英語(yǔ)修辭與寫(xiě)作·18.3　句子的連貫?。⊿entence　Coherence）

18.3　句子的連貫 （Sentence Coherence）

18.3A　句子連貫的含義

1） 句子連貫指句中的成分之間具有合乎邏輯的有機(jī)聯(lián)系，全句所表述的思路清晰，使交際對(duì)方容易得到要領(lǐng)。例如：

It goes without saying that one cannot work logically with a statement which does not have a clear-cut, ascertainable meaning.

（John C. Sherwood）

這是一個(gè)以“it”作形式主語(yǔ)的句子，后面“that”從句為實(shí)際主語(yǔ)，在該從句中又以“not ... not”結(jié)構(gòu)為主干，既緊湊，又清晰，確是一個(gè)有機(jī)整體。

2） 上節(jié)講到的句子“一致”是指句中的成分都要圍繞和服務(wù)于全句中心思想的表達(dá)，即與中心思想形成有機(jī)聯(lián)系；這里講到的“連貫”則是指句中的成分之間要形成有機(jī)的橫向聯(lián)系?！耙恢隆焙汀斑B貫”，兩者之間既有區(qū)別，又密切相關(guān)。例如：

All the players jumped from the bench and the referee made an unfair announcement of the results.

這是一個(gè)并列句，其兩個(gè)分句之間表面上雖有and連接，但并未能表示出兩個(gè)分句之間的邏輯聯(lián)系，即未達(dá)到連貫要求，因而也未能實(shí)現(xiàn)句子的一致，結(jié)果整句的思想表達(dá)得不清楚。為此，應(yīng)照下述方法加以改寫(xiě)：

The referee made an unfair announcement of the results and （so） all the players jumped from the bench.

As / When the referee made an unfair announcement of the results, all the players jumped from the bench.

All the players jumped from the bench because the referee made an unfair announcement of the results.

18.3B　影響句子連貫的若干因素

1） 從語(yǔ)法方面看，經(jīng)常會(huì)影響到句子連貫的因素有并列結(jié)構(gòu)安排失當(dāng)，代詞所指對(duì)象不明確，垂懸修飾或修飾語(yǔ)錯(cuò)位，時(shí)態(tài)、人稱(chēng)、數(shù)或語(yǔ)氣不一致，句子結(jié)構(gòu)混亂或不完全，等等。例如：

The report is chiefly about inflationary trends in the last decade and that the consumer has lost confidence in the quality of many products.

介詞about的并列賓語(yǔ)一為短語(yǔ)，一為從句，屬于并列結(jié)構(gòu)安排失當(dāng)，應(yīng)當(dāng)將that從句改為短語(yǔ)：

The report is chiefly about inflationary trends in the last decade and the consumer's loss of confidence in the quality of many products.

（James M. McCrimmon）

He rode that snowy night and slipped into a ditch, but it was not serious.

例中代詞it所指不明確，故句子應(yīng)加改寫(xiě)：

..., but luckily enough, he didn't get hurt.

又如：

Every member of our research team worked conscientiously, thus producing one of the best projects Professor Ames has ever received.

例中 -ing分詞短語(yǔ)的修飾對(duì)象不明確，全句含義未能得到確切表達(dá)，故宜改為：

Because/As every member of our research team worked conscientiously, we produced one of the best projects Professor Ames has ever received.

又如：

Look at that ridiculous lady's hat!

修飾語(yǔ)位置不當(dāng)會(huì)引起歧義或顯得滑稽可笑，有時(shí)會(huì)造成誤解。上例中的修飾語(yǔ)位置不當(dāng)，應(yīng)改為：

Look at that lady's ridiculous hat!

又如：

When we began our composition course, there was little knowledge about the importance of strategy in the writing of a paper. Correctness in spelling, punctuation, and grammatical usage was what had been drilled into us; but the effects of interrelationships among speaker, audience, and occasion were foreign to us ...

上例兩個(gè)較長(zhǎng)的句子講的是作者，但由于用了4個(gè)不同的主語(yǔ)，影響了句子的連貫和一致，故應(yīng)改為：

At the beginning of our composition course, we knew little about the importance of strategy in the writing of a paper. We knew the necessity for correctness in spelling, punctuation and grammatical usage but were unaware of the effects of interrelationships among speaker, audience, and occasion ...

2） 從修辭角度看，詞語(yǔ)選用不當(dāng)，辭格應(yīng)用不當(dāng)，重復(fù)、省略等其他修辭手法運(yùn)用不當(dāng)，都會(huì)影響到句子的連貫（同時(shí)也會(huì)損壞句子的一致）。例如：

On hearing that his father had kicked the bucket, I wrote him a letter to express my sorrows and sympathies.

句中“kick the bucket”是俚語(yǔ)，既粗俗，又輕浮，相當(dāng)漢語(yǔ)中講某人“翹辮子”。這里把俚語(yǔ)用到一個(gè)表示憂傷和同情的句子里，顯然很不恰當(dāng)，而應(yīng)選用委婉語(yǔ)的形式，如“pass away”，“be no more”，“depart”，等。又如：

Flattens hills like flattens the floor.

這是一個(gè)廣告稿，意在用夸張手法宣傳使用該汽車(chē)爬山時(shí)高山變成了平地，但flattens重復(fù)使用時(shí)出現(xiàn)了敗筆：既然是floor，就用不著再去flatten，為此應(yīng)改為：

Flattens hills like driving on the floor.

又如：

The campaign was successful and costly, but the victory was sweet.

兩個(gè)問(wèn)題影響了句子的連貫：一是不應(yīng)當(dāng)用and連接兩個(gè)含義上矛盾的并列成分，而應(yīng)用表示轉(zhuǎn)折、對(duì)照關(guān)系的but；二是用詞不精練，successful和victory在含義上重復(fù)。該句可改寫(xiě)為：

The campaign was costly, but the victory was sweet.