Construction Shift

Construction Shift

Shifts and Mixed Construction

The rule of thumb is consistency: consistency in person, number, tense, mood, voice, and tone within a sentence (or within a larger piece of discourse, like a paragraph or the piece as a whole). 

Shift in person

Is the subject of the sentence the person speaking (first person), the person spoken to (second person) or the person spoken about (third person)? 

Shift from third to second person

A person who is a nonsmoker can develop lung problems when you live with smokers.

Correction - 3rd person, 2nd person

A person who is a nonsmoker can develop lung troubles when he or she lives with smokers. This is consistently third person. 

If you are a nonsmoker you can develop lung troubles when you live with smokers.

Shift in number

Is a person or thing singular or plural? 

Open Ended

A typical monastic community would usually confine their dramatic activities to Christmas, Easter, and perhaps one or two saints' days.

Open Ended

Although we can locate a number of saints' plays in the early drama of Western Europe, you can't find them all located in one place.

Open Ended

Until the nineteenth century, comedy was inappropriate to serious religious dramas; they saw it as almost blasphemous.

Open Ended

The villainous characters in medieval drama are usually comic but not lovable; he is insensitive, even cruel.

Shift in tense

when (past, present, future) the action of the verb occurs. Tense is marked by verb endings and auxiliary verbs (e.g., He walks home, He walked home, He will walk home, He was walking home.)

Inconsistent

The road climbed up from the river bottom and the vegetation changes dramatically.

Consistent

The road climbed up from the river bottom and the vegetation changed dramatically

Shift in mood

what the attitude of the speaker towards the action is

Three moods

• indicative: sentence presented as fact or straight assertion

• imperative: sentence presented as a command, often to an understood "you."

• subjunctive: sentence presented as doubtful or conditional

Inconsistent

If he were more experienced, he will be able to help us. This shifts from subjunctive to indicative.

Consistent

If he were more experienced, he would be able to help us. (Consistently subjunctive)

Voice

whether the agent or receiver of the action is in the subject slot (active vs. passive). A transitive (requires an object)verb, which transfers action from a subject to an object, can be expressed in active or passive voices. ("The door was opened" is passive, without an agent listed; "John opened the door" is active, with the agent in the subject slot.) Both voices are useful in writing, but shifting from one voice to another within a single sentence is very confusing. 

Inconsistent

Columbus arrived in the New World, and it was believed he had found the coast of Asia. Shifts from active to passive.

Consistent

Columbus arrived in the New World and believed he had found the coast of Asia.

OR Columbus arrived in the New World; Spanish courtiers believed he had found the coast of Asia.

OR Columbus arrived in the New World. It was believed by Spanish courtiers that he had found the coast of Asia.