The Future of the English Sentence

Abstract

This essay is about past and future changes in the predominant features of the written English sentence. Based on a survey of turn-of-the century works from the last four hundred years, the author describes the general changes in sentence length, typical clause and modifier patterns, connectedness and structural explicitness. The printed sentence has become shorter, the flow of information more direct, the connections between nominalizations more implicit. The changes have their roots in patterns of spoken English, in the printing press and the widening of literacy and in the structure of scientific rhetoric. Over the coming two centuries, the printed sentence will probably continue to develop in a similar direction. The major variable is whether electronic technology, will in the long run, bring the printed sentence closer to the oral one, or whether the sentence of electronic prose will develop its own distinguishing characteristics. In any case, the shorter sentence of the future will probably be rigorously and tightly constructed and more reliant on phrases than on subordinate clauses. Taking a long view that includes such speculation refreshes our perspective on the state of written English prose.