Tài liệu Presentation cơ bản về ngữ pháp tiếng Anh pdf

Our Friend, the Semicolon Let’s begin with a simple sentence: Grandma stays up too late... Our Friend, the Semicolon Now let’s expand on that a bit: Grandma stays up too late.. Grandma s

Our Friend, the Semicolon

Our Friend, the Semicolon

Let’s begin with a simple sentence:

Grandma stays up too late

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

Now let’s expand on that a bit:

Grandma stays up too late She’s afraid she’s going

to miss something

This is OK Two independent ideas,

separated by a period

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

What if we try to combine the two ideas?

Grandma stays up too late, she’s afraid she’s going

to miss something

Something’s wrong We connected two independent clauses with only a comma The dreaded COMMA SPLICE!

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

We could insert a coordinating conjunction:

This is better! Note the comma that accompanies the coordinating conjunction

Grandma is afraid she’ll miss something, so she stays up too late

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

We could also try subordinating one of these ideas:

Grandma stays up too late because she’s afraid

she’s going to miss something

Notice that the comma disappeared One idea (the

second one) now depends on the other; it has

become a dependent clause

Our Friend, the Semicolon

But let’s try something else

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

Let’s try using a semicolon in this sentence.

Grandma stays up too late; she’s afraid she’s going

to miss something

Notice there is no conjunction used with this

semicolon – either subordinating or coordinating

Just the semicolon, all by itself

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

Sometimes semicolons are accompanied by

conjunctive adverbs – words such as however,

moreover, therefore, nevertheless, consequently,

as a result.

Grandma is afraid she’s going to miss something;

as a result, she stays up too late

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

Notice the pattern:

; as a result,

semicolon + conjunctive adverb + comma

This is a typical construction with semicolons

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

There is one other use of the semicolon: to help us sort out monster lists, like this one:

The committee included Peter Wursthorn, Professor of

Mathematics, from Marlborough, Connecticut, Virginia

Villa, Professor of English, from Hartford, Connecticut, Paul Creech, Director of Rad-Tech, from Essex, Connecticut, and

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

Be careful where you insert semicolons in this

sentence

The committee included Peter Wursthorn, Professor of

Mathematics, from Marlborough, Connecticut; Virginia

Villa, Professor of English, from Hartford, Connecticut ; Paul Creech, Director of Rad-Tech, from Essex, Connecticut ; and Joan Leach, Professor of Nursing, from Farmington,

Connecticut.

Our Friend, the

Semicolon

Now you know everything you’ll ever need to know about using semicolons!

This PowerPoint presentation was created by Charles Darling, PhD

Professor of English and Webmaster

Capital Community College

Hartford, Connecticut

copyright November 1999