Coordination Alone

23

According to our handbooks, marking the boundary between independent clauses with a coordinator alone is not done — unless the clauses are short and clear:

(40) The hare slept and it lost the race.

But we note that sentences like the following are not infrequently found in the nonfiction prose of good contemporary writers:

(41) Well — the sun will be up in a few minutes and I haven’t even begun to make coffee. — Edward Abbey

(42) He told them very badly but you could see there was something there if he could get it out. — Ernest Hemingway

(43) I could write a syndicated column for teenagers under the name “Debbie Lynn” or I could smuggle gold into India or I could become a $100 call girl, and none of it would matter.—Joan Didion

What, then, is the meaning signaled by coordinator alone? The answer lies in the hierarchical function of punctuation marks—to mark a separation (or degree of connection, if you will). Thus, in the absence of a separating mark, as in (41)–(43), the signal is just that: as close a connection as the system allows.