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In the English language, a compound sentence is composed of at least two independent clauses, but no dependent clauses. The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (with or without a comma), a correlative conjunction (with or without a comma), or a semicolon with no conjunction.
Examples
- He finally bought the book, or so I thought.
- The two independent clauses are joined by a comma and the coordinating conjunction "or".
- Either he goes or I go.
- The compound sentence is held together by the correlative conjunction "either…or".
- Mary understands math; she has studied it for years.
- Here the two are joined by a semicolon with no conjunction.
Contrast
- He finally read the book that I gave him.
- that I gave him is a dependent clause. This is a complex sentence, not a compound sentence.
Run-on sentences
It is common for proponents of prescriptive grammar to caution against the use of run-on sentences, which are defined as a compound sentence with "too many" independent clauses. While the exact specification of "too many" is obviously subjective, a commonly given number is three.
Examples:
- Bob gave me a book and I read it and I didn't like it and I gave it back to him.
- Grandma came to visit and we went to the zoo and we saw the ferrets and my friend Emily has a ferret.
It can be argued, however, that at least when teaching children, this advice against run-on sentences is not entirely a prescription on their grammar, but also a way of teaching that clauses in a sentence should be semantically related, not just a stream of consciousness. Therefore, although both examples above have the same number of independent clauses, the second is more of a run-on than the first.
Note that the term run-on sentence is not usually used for complex sentences with large number of clauses. For example,
- Bob gave me a book, which I read and I didn't like, so I gave it back to him.
See also
External links
"Compound sentence (linguistics)"