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clausal arrangement may be called "oblique" consecutive subordination; it is of minor importance for the
system of subordination perspective as a whole.
The number of consecutive levels of subordination gives the evaluation of the "depth" of subordination
perspective - one of the essential syntactic characteristics of the complex sentence. In the first three examples
cited in the current paragraph this depth is estimated as 1; in the fourth example (direct consecutive
subordination) it equals 3; in the fifth example (oblique consecutive subordination) it equals 2. The
subordination perspective of complex sentences used in ordinary colloquial speech seldom exceeds three
consecutive clausal levels.
C H A P T E R XXVIII
COMPOUND SENTENCE
§ 1. The compound sentence is a composite sentence built on the principle of coordination. Coordination,
the same as subordination, can be expressed either syndetically (by means of coordinative connectors) or
asyndetically.
The main semantic relations between the clauses connected coordinatively are copulative, adversative,
disjunctive, causal, consequential, resultative. Similar semantic types of relations are to be found between
independent, separate sentences forming a continual text. As is known, this fact has given cause to some
scholars to deny the existence of the compound sentence as a special, regular form of the composite sentence.*
* See: Иофик Л.Л. Сложное предложение в новоанглийском языке. Л., 1968.
The advanced thesis to this effect states that the so-called "compound sentence" is a fictitious notion
developed under the school influence of written presentation of speech; what is fallaciously termed the
"compound sentence" constitutes in reality a sequence of semantically related independent sentences not
separated by full stops in writing because of an arbitrary school convention.
To support this analysis, the following reasons are put forward: first, the possibility of a falling, finalizing
tone between the coordinated predicative units; second, the existence, in written speech, of independently
presented sentences introduced by the same conjunctions as the would-be "coordinate clauses"; third, the
possibility of a full stop-separation of the said "coordinate clauses" with the preservation of the same semantic
relations between them.
We must admit that, linguistically, the cited reasons are not devoid of a rational aspect, and, which is very
important, they appeal to the actual properties of the sentence in the text. However, the conception taken as a
whole gives a false presentation of the essential facts under analysis and is fallacious in principle.
As a matter of fact, there is a substantial semantico-syntactic difference between the compound sentence
and the corresponding textual sequence of independent sentences. This difference can escape the attention of
the observer when tackling isolated sentences, but it is explicitly exposed in the contexts of continual speech.
Namely, by means of differences in syntactic distributions of predicative units, different distributions of the
expressed ideas are achieved, which is just the coordinative syntactic functions in action; by means of com-
bining or non-combining predicative units into a coordinative polypredicative sequence the corresponding
closeness or looseness of connections between the reflected events is shown, which is another aspect of
coordinative syntactic functions. It is due to these functions that the compound sentence does not only exist in
the syntactic system of language, but occupies in it one of the constitutive places.
By way of example, let us take a textual sequence of independent monopredicative units:
Jane adored that actor. Hockins could not stand the sight of him. Each was convinced of the infallibility of
one's artistic judgment. That aroused prolonged arguments.
Given the "negative" theory of the compound sentence is correct, any coordinative-sentential re-
arrangements of the cited sentences must be indifferent as regards the sense rendered by the text. In practice,
though, it is not so. In particular, the following arrangement of the predicative units into two successive
compound sentences is quite justified from the semantico-syntactic point of view:
> Jane adored that actor, but Hockins could not stand the sight of him. Each was convinced of the
infallibility of one's judgment, and that aroused prolonged arguments.
As different from this, the version of arranging the same material given below cannot be justified in any
syntactic or semantic sense:
> *Jane adored that actor. But Hockins could not stand the sight of him, each was convinced of the
infallibility of one's judgment. And that aroused prolonged arguments.