nited States 'entering the World War (1917):
But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts, - for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
The text presents a typical case of political scripted speech with a clear tinge of solemnity, its five predicative units being complicated by parallel constructions of homogeneous objects (for-phrases) adding to its high style emphasis.
Compare the above with a passage from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address (1937):
In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens - a substantial part of its whole population - who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
The sentence is not a long one, but its bookish background, although meant for oral uttering before an audience, is most evident: a detached appositional phrase, consecutive subordination, the very nature of the last appositional clausal complex of commenting type, all these features being carefully prepared to give the necessary emphasis to the social content of the utterance aimed at a public success.
Compare one more example - a passage from Bernard Shaw's paper read before the Medico-Legal Society in London (1909):
Nevertheless, trade in medical advice has never been formally recognised, and never will be; for you must realise that, whereas competition in ordinary trade and business is founded on an elaborate theoretic demonstration of its benefits, there has never been anyone from Adam Smith to our own time who has attempted such a demonstration with regard to the medical profession. The idea of ​​a doctor being a tradesman with a pecuniary interest in your being ill is abhorrent to every thoughtful person. p align="justify"> The scripted nature of the cited sentential sequence is clearly seen from its arrangement as an expressive climax built upon a carefully balanced contrastive composite construction.
We have hitherto defended the thesis of the composite sentence of increased complexity being specifically characteristic of literary written speech. On the other hand, we must clearly understand that the composite sentence as such is part and parcel of the general syntactic system of language, and its use is an inalienable feature of any normal expression of human thought in intercourse. This is demonstrated by cases of composite sentences that could not be adequately reduced to the corresponding sets of separate simple sentences in their natural contexts (see above). Fictional literature, presenting in its works a reflection of language as it is spoken by the people, gives us abundant illustrations of the broad use of composite sentences in genuine colloquial speech both of dialogue and monologue character. p align="justify"> Composite sentences display two principal types of construction: hypotaxis (subordination) and parataxis (coordination). Both types are equally representative of colloquial speech, be it refined by education or not. In this connection it should be noted that the initial rise of hypotaxis and parataxis as forms of composite sentences can be traced back to the early stages of language development, i. e. to the times when language had no writing. Profuse illustrations of the said types of syntactic relations are contained, for instance, in the Old English epic "Beowulf" (dated presumably from the VII з AD). As is known, the text of the poem shows all the basic forms of sentential composition including the grammatically completed presentation of reported speech, connection of clauses on various nominal principles (objective, subjective, predicative, attributive), connection of clauses on various adverbial principles (temporal, local, conditional, causal, etc.). E. g.:
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Compare the tentative prose translation of the cited text into Modern English (with the corresponding re-arrangements of the word-order patterns):
Truly I say onto thee, oh Son Egglaf, that never would Grendel, the abominable monster, have done so many terrible deeds to your chief, (so many) humiliating acts in Heorot, if thy soul ( and) heart had been as bold as thou thyself declarest; but he has found that he need not much fear the hostile sword-attack of your people, the Victorious Skildings.
Needless to say, the forms of composite sentences in prewriting periods of langu...
