Catch Up with Long Sentences¶

Sometimes you may be able to understand the meaning of each sentence, but still have diffuculty following the whole lecture or talk.

To understand a lecture or a talk, it is not enough just to understand the important information in each sentence. It is also necessary to understand how the sentences are related to each other.

Every text has a structure. It is not just a random collection of sentences. The parts that make up of the text are related in a meaningful way to each other.

For example, words like "it", "this", "that", "here", "there" etc. refer to other parts of the text. Recognizing these connections or links will help you to understand the text better.

Types of links:

reference
ellipsis and substituion
conjunction

Reference¶

Cetain items in the English language have the property of reference. That is, they do not have meaning themselves, but they refer to something else for their meaning.

Examples of Reference:

it, this, here, there
he, him, she, her, they, them
who, which, that

Substituion and Ellipsis¶

Substituion is the replacement of one item by another and ellipsis is the omission of the item.

If speakers wish to aovid repeating a word, they can use substituion or ellisis.

Examples of substituion:

Will you marry me? Yes, I will (=will marry you)
My friend wants the omelet and I'll have the same (=the omelet).

Examples of ellipsis:

She often drinks sherry and probably will (drink sherry) this evening.
She is coming if you are (coming).

Conjunction¶

Words which connect words, phrases, clauses or sentences are called conjunctions.

Conjunction shows meaningful relationships between clauses. It shows how what follows is connected to what has gone before.

Types of Conjunction:

Coordinating conjunctions: and, nor, so, or ...
Subordinating conjunctions: because, although, since, after ...
Correlative conjunctions: either... or, not only... but also, such... that