Compound-Complex Sentences in English and Ukrainian

Compound-complex sentences present an isomorphic type in the system of composite sentences of the contrasted languages. These sentences consist of two or more complex sentences preceding and following the co-ordinate conjunction. Hence, there can be distinguished in English and Ukrainian both unextended and extended compound-complex sentences.

The pattern of an unextended compound-complex sentence in the contrasted languages is as follows: a complex sentence + conj.+ a complex sentence, for example: "I suppose 1) I'm silly but that's the way 1 ) I am" (Anderson). Я вважаю, 1) що я дурний, але так уже сталося, 1) що я (є) такий.

Extended compound-complex sentences consist respectively of more than two complex sentences to the left and to the right of the co-ordinate conjunctions. Cf. It was, 0) she knew, the best water colour 1) she had painted in her four years at a high-school as art student and she was glad 1) she had made something 2) Miss Dietrich liked well enough to permit to enter in the contest 3) before she graduated. (Hughes) This sentence fully preserves its structural form in Ukrainian. Cf. Це був, 0) вона знала, її найкращий акварельний малюнок, 1) який вона зробила за свої чотири роки навчання в художньому училищі, і вона була рада, 1) що їй пощастило намалювати щось таке, 2) що дуже сподобалося викладачці міс Дітріх, 3) яка й дозволила їй взяти участь у передвипускному конкурсі.

Allomorphism may sometimes be observed in Ukrainian equivalents of English compound-complex sentences containing two adversative conjunctions, the main of which may be omitted in Ukrainian:

But the Commandant said it was all very well for Americans, but he was content to stick to plafond, and the abbe said that for his part he thought it a pity that whist had been abandoned. (Maugham)

Але капітан відповів, що це все — американські штучки, а його цілком задовольняє плафон; абат же сказав, що він жалкує, що така гарна гра, як віст, вийшла з моди.

The omission of the joining conjunction (але) in the Ukrainian equivalent of the above-given sentence can be a testimony to the existence of asyndetic compound-complex sentences in present-day English as well.