{"id":40,"date":"2008-02-08T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2025-03-02T19:21:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T19:21:23","slug":"what-the-hell-are-syntactic-slots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/what-the-hell-are-syntactic-slots\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Hell Are Syntactic Slots?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes\u00adter\u00adday I allud\u00aded to John Gard\u00adner\u2019s book on writ\u00ading, The Art of Fic\u00adtion<\/em><\/a>, and casu\u00adal\u00adly men\u00adtioned syn\u00adtac\u00adtic slots<\/em>. Since then, I\u2019ve received a few emails ask\u00ading me what these are. I\u2019ll do my best to explain.<\/p>\n

Mind you, although I taught col\u00adlege Eng\u00adlish for sev\u00ader\u00adal years, I am not a gram\u00admar\u00adi\u00adan. That being said, let me refer to the book where I first learned of this con\u00adcept: Gard\u00adner\u2019s The Art of Fic\u00adtion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"nl-ambiguous\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For those of you unfa\u00admil\u00adiar with Gard\u00adner and his work, he was an Eng\u00adlish pro\u00adfes\u00adsor at SUNY Bing\u00adham\u00adton who had achieved lit\u00ader\u00adary fame from his nov\u00adel Gren\u00addel<\/em>, which was the sto\u00adry of Beowulf told from the mon\u00adster\u2019s point of view. Ear\u00adli\u00ader in his career, he had taught at the famed Iowa Writ\u00aders Work\u00adshop. He died in a motor\u00adcy\u00adcle acci\u00addent in 1982.<\/p>\n

On page 104 of his fic\u00adtion writ\u00ading clas\u00adsic, Gard\u00adner wrote, \u201cSen\u00adtences in Eng\u00adlish tend to fall into mean\u00ading units or syn\u00adtac\u00adtic slots\u2014for instance, such pat\u00adterns as\u2026\u201d<\/em> (Below, the num\u00adbers in super\u00adscript indi\u00adcate the start of a new syn\u00adtac\u00adtic slot.)<\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Subject, 2<\/sup>verb, 3<\/sup>object.<\/strong>
\nOR<\/strong>
\n1<\/sup>Subject, 2<\/sup>verb-modifier.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

<\/p>

<\/center>
<\/center> \n

Gard\u00adner\u2019s main idea is this: \u201cA writer may load one or two of the slots with mod\u00adi\u00adfiers, but if the sen\u00adtence is to have focus\u2014that is, if the read\u00ader is to be able to make out some clear image, not just a jumble\u2014the writer can\u00adnot cram all three syn\u00adtac\u00adtic slots with details.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So I\u2019m not bor\u00adrow\u00ading exclu\u00adsive\u00adly from his book, I\u2019ll give you my own made-up exam\u00adple:<\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Subject, 2<\/sup>verb, 3<\/sup>object.<\/strong>
\n1<\/sup>Jack and Jill 2<\/sup>went 3<\/sup>down the hill.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

<\/p>

<\/center>
<\/center> \n

Okay, there\u2019s our sen\u00adtence with the slots emp\u00adty of mod\u00adi\u00adfiers. Now, let\u2019s load up slot 1:<\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Jack and Jill, dressed warmly for their journey, smiling, laughing, feeling frisky with the warm spring air, 2<\/sup>went 3<\/sup>down the hill.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

<\/p>

<\/center>
<\/center>
<\/center> \n

See how only mod\u00adi\u00adfiers were added to the first slot? Those details only mod\u00adi\u00adfy the sub\u00adject. Now let\u2019s load up slot 2:<\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Jack and Jill 2<\/sup>went slowly, carefully as though walking over a bed of rattlesnakes, making a chore of going 3<\/sup>down the hill.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

<\/p>

<\/center>
<\/center>
<\/center> \n

As you prob\u00ada\u00adbly noticed, load\u00ading up slot 2 (the verb) makes for awk\u00adward con\u00adstruc\u00adtions. My exam\u00adple is not the best, but of the three slots, I\u2019ve found the verb slot to be the most resis\u00adtant to mod\u00adi\u00adfiers. Here\u2019s the sen\u00adtence with slot 3, the object, loaded up:<\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Jack and Jill 2<\/sup>went 3<\/sup>reluctantly down the steep and slippery hill, a hill from hell, a hill that should not have been there in the first place, a hill that, by all rights, they should not have had to traverse\u2014ever.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

<\/p>

<\/center>
<\/center>
<\/center> \n

There it is with the object heavy with mod\u00adi\u00adfiers. Final\u00adly, to prove Gard\u00adner\u2019s point, let\u2019s see what the sen\u00adtence would look like if all three<\/em> slots were loaded up:<\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Jack and Jill, dressed warmly for their journey, smiling, laughing, feeling frisky with the warm spring air, 2<\/sup>went slowly, carefully as though walking over a bed of rattlesnakes, making a chore of going 3<\/sup>reluctantly down the steep and slippery hill, a hill from hell, a hill that should not have been there in the first place, a hill that, by all rights, they should not have had to traverse\u2014ever.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

<\/p>

<\/center>
<\/center>
<\/center> \n

I rest Gard\u00adner\u2019s case. The same is true, by the way, if you invert sen\u00adtences to form \u201cYoda Talk\u201d\u20141<\/sup>Object, 2<\/sup>sub\u00adject, 3<\/sup>verb. (\u201cTo the moon he goes!\u201d)<\/p>\n

So there you go\u2014syntactic slots. I hope this has cleared mat\u00adters up. Enjoy them in your own writ\u00ading, and remem\u00adber, you can load up one or two, but three, unless you\u2019re William Faulkn\u00ader, prob\u00ada\u00adbly won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

Just for fun, here\u2019s an exam\u00adple of a long sen\u00adtence from Faulkn\u00ader\u2019s The Ham\u00adlet<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Hill-cra\u00addled and remote, def\u00adi\u00adnite yet with\u00adout bound\u00adaries, strad\u00addling into two coun\u00adties yet owing alle\u00adgiance to nei\u00adther, it had been the orig\u00adi\u00adnal grant and site of a\u2026plantation, the ruins of which\u2014the gut\u00adted shell of an enor\u00admous house with its fall\u00aden sta\u00adbles and slave quar\u00adters and over\u00adgrown gar\u00addens and brick ter\u00adraces and promenades\u2014were still known as the Old French\u00adman place\u2026and even some of the once-fer\u00adtile fields had long since revert\u00aded to the cane-and-cypress jun\u00adgle from which their first mas\u00adter had hewed them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good luck beat\u00ading Willie. You\u2019ll have to get juiced up and write on your wall\u00adpa\u00adper first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes\u00adter\u00adday I allud\u00aded to John Gard\u00adner\u2019s book on writ\u00ading, The Art of Fic\u00adtion, and casu\u00adal\u00adly men\u00adtioned syn\u00adtac\u00adtic slots. Since then, I\u2019ve received a few emails\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4666,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/4666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}