Sentence for the word complex

Synonym: bias, complicated, confused, inclination, involved, leaning, mixed, prejudice. Antonym: brief, plain, simple. Similar words: complexity, sample, temple, comply, for example, implement, complaint, comply with. Meaning: [‘kɒmpleks]  n. 1. a conceptual whole made up of complicated and related parts 2. a compound described in terms of the central atom to which other atoms are bound or coordinated 3. (psychoanalysis) a combination of emotions and impulses that have been rejected from awareness but still influence a person’s behavior 4. a whole structure (as a building) made up of interconnected or related structures. adj. complicated in structure; consisting of interconnected parts. 

What is a complex sentence?

A complex sentence is one independent clause and at least one dependent clause joined by a subordinating conjunction. Complex sentences are one of the four basic types of sentences in the English language.

Complex sentences require at least three parts:

1. Independent clause

2. Subordinating conjunction

3. Dependent clause or clauses

Independent clauses

In writing, entire ideas expressed using a noun and verb (a subject and predicate) create independent clauses. Independent clauses can be complete sentences on their own.

Here is a wonderful succession of simple sentences (each an independent clause) from Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis:

I’m in the midst of getting out of bed. Just have patience for a short moment! Things are not going so well as I thought. But things are all right.

Things certainly are not going well for Kafka’s protagonist because Gregor Samsa has turned into a “monstrous verminous bug.”

Dependent clauses

Dependent clauses, also called the subordinate clause, have a noun and verb but fail to express a complete thought. In these sentences penned by Kafka, the dependent clauses are underlined:

• No matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled again onto his back.

• If I were to try that with my boss, I’d be thrown out on the spot.

• Because the lodgers sometimes also took their evening meal at home in the common living room, the door to the living room stayed shut on many evenings.

These examples have nouns and verbs, but they are not complete thoughts. If all Kafka had written was, “No matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side,” you would have no idea what was happening to Gregor Samsa.

If left by themselves, dependent clauses are sentence fragments.

Complex sentence examples

You can write complex sentences in a few different ways. Here are some rules to help you construct complex sentences:

• Dependent Clause + Independent Clause (comma splits the clause)

• Independent Clause + Dependent Clause (comma usually does not split the clause)

Here are four examples of complex sentences where the dependent clause comes first:

1. When I was a child, I love playing baseball.

2. As you may know, writing with correct English grammar can be challenging.

3. Since summer is around the corner, we all bought new bathing suits.

4. Because she was late for work, she was frustrated.

Here are those same four examples with the independent clause first:

1. I enjoyed playing baseball when I was a child.

2. Writing with correct English grammar can be challenging, as you may know.

3. We all bought new bathing suits since summer is around the corner.

4. She was frustrated because she was late for work.

Complex sentence conjunctions

In complex sentences, dependent clauses are linked to independent clauses with subordinating conjunctions. These are words that couple the two clauses together.

In many cases, these subordinating words come after the independent clause and just before the dependent clause like here:

But that would be extremely embarrassing and suspicious, because during his five years’ service Gregor hadn’t been sick even once.

Many words operate as subordinating conjunctions. They often cluster around concepts like comparisons, time, reason, and conditions.

These are just some common subordinating conjunctions. This list is not exhaustive. Dozens and dozens of words and phrases can serve to join the dependent clause to the independent clause.

Complex sentences clauses

In addition to subordinating conjunctions, complex sentences can use three types of clauses, called subordinating clauses:

1. Adjective clause

2. Noun clause

3. Adverb clause

These take the place of adjectives, nouns, and adverbs.

Examples of adjective clauses working as dependent clauses in complex sentences might be:

• The thief who had taken the pony was found guilty by the jury.

• The apartment that felt drafty even in spring needed remodeling.

Examples of noun clauses working as dependent clauses in complex sentences might be:

• Whoever added the eraser to a pencil was very clever.

• While on vacation, we can do whatever we like.

Examples of adverb clauses working as dependent clauses in complex sentences might be:

• Although we played well, we lost the baseball game.

• Whether we liked it or not, we lost by many runs.

Issues writing complex sentences

Kafka was a master of language; he had unwritten permission (from generations of readers) to violate all the “rules” of writing. You do not. When crafting your sentences, be careful to avoid traps with complex sentences.

1. Losing sight of your main idea – Using punctuation, adding subordinating conjunctions, and tacking on streams of dependent clauses, you fall in love with making ever-longer sentences that crush the soul of your intent.

2. Writing run-on sentences – Forgetting to use either punctuation or subordinating conjunctions, you run the dependent clause right into the independent clause.

