Q: Are there exceptions to this “foundational” rule? A: Yes.
Before we move on to Stage 2, where we will explore the possibilities (and rules) regarding using more than one main clause in your sentences, let me point out right now that English grammar allows for several quite-common exceptions to our foundational (and I might even say “dominant”) grammar rule, that a “complete” sentence requires at least one main clause.
For example, I purposely indulged in such an exception in the one-word sentence that answers the question posed in this section’s heading: “Yes.”
These fairly common exceptions occur in different ways (as I will specify), but they usually cause no problem in reader (or listener) comprehension because, in the context of the sentence (what is going on, among the people involved), the “missing” subject or predicate (or both!) is already understood.
In grammar terms we use the term “implied.” We leave out an otherwise required S or P because we know (or at least believe!) that our reader or listener understands, with little room for doubt, the part we’re omitting. That is, the missing element is implied, via our shared context.
We see this grammatical leeway showing clearly in the common sentence type, the “command” (or “order” or “directive”). By any name, we are not making a statement (formally, a “declarative” sentence), nor are we asking a question (the “interrogative” sentence). When we “direct” someone to do something, we are using a third sentence type, formally called the “imperative.”
In class, I would test the students to see who would jump in to answer this question: What is the “subject” in the sentence, “Be sure to lock the door.” Usually a couple hands (out of about 20!) would go up, and some smarty would correctly offer that the missing subject is “the implied you.”
See? We don’t need to specify a subject, when that’s obvious. If I say to you directly, “Lock the door,” you know that I mean you. We needn’t say, “You, lock the door” — since the person I’m talking about — that is, my sentence’s subject — is “implied.” Get it?
Sometimes we omit a subject or predicate since they’re obvious — get it?
Get it? (That sentence shows a similar case of omitted, since obvious, words). See? (So does that one.) I need not include “Do you” (get it?). Nor need I say “Do you” (see?) I ask only “Get it?” or “See?”
In such cases, I can (optionally) omit S or P, since my subject (such as, in an imperative, “you”) is clearly implied (maybe even obvious). Even without stating (instead, simply implying) otherwise “essential” sentence elements, the reader or listener can still understand you just fine. See? (That is, “See what I mean? — but you knew that!)
Along with “imperative” sentences and those with very obvious parts that can be omitted, another type of exception to the “MC required” rule is the fourth (and final) sentence type, the “exclamatory.” This sentence type includes exclamations like “Hooray!” or Wow! or one of my favorites, “Bullshit!” If all we’re doing is exclaiming some reaction, we don’t need a true main clause, though that always remains an option, as in “I call bullshit!”
And there are some other exceptions that rarely get mentioned in grammar books and websites, such as one-word answers to questions, as in, Q: “What time is it?” A: “12:30.”
So, yes, as foundational as I am designating our main rule (sentences need main clauses), there are many possible exceptions. I just want to acknowledge these common and widely accepted exceptions right here, while we’re considering main clauses — that is, while we’re discussing the subject (and not just implying it, ha ha). Get it? (Sorry.)
Sentence fragments: for effect vs. from ignorance
Well, Reader-student, I want you to know that, for the sake of currency — not the monetary kind, the temporal kind — I am constantly researching grammatical “rules and tips,” to see how different sites and authorities (reliable or iffy) are presently presenting the things I put here on my site. It’s not that I am ready to accept (and even promote, here) the latest fad; I’m not. At least not necessarily.
As your personal “interpreter” of the (often contradictory!) grammar “rules, I accept and happily promote some new “developments” in how we write and speak. Others, I reject, though in many cases I will at least inform you of these trends, whether or not I agree with their validity. I advise that you trust my judgments — or at least give them thoughtful consideration — but guess who gets the final say? You guessed it: You do! It’s your voice — and I want it authentically yours!
Actually, I detest some new grammatical “twists” (fairly recent developments that break from tradition), even when I understand that certain “authorities” find them acceptable (or even expected or, worse yet, required). As you might have read elsewhere on this site (maybe in “About Mike” or in my twin-posts with “pronoun madness” in their titles), I see a huge difference in “new twists” that improve our ever-changing language, versus those that dumb it down — that degrade our language — or as my acclaimed, English-teaching grandmother would say, even back in the 1960s, that bastardize our precious (and sometimes confounding) English language. For more on our language’s lack of any universally accepted standard-bearer in English, check out my post with “Whose Rules” in the title.)
Anyway, as pertains to our present topic, “exceptions to our foundational rule” (that every sentence needs at least one main clause), I have above provided a handful of such exceptions that we hear regularly and that offend nobody.
But the next such “exception” — sentence fragments — which I will conditionally promote, comes with a major disclaimer: if you use it at all, as I did just above, in ending the first paragraph in this section (“At least not necessarily.” — maybe you noticed?), then do your credibility a big favor and use such “frags” sparingly.
I refer to what some grammar sites acknowledge as the “intentional fragment.” This type of fragment makes it into one’s writing not in ignorance, but for effect — that is, for style. Unlike most sentence fragments we see daily (if we read much), these frags were put there on purpose. The writer “knows better” but just, in that spot, likes the fragment’s sound, its rhythm, its effect.
That’s a big difference — and sometimes a risky one. Very few errors degrade credibility as do sentence fragments, when the reader suspects at all that they arise not from style, but from ignorance. “You can’t even (consistently) put together a complete sentence? Fool!”
