[Ttha-potm] resending reply to re: How many sentences?

[Rosemarie Morgan]

I'm not sure where this conversation originated.

I seem to have either lost the thread or to have never received it
Four sentences is my verdict but where did this conversation originate? 
(maybe it's an old one and I've simply forgotten)

Rosemarie

>Dear Carolyn,
>
>
>"... it seems to me, dear Betty and Julian, that you have both dodged the 
>question: How many sentences are there?
>
>I am assuming you are both playing for time and will get back to me in due 
>course!"
>
>    Much of the question depends on how one defines a sentence.  The 
> simplest definition is "an utterance that expresses a complete thought in 
> a given context".
>
>
>A bird bills the selfsame song,
>With never a fault in its flow,
>That we listened to here those long
>Long years ago.
>
>A pleasing marvel is how
>A strain of such rapturous rote
>Should have gone on thus till now
>Unchanged in a note!
>- But it's not the selfsame bird. -
>No: perished to dust is he . . .
>As also are those who heard
>That song with me.
>
>    Using the simplistic definition above and remembering that in a short 
> poem like this, context is all-important.  Thus, the first sentence 
> comprises the first four lines and the second the next five lines.  The 
> tenth line would be a third sentence.  I suppose the word "No" might be 
> construed as a sentence in this context, especially with that colon, but 
> I think of it here as an interjection, an "introduction"  to the final 
> sentence, the last three lines.  So I vote for a total of four sentences 
> but could accept an argument for a total of five.  (I do hope this raises 
> no unpleasant arguments.)
>
>With best wishes,
>
>Julian
>
>PS - I have not been "playing for time" but have been ill and away from 
>cyberspace for much of the summer.
>
>