Cumulative sentence¶
The modifier is the essential part of the sentence
This sentence composition is essentially a process of addition. Less structured, but evolving. We add information to a base clause
Adding information has direction: moving forward in the sentence, backwards, pause, consolidate
It relies on modifiers rather than complements. Attention focus is on modifiers, that generally move backwards. Probing the same idea, and expanding with more details, implications, metaphors, refinement, clarification, explanation, answering a question that the sentence opening raised
As the sentence develops it down shifts to increasingly detailed level of abstraction, or breakdown of earlier concept to it’s components with more detailed description
It’s generative: each word is more precise than alternatives above it, and less precise of alternatives below it. Same with clause and phrases in the sentence
Cumulative sentences has texture if built correctly
Infinitives function much like gerunds and frequently appear in cumulative modifying levels, accompanied by a participle:
Thinking he needed to find a job, the ex-superhero started scouring the want ads
Each step moves closer to the end, but also add details, explanations
The immediate targets for further modification are the subject, the verb and the object
The cumulative pattern produces adjectival information that might otherwise have been subordinated in relative clauses
Perhaps the easiest way to add a second level is to begin the modifying phrase with a verbal. The simplest way to do this is base clause, verb plus -ing
These sentences are typically better for prose. Ernest Hemingway, “In our time”:
George was coming down in the telemark position, kneeling, one leg forward and bent, the other trailing, his sticks hanging like some insect’s thin legs, kicking up puffs of snow, and finally the whole kneeling, trailing figure coming around in a beautiful right curve, crouching, the legs shot forward and back, the sticks accenting the curve like points of light, all in a wild cloud of snow
Addition techniques¶
Parallelism contributes to the power of the cumulative syntax, largely for the ebb-and-flow of the sentence (adding similar elements all…, all…)
Repeating the last word of one phrase as the first in the next(his coat was tattered, tattered beyond all hope of repair)
Balanced sentences, aware of pairs(ask not…), or dualism
Rhetoric of series: two - certainty; three - normal, reasonable; four - human, emotional
See also: http://richardgilbert.me/a-special-sentence-structure/