<\/p>\n At all turns, the words we use to talk about the sentence insist that we find its nature in the act of engaging with the world and saying something definite about it. The sentence is how we tell the story of what we see, what we think, what we experience and what we believe.<\/p>\n Maybe at some fundamental level bad writing betrays some little diffidence that restrains us from saying what we think \u2014 or from confidently accepting that what we really think is actually true.<\/p>\n Another professor of mine, also a Dominican priest\u2014those Dominicans are some tough customers \u2014 used to say that good thinking begins with trusting those thoughts you actually have, not the thoughts someone else has. Good writing, too. And yet another one of my beloved Dominicans, St. Thomas Aquinas, said this: \u201cTrust the authority of your senses.\u201d When we write, we should add this kicker: Trust the authority of your senses to your sentences.<\/p>\n The formal characteristics of the sentence \u2014 subjects, predicates, objects: these all lead us to see that the name of the sentence is an act of engagement, one way we come to recognize that \u201ctruth\u201d is not some passive observation but an active grappling with the world and the lives we really live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"