So let me clear up when you safely may (without risking your credibility) issue those iffy, if incomplete, word groupings. You may present “frags,” with little risk of seeming ignorant of our foundational rule (it’s not some obscure thing unknown to most) in two ways — so, at best, show both of the following “permission slips.”
Firstly, show off some sophistication in your customary writing (maybe just occasionally, if you prefer a “plain-spoken” style). Whether a rare treat or a common occurrence, showing spiffy and original twists in your sentence structure imparts a sense that you know what you’re doing. (I’ll show and explain some ways to do this in Stage 2) Then, should you indulge in a sentence frag., or two, it doesn’t seem from ignorance.
Secondly, (and this caution is made widely, so you may have heard it), use fragments sparingly. Now, how shall we clarify this “grey” term? Well, I say that “sparingly” means no more than one per “page.” What kind of “page”? In my experience, 300 words per page makes a good measuring stick.
For your visual reference, that “per-page” ballpark figure (as a minimum average distance between fragments, if they’re used at all) approximates the word count of this chunk of text that you’re presently reading — beginning three paragraphs above, at “So let me,” and extending down to the end of this section, at “if that many.” Specifically, this chunk of text uses 314 words.
Anyway, I like the loose guideline of no more than one frag per page — none at all, if in formal situation — as it seems a reasonable interpretation of the common advice to use them “sparingly.” Or don’t use fragments at all! That’s not a problem. I’m just saying that, if you do indulge in frags, for “style,” don’t use more than one per “page” — if that many.
Some “literary criticism,” to demonstrate how not to break the rule
For reasons that may be obvious by now, whenever I encounter sentence fragments — especially published in generally reputable places, such as the newspaper I subscribe to and read daily, The Denver Post, I’m a reader who notices.
Yes, but am I so far “gone” that I would take time to count and tabulate them, should they become miserably distracting? Well, sometimes I do. It makes me feel better about the whole thing. I think I could turn possibly convert that slop into something of value, the way scientists are now trying to making fuel out of literal cow manure, aka bullshit. Indeed, I am that far gone. I love the data. I pay the price to have the paper on my driveway each morning partly to feed my love of examining present-day “talk” (in my training, discourse).
So this past week, when reading a Denver Post sports column (please remember, in college I served on two school newspapers, both as sports writer and sports editor, so I do tend to notice editing issues), I started getting nauseous at the plethora of sentence fragments overused by a writer, Sean Keeler, whom I normally enjoy, for his knowledge and writing style. Maybe I’m hypersensitive since, right at this time, I’m writing all about sentences needing main clauses. But this was so overdone with frags, I decided to use it as an example, as I’m now doing.
Why a talented writer would stoop to such pandering to ignorant trends, I can’t say. But I can say, with specificity, that, with my guideline, a total of 795 words (not counting quoted material) would allow for between two and three sentence fragments. Okay, use them just right, just that many times. Yes, it’s grammatically incorrect, but we make allowances, for style, especially in an opinion column.
Problem is, Keeler indulged in not three frags, not even 13, but 19! Yep. (That’s been my first in a while, and I’m keeping it — just to demonstrate.)
Let me reiterate that an occasional sentence frag can actually work quite nicely, when kept infrequent and when clearly adding value, whether for note of emphasis or just a nifty wording that stands out, on its own, as a nice touch.
But, in one column of under 800 words, written in a major daily, the author’s sloppiness (actually, I would judge it laziness) resulted in 19 sentence fragments? That’s not stylish, that’s juvenile. I can’t even say sophomoric, because it’s not even up to freshman standards, at least not my freshmen.
Now, a criticism like “That’s not stylish, that’s juvenile” requires support — else the critic (meaning me!) is the lazy one. Unsupported, one-line slams of one’s critical targets (usually adversaries) have no place in the world I wish to improve, through communication and writing instruction, as I’ve done for a long time.
So, by way of support for my charge of “juvenile” fragment overuse (JFO) here are the first few of Keeler’s, taken right from the top and reading down from there — lest you think I read through and cherry picked particularly dull examples. Nope — these are just the first five that came along — and in a span of fewer than 100 words!
In your learner‘s mode, Reader-student, keep an ear out for any that you would judge as stylistically worthwhile, not just ordinary language, sloppily strewn:
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1) Or a big-time tight end. 2) Better yet, both. 3) Right here. (3a. (I’m not really counting this one, as I’m willing to call the missing verb are as “implied” — but it still sounds dumb): “We going for this?” 4) Or not. 5) Almost everything.
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Now didn’t you just thrill to read those delectable and deserving nuggets stand right out proudly, as rule-defying sentence fragments? Obviously, the author is a rugged individualist! So maybe he should show it, by bucking the lame trend toward sentence fragments and other rule bending and breaking that happens without any benefit, besides displaying a sad trendiness.
Let’s call BS on HS
That’s right, a lot of writers today are trying for mega-trendy, but I call bullshit on that horse poop — no offense to either four-legged animal. And I hope, via my “literary criticism” above, to have converted the BS I stomached a few mornings ago, over my breakfast, into a lesson for you worth knowing.
I’m all for breaking the rules. But I want the resulting product to benefit from my “creative,” or should I use the traditional term, “poetic” license. With this matter thusly surveyed — and our admission clear, that not every sentence needs a main clause — we now move onto closer — and, I hope, provocative — examinations of our main clause’s (and our reality’s?) two customary components, the subject and predicate. This time, we’ll start with the predicate.