Such a sentence may be of great length (as in the last example below), but its structure is usually transparent.
- A cricket chirps on the hearth, | and | we are reminded of Christmas gambols long ago.—Hazlitt.
- The moments were numbered; | the strife was finished; | the vision was closed.—De Quincey.
- The old king had retired to his couch that night in one of the strongest towers of the Alhambra, | but | his restless anxiety kept him from repose.—Irving.
- The clock has just struck two; | the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket; | the watchman forgets his hour in slumber; | the laborious and the happy are at rest; | and | nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair.—Goldsmith.
- The present, indeed, is not a contest for distant or contingent objects; | it is not a contest for acquisition of territory; | it is not a contest for power and glory; | as little is it carried on merely for any commercial advantage, or any particular form of government; | but | it is a contest for the security, the tranquillity, and the very existence of Great Britain, connected with that of every established government and every country in Europe.—Pitt.
512. A complex sentence, in its most elementary form, consists of one simple independent (main) clause and one simple subordinate clause.
- The gas exploded when I struck a match.
- Though he is idle, he is not lazy.
- The carpenter who fell from the roof has recovered from his injuries.
- Their eyes were so fatigued with the eternal dazzle and whiteness, that they lay down on their backs upon deck to relieve their sight on the blue sky.—Keats.
- The shouts of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, in anxious and silent suspense.—Gibbon.
513. Both compound sentences and complex sentences admit of much variety in structure, according to the nature and the relations of the clauses that compose them.
COMPOUND COMPLEX SENTENCES
514. Any or all of the coördinate clauses that make up a compound sentence may be complex. In that case, the sentence is called a compound complex sentence.
Note. Compound complex sentences form a special class or subdivision under the general head of compound sentences.[49]
Old Uncle Venner was just coming out of his door, with a wood-horse and saw on his shoulder; and, trudging along the street, he scrupled not to keep company with Phœbe, so far as their paths lay together; nor, in spite of his patched coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion of his tow-cloth trousers, could she find it in her heart to outwalk him.—Hawthorne.
This sentence consists of three coördinate clauses, each independent of the others. These are joined by the coördinate conjunctions and, nor. The first and the third clause are simple, but the second clause is complex. Hence the whole forms one compound complex sentence.