© 2002 Martin Paterson
Throughout the cold war, the Baltic States, recognising the futility of asserting their independence against the overwhelming strength of the Red Army, stoically remained parts of the Soviet Union, which needed to use their ports as naval and military bases to protect the littoral between Kaliningrad and Leningrad.
When arranged in the right order, the elements illustrate...
THE STRUCTURE OF A TYPICAL ACADEMIC SENTENCE
The syntactically necessary elements are in bold, the semantically desirable in italics.
|
adverbial phrase |
Throughout the cold war
|
|
subject |
the Baltic States |
|
parenthetic clause |
, recognising the futility of asserting their independence against the overwhelming strength of the Red Army, |
|
adverb |
stoically |
|
verb |
remained |
|
object, complement or adjunct |
parts of the Soviet Union |
|
parenthetic clause |
, which needed to use their ports as naval and military bases to protect the littoral between Kaliningrad and Leningrad. |
Not all of these elements are needed, and their sequence can be varied in ways we will examine more closely in the section on paragraph coherence. For a little more practice now, imagine that the information about the Soviet Union is not required.
Is the remainder of the sentence still good or not? Why?
Throughout the cold war, the Baltic States, recognising the futility of asserting their independence against the overwhelming strength of the Red Army, stoically remained parts of the Soviet Union.
Try to rearrange the elements into a better order, then click here.
© 2002 Martin Paterson