When I was in school, the types of sentences we learned about were declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory. There were also simple, complex, and compound sentences.

Recently I learned about right-branching sentences.

But Stanley Fish doesn’t write about any of these in How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One.

First he spends time explaining what a sentence is: organization of words in logical relationships.

If one understands that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships and that the number of relationships involved is finite, one understands too that there is only one error to worry about, the error of being illogical, and only one rule to follow: make sure that every component of your sentences is related to the other components in a way that is clear and unambiguous (unless ambiguity is what you are aiming at) (p. 20).

He suggests practicing various forms of sentences without regard to content at first to get used to logical progressions and connections. He compares this to learning scales in music.

He expounds on the subordinating, additive, and satiric styles of sentences.

The subordinating style, he says, is technically called hypotaxis. This involves “the art of arranging objects and actions in relationships of causality, temporality, and precedence” (p. 50).

The additive style, also known as parataxis, involves a “coordinate, rather than a subordinate construction” (p. 62).

The first displays “planning, order, and control”; the latter has the effect of “spontaneity, haphazardness, and chance” (p. 61), even though it might be just as carefully planned.

“Satire, the art in which ‘human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit'” (p. 89), is a “content category . . . but there’s a lot of formal skill in writing satire” (p. 90).

Fish has a chapter on each of these styles with numerous examples from literature. He also has a chapter on effective first and last sentences, with abundant examples as well. Many of the examples are well-known; some are obscure.

My one quibble with his examples, though, is that many of them are from older writings and are so long, no editor would allow them today. One random example on page 145 (Kindle version) has 76 words and nine clauses. One can say a lot with that much material! 

Nevertheless, the point is taken that effective sentences are thoughtfully arranged, not randomly scattered. 

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead (p. 42).

Content must take center stage, for the expression of content is what writing is for (p. 134).

What you can compose depends on what you’re composed of (p. 138).

Evanescence can be produced by language that in its mundane use sits inert on the page (p. 146).

I think I’ll need to read this book again to benefit from it more. It had the misfortune of being dipped into in bits and pieces among other reads. But I think my brain needs a rest first. I was glad I read this via the Kindle app, where I could tap some of the words I’d never seen before and use the built-in dictionary to find out what they meant.

But I can recommend this book for thoughtful examination of what sentences are and how they can be effectively composed.