Mastering Prescriptive Language & Sentence Structures

Understanding Prescriptive Language

Prescriptive language is a type of discourse that aims to guide or regulate the behavior of the recipient in the development of an activity or task.

Types of Prescriptive Texts

• Regulatory Texts: These collect orders or rules by which the issuer intends to govern behavior. Examples include laws, regulations, and codes of conduct.
• Instructional Texts: These provide tips or instructions for the receiver to perform a task. Examples include recipes, manuals, and how-to guides.

Structure of Prescriptive Language

The structure of prescriptive language typically includes:

• Goal

  This serves as the title and sometimes includes an initial explanation in the first paragraph, outlining the objective of the prescriptive text.

• Program

  This is a set of rules to follow to achieve the stated goal. These rules often appear in chronological and/or enumerative order.

Linguistic Features of Prescriptive Language

Prescriptive language frequently employs specific grammatical forms:

• Infinitive: e.g., "To open..."
• Imperative: e.g., "Open the lid."
• Future Tense: e.g., "You will open..."
• Impersonal Constructions: e.g., "It is necessary to open..."
• Passive Reflective Constructions: e.g., "The lid opens itself."

Exploring Sentence Structures

Simple Sentences

These are sentences with a single verb (simple, compound, or periphrastic) and, consequently, a single predicate.

Compound Sentences

These are sentences with two or more verbs in a personal form, and thus, two or more predicates.

Formation of Compound Sentences

Compound sentences can be formed in two primary ways:

• By joining two or more ideas that could otherwise be expressed as separate simple sentences.
• By inserting an idea, expressed as a sentence, as a constituent element within another sentence.

Understanding Sentence Links

Links are words used to connect any two parts of speech, including words, phrases, or sentences.

Types of Sentence Links

• Coordinating Links: These join two words or two groups of words that are syntactically equivalent and independent of each other. They are formed by coordinating conjunctions (e.g., and, but, or).
• Subordinating Links: These introduce a word or group of words, making this segment a complement of another word or group of words. Subordinating links include subordinating conjunctions (e.g., that, because, if), relative pronouns (e.g., who, whom, which), and interrogative/exclamatory words (e.g., what, where, how).

Analyzing Propositions in Sentences

The segments of a compound sentence that are organized around a verb and possess a sentence structure are called propositions.

Juxtaposed Propositions

Two propositions are considered juxtaposed when they are joined without any explicit linking word between them, often separated by punctuation like commas or semicolons.

Coordinated Propositions

Two propositions are coordinated when a coordinating conjunction (e.g., and, or, but) serves as a coordinating link between them.

Subordinate Clauses

A subordinate clause is syntactically dependent on another clause, meaning it functions as an element of that other clause (e.g., as a subject or as a complement to any of its constituents).