The complex sentence

Clauses in a complex sentence are subordinated to the main clause or to each other, they are not equal in rank. Each clause, whether it is the main clause or a subordinate one, has its own subject-predicate unit.

The clauses in a complex sentence may be connected either with the help of various connectors (syndetically): More and more, she became convinced that some misfortune had overtaken Paul. or without them (asyndetically): I wish you had come.

The subordinate clause may either

• precede or follow the main clause: As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone together.

• follow it: His steps quickened as he set out for the hotel.

• be placed inside it: It was dull and dreary enough, when the long summer evening closed in, on that Saturday night.

The main clause may have several subordinate clauses which are connected to each other by means of coordination: They were all obstinately of opinion that the poor girl had stolen the moonstone, and that she had destroyed herself in terror of being found out. / What Mr. Pancks knew about the Dorrit family, what more he really wanted to find out, and why he should trouble his busy head about them at all, were questions that often perplexed him.

One subordinate clause may be subordinated to another subordinate clause: I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way of speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested success in marrying Mr. Gowan.

[We can present composite sentences graphically.

(1)Tell me where you live. (2) When she came, I told her that I was busy. (3) She told me that she had been in the South where she spent a month.]

Subordinate clauses can be classified by their syntactic functions in the sentence like ordinary parts of the sentence. So they can perform the function of:

1. the subject: What I want to do is to save us both. / That he will come is certain. / Who

broke the glass remained unknown. / It is strange that he did not come at all.

2. the predicative: The question is whether he is able to do it alone. / This is why he is so

unhappy.

3. the object: He told me that he would come. / She was aware that someone else was there.

I am always ready to listen to whatever you may wish to disclose.

4. the attribute: The fortunate fact that the rector’s letter did not require an immediate

answer would give him time to consider. / I think my father is the best man I have ever known. /

But there is no private life which has not been determined by a wider, public life. / They

spoke no more all the way to the lodging where Fanny lived.

5. the adverbial modifier: My mother died when I was eight. (adverbial clause of time) / I

looked where she pointed. (adverbial clause of place) / Wounds sometimes must be opened in order that they may be healed. (adverbial clause of purpose) / If he is not here by the end of the week, I shall go after him. (adverbial clause of condition) / I enjoyed that day, though we traveled slowly, though it was cold, though it rained. (adverbial clause of concession) / Mr. Direck’s broken wrist healed sooner than he expected. (adverbial clause of comparison)

The composite sentence can include compound sentences as well as complex: The weather had been all the week extremely sultry but the storm broke so suddenly that before we reached the outskirts of the wood, the rain came in torrents.