Sentience

 August 26 Word of the Day: Sentience

 

In today’s class we learn about sentience structure. Sentience structure is how all the parts of sentience fit together. If you want more advanced and interesting sentience, you first have to understand how sentience structure works. Sentience structure is the order of all the parts of sentience: subject, predicate, objects, phrases, punctuation. They combine, they modify. Emotion comes into play, subjective states are applicable: dejects, predilections, abjects, phases, punctuality. Sentience requires at least a verb and a subject, though some musicologists dispute this. Cosmologists are tight-lipped. The same applies if you stand on your head or go for a long trip somewhere you have never been before. There is present continuous, auxiliaries, exceptions and imperatives. Imperative sentience is sometimes all you need at stressful moments or when in doubt. Stop! a single word completes sentience, at least theoretically. The verb is stop, and no subject is necessary because it’s a command. Life goes on, with or without this imperative to stop. (Some say stop is anathema in sentience.) Sometimes sentience adds objects, which are nouns that also participate in the action. Examples abound, when they can be put into words. Sentience may be direct or indirect. Verbs govern subjects, or vice versa, ditto direct objects and indirect objects, though some of those are completely ungovernable. Indirects may receive directs. Indirect objects come between the verb and direct object, leading to some awkward silences. This is harder to tell in early manuscripts with period punctuation, wingdings, daggers, and romantic outbursts. Aside from knowing the parts of sentience, you also have to follow the rules. In case you forget, here’s a quick list. Capitalize the first letter of the first word in any sentience. End sentience with a full-stop, question or exclamation mark, exclamation point, quote marks, or curlicues for all anyone cares. It’s crucial to understand how clauses work. Sometimes a clause is a complete sentience on its own. It is not always asking about your own well-being. Subordinating conjunctions need to be memorised, while you must be on guard for insubordinate clauses. To recap, there are basically four different types of sentience structure: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex. Your homework is to write a 500-word essay on common insubordinate clauses in everyday life. Tomorrow’s class will look at the relationship between independence and subordination, with special attention to auxiliaries. If you are not feeling top-of-the-morning ask your doctor for the day off.