3. Confusing compound sentences with complex sentences – Compound sentences use one of the seven coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so; FANBOYS) to link independent clauses, while complex sentences use one of many (seemingly countless!) subordinating conjunctions to connect the independent clause with the dependent clause.

Four types of sentences

In addition to complex sentences, there are three other types of sentences. Here are the four basic sentence types you have in the English language.

1. Simple sentence – One independent clause (one subject, one predicate)

2. Complex sentence – One independent clause, subordinating conjunction, and one or more dependent clauses

3. Compound sentence – Two or more independent clauses, often linked by coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS)

4. Compound-complex sentence – Two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause

The different types of sentences have their own sentence structure.

The
complex sentence is a polypredicative construction built on the
principle of subordination (hypotaxis). In paradigmatic presentation,
the derivational history of the complex sentence is as follows: two
or more base sentences are clausalized and joined into one
construction; one of them performs the role of a matrix in relation
to the others, the insert sentences. The matrix base sentence becomes
the principal clause of the complex sentence and the insert sentences
become its subordinate clauses, e.g.: The team arrived. + It caused a
sensation. à When the team arrived, it caused a sensation.

The
minimal complex sentence includes two clauses: the principal one and
the subordinate one. This is the main type of complex sentences,
first, in terms of frequency, and, second, in terms of its
paradigmatic status, because a complex sentence of any volume can be
analyzed into a combination of two-clause complex sentence units.

The
principal clause positionally dominates the subordinate clause, which
is embedded into it: even if the principal clause is incomplete and
is represented by just one word, the subordinate clauses fill in the
open positions, introduced by the principal clause, in the underlying
simple sentence pattern, e.g.: What you see is what you get — What
you see (the subject) is (the predicate) what you get (the object).
Semantically, the two clauses are interconnected and form a
semantico-syntactic unity: the existence of either of them is
supported by the existence of the other.

The
dominant positional status of the principal clause does not mean that
it expresses the central informative part of the communication: any
clause of a complex sentence can render its rheme or its theme. As in
a simple sentence, in a neutral context the preceding part renders
the starting point of communication, the theme, and the following
part, placed near the end of the sentence, renders the most important
information, the rheme, cf.: What he likes most about her is her
smile. — Her smile is what he likes most about her. In the first
sentence the principal part is rhematic, and in the second sentence
the subordinate clause. Besides the clause-order, as with word-order
in general, there are other means of expressing the correlative
informative value of clauses in complex sentences, such as
intonation, special constructions, emphatic particles and others.

The
informative value of a principal clause may be reduced to the mere
introduction of a subordinate clause; for example, the principal
clause can perform the “phatic” function, i.e. the function of
keeping up the conversation, of maintaining the immediate
communicative connection with the listener, e.g.: I think you are a
great parent; in this sentence, the basic information is rendered by
the rhematic subordinate clause, while the principal clause is
phatic, specifying the speaker’s attitude to the information.

Different
types of complex sentences are distinguished, first of all, on the
basis of their subordinate clause types. Subordinate clauses are
classified on two mutually complementary bases: on the functional
principle and on the categorial principle.

According
to the functional principle, subordinate clauses are divided on the
analogy (though, not identity) of the positional parts of the simple
sentence that underlies the structure of the complex sentence. E.g.:
What you see is what you get. — What you see (the subject, the
subject subordinate clause) is what you get (the object, the object
subordinate clause).

According
to the categorial principle, subordinate clauses are divided by their
inherent nominative properties; there is certain similarity (but,
again, not identity) with the part-of-speech classification of words.
Subordinate clauses can be divided into three categorial-semantic
groups: substantive-nominal, qualification-nominal and adverbial.
Substantive-nominal subordinate clauses name an event as a certain
fact, e.g.: What you do is very important; cf.: What is very
important? Qualification-nominal subordinate clauses name a certain
event, which is referred, as a characteristic to some substance,
represented either by a word or by another clause, e.g.: Where is the
letter that came today?; cf.: What letter? Adverbial subordinate
clauses name a certain event, which is referred, as a characteristic
to another event, to a process or a quality, e.g.: I won’t leave
until you come.

The
two principles of subordinate clause classification are mutually
complementary: the categorial features of clauses go together with
their functional sentence-part features similar to the categorial
features of words going together with their functional
characteristics. Thus, subordinate clauses are to be classified into
three groups: first, clauses of primary nominal positions, including
subject, predicative and object clauses; second, clauses of secondary
nominal positions, including various attributive clauses; and third,
clauses of adverbial positions.

The
classification of clauses is sustained by the subdivision of
functional connective words, which serve as sentence subordinators
(or subordinating clausalizers), transforming the base sentences into
subordinate clauses of various types.

