ABSTRACT
A little grammar: Styles of sentences 2
What’s a’ your jargon o’ your schools, Your Latin names for horns and stools, If honest Nature made you fools,
What sairs your grammars? - Robert Burns
Grammere, that grounde is of alle . . . - William Langland
Since we do need some of the jargon of the schools - enough, at least, to provide constructive references, frames of judg ment in stylistic questions - let us examine a few patterns of the English sentence. The patterning may be quite simple:
Billy stole his father’s car or very complex:
After the police had scoured three counties, eventually tracing the young culprit to a cinema in Leamington Spa, where he had gone to see a repeat showing of ‘Star Wars’, Billy’s father was advised that it might be a good idea to keep his son out of mischief by providing the inquisitive little fellow with numerous video games of the sort de signed to appeal to the adventurous if potentially felonious instincts of a child growing up in an age of diminishing respect for property.
