Indeterminacy in sentence structure
Earlier research in English grammar and discourse analysis demonstrates how thematic and informational structures in the English clause shape the structures of English texts (cf. Halliday, 1985 ; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985 ). That is, as writers compose and revise, they must master and choose the syntactic structures that allow them to vary thematic prominence and information focus in their texts (cf. Dillon, 1981 ). This article, based on a 150,000-word corpus of college compositions, analyzes the discourse functions served by thematic organization and information focus in clauses of college writers. By studying thematic and informational organization in the texts of composition students, one can capture important generalizations about the relationship between linguistic form and linguistic function, discovering that for many college composition students, specific linguistic forms are indeterminate between the functions of parataxis and hypotaxis. Those generalizations explain some of the sentence structure faults common to the writing style of college composition students.