Subordinating
connectors are subdivided into two basic types: pronominal words and
pure conjunctions. Pronominal connective words occupy a notional
position in the derived sentence; for example, some of them replace a
certain antecedent (i.e. a word or phrase to which the connector
refers back) in the principal clause, e.g.: The man whom I met
yesterday surprised me. Pure subordinate conjunctions do not occupy a
notional position in the derived sentence, e.g.: She said that she
would come early. Some connectors are bifunctional, i.e. used both as
conjunctions and as conjunctive substitutes, cf.: She said that she
would come early; Where is the letter that came today?

Semantically,
subordinators (both conjunctions and conjunctive substitutes) are
subdivided in correspondence with the categorial type of the
subordinate clauses which they introduce: there are
substantive-nominal and qualification-nominal clausalizers
(conjunctions and pronominal words), which introduce the event-fact,
and adverbial clausalizers (conjunctions), showing relational
characteristics of events. Some connective words can be used both as
nominal connectors and as adverbial connectors, cf.: Do you know when
they are coming? (What do you know?) – We’ll meet when the new
house is finished (When shall we meet?).

Together
with these, the zero subordinator should be named, whose
polyfunctional status is similar to the status of the subordinator
that, cf.: She said that she would come early. – She said Ø she
would come early; This is the issue that I planned to discuss with
you. – This is the issue Ø I planned to discuss with you.

Clauses
of primary nominal positions, including subject, predicative and
object clauses, are interchangeable with each other, cf.: What you
see is what you get; What you get is what you see; You’ll be
surprised at what you see. The subject clause regularly expresses the
theme of a complex sentence, and the predicative clause regularly
expresses its rheme. The subject clause may express the rheme of the
sentence, if it is introduced by the anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: It
is true that he stole the jewels. The subject clause in such complex
sentences is at the same time appositive. The status of the object
clause is most obvious in its prepositional introduction (as in the
example above). Sometimes it is mixed with other functional
semantics, determined by the connectors, in particular, with
adverbial relational meanings, e.g.: Do you know when they are
coming? A separate group of object clauses are those presenting the
chunks of speech and mental activity processes, traditionally
discussed under the heading “the rules of reported speech”, e.g.:
She said she would come early; Do you mean you like it?

Clauses
of secondary nominal positions, including various attributive
clauses, fall into two major groups: “descriptive” attributive
clauses and “restrictive” (“limiting”) attributive clauses.
The descriptive attributive clause exposes some characteristic of the
antecedent (i.e. its substantive referent) as such, while the
restrictive attributive clause performs a purely identifying role,
singling out the referent of the antecedent in the situation, cf.: I
know a man who can help us (descriptive attributive clause); This is
the man whom I met yesterday (restrictive attributive clause). Some
descriptive attributive clauses are attributive only in form, but
semantically, they present a new event which somehow continues the
chain of events reflected by the sentence as a whole; these complex
sentences can be easily transformed into compound sentences, e.g.: We
caught a breeze that took us gently up the river. à We caught a
breeze and it took us gently up the river. Appositive clauses, a
subtype of attributive clauses, define or elucidate the meaning of
the substantive antecedent of abstract semantics, represented by such
nouns as ability, advice, attempt, decision, desire, impulse,
promise, proposal, etc, or by an indefinite or demonstrative pronoun,
or by an anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: I had the impression that she
was badly ill; It was all he could do not to cry; It is true that he
stole the jewels. The unique role of the subjective anticipatory
appositive construction, as has been mentioned, consists in the fact
that it is used as a universal means of rheme identification in the
actual division of the sentence.

Clauses
of adverbial positions make up the most numerous and the most
complicated group of subordinate clauses, reflecting the intricacy of
various relations between events and processes. The following big
groups of adverbial clauses can be distinguished. First, clauses of
time and clauses of place render the semantics of temporal and
spatial localization. Local identification is primarily determined by
subordinators: it may be general, expressed by the conjunctions when
and where, or particularizing, expressed by such conjunctions as
while, since, before, no sooner than, from where, etc., e.g.: I
jumped up when she called; Sit where you like; I won’t leave until
you come. Second, clauses of manner and comparison give a
qualification to the action or event rendered by the principal
clause, e.g.: Profits are higher than they were last year; Her lips
moved soundlessly, as if she were rehearsing. The syntactic semantics
of manner is expressed by subordinate appositive clauses introduced
by phrases with the broad-meaning words way and manner, e.g.: George
writes the way his father did. Third, the most numerous group,
adverbial clauses of different circumstantial semantics includes
“classical” subordinate clauses of attendant event, condition,
cause (reason), result (consequence), concession, and purpose. E.g.:
I am tired because I have worked all day; He spoke loudly so that all
could hear him; If we start off now, we’ll arrive there by dinner;
Even if the fault is all his, I must find a way to help him; He was
so embarrassed that he could hardly understand her; etc. Cases of
various ‘transferred’ and mixed syntactic semantics are also
common in this group of clauses; e.g.: Whatever happens, she won’t
have it her own way; the subordinate clause expresses circumstantial
(concessive) semantics mixed with non-circumstantial
(substantive-nominal) semantics. Fourth, a separate group of
adverbial clauses is formed by subordinate clauses which function as
parenthetical enclosures, inserted into composite syntactic
constructions by a loose connection. Parenthetical predicative
insertions can be either subordinative or coordinative, exposed by
either a subordinating connector or a coordinative connector (cf.:
inner cumulative connections in equipotent and dominational phrases;
see Unit 19), e.g.: As far as I remember, the man was very much
surprised to see me there; They used to be, and this is no longer a
secret, very close friends. Semantically, parenthetical clauses may
be of two types: “introductory”, expressing different modal
meanings (as in the first example above), and “deviational”,
expressing commenting insertions of varied semantic character (the
second example above).

As
the classification shows, the only notional position the subordinate
clause can not occupy is the position of the predicate; this fact
stresses once again the unique function of the predicate as the
organizing centre of the sentenc

The
clauses of a complex sentence can be connected with one another more
or less closely. The degree (intensity) of syntactic closeness
between the clauses reflects the degree of mutual dependence of their
proposemic content. For example, the primary subordinate clauses, the
subject clause and the predicative clause, are so closely connected
with the principal clause that without them the principal clause
cannot exist as a syntactic unit. The loose connections between the
principal clause and the parenthetical enclosure make it possible to
segregate the principal clause as an independent syntactic
construction. Thus, all types of subordinative clausal connections
are syntactically either obligatory or optional.

This
distinction was used by the Russian linguist N. S. Pospelov to
introduce another classification of complex sentences: he defined
complex sentences with obligatory subordinate clauses as “one-member
sentences” and complex sentences with optional subordinate clauses
as “two-member sentences”. These two types of complex sentences
can also be described as “monolithic” and “segregative”
sentence structures correspondingly. The following complex sentences
are syntactically monolithic: first, complex sentences with subject
and predicative clauses, e.g.: What the telegram said was clear (*…
was clear would be semantically and constructionally deficient); The
telegram was what I expected from you (*The telegram was…); second,
complex sentences in which the subordinate clauses perform the
functions of complements, required by the obligatory valency of the
predicate (usually, object clauses and adverbial clauses), e.g.: Tell
me what you know about it (cf.: *Tell me…); Put the pen where
you’ve taken it from; third, complex sentences with correlative
connections, for example, with double connectors, e.g.: The more he
thought about it, the more he worried; complex sentences with
restrictive attributive clauses are monolythic, because they are
based on a correlation scheme too, e.g.: It was the kind of book that
all children admire; finally, the fourth type of monolithic complex
sentences is formed by complex sentences with the subordinate clause
in preposition to the principal clause, e.g.: As far as I remember,
the man was very much surprised to see me there (cf.: *As far as I
remember…); Even if the fault is all his, I must find a way to help
him.

Segregative
complex sentences are those with most of the adverbial clauses,
parenthetical clauses and descriptive attributive clauses in
postposition to the principal clause, e.g.: The man was very much
surprised to see me there, as far as I remember (cf.: The man was
very much surprised to see me); She wore a hat which was decorated
with flowers (сf.: She wore a hat).

More
than two clauses may be combined in one complex sentence. Subordinate
clauses may be arranged by parallel or consecutive subordination.
Subordinate clauses immediately referring to one principal clause are
subordinated “in parallel’ or “co-subordinated”. Parallel
subordination may be both homogeneous and heterogeneous: in
homogeneous parallel constructions, the subordinate clauses perform
similar functions, they are connected with each other coordinatively
and depend on the same element in the principal clause (or, the
principal clause in general), e.g.: He said that it was his business
and that I’d better stay off it; in heterogeneous parallel
constructions, the subordinate clauses mostly refer to different
elements in the principal clause, e.g.: The man whom I saw yesterday
said that it was his business. Consecutive subordinative
constructions are formed when one clause is subordinated to another
in a string of clauses, e.g.: I don’t know why she said that she
couldn’t come at the time that I suggested. There are three
consecutively subordinated clauses in this sentence; they form a
hierarchy of three levels of subordination. This figure shows the
so-called depth of subordination perspective, one of the essential
syntactic characteristics of the complex sentence. In the previous
examples, the depth of subordination perspective can be estimated as
1.

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