Please help me to distinguish below two sentences

Question

1. He is rich but unhappy.2. The bowl of squid eyeball stew is hot and delicious.Note: I would like to get answer that why 1 is a compound and 2 is a simple sentence though each has a coordinationg conjuction. Please help me one with a easy description.

Azizultex · Accepted Answer

1. He is poor but honest.

2. The bowl of squid eyeball stew is hot and delicious.

I need to know why 1 is a compound and 2 is a simple sentence. Please help me anyone as soon as possible.

Mister Micawber · Answer

#1 is not a compound anything except a compound adjective.  Both are simple sentences.

G-at-bbe · Answer

He is rich but unhappy is compound because it is a reduced or shortened form of the compound sentence He is rich, but he is unhappy. The reason you can do that is because they share the same subject and verb. You have two independent clauses that express contrasting ideas (as indicated by but). That makes it a compound sentence.

The bowl of squid eyeball stew is hot and delicious is simple because it is one single independent clause expressing the idea that the subject (The bowl of squid eyeball stew) has one or more (in this case, two) qualities: it is hot and delicious. Notice that the conjunction and here only combines words, NOT clauses. It doesn't combine two ideas that could be placed in two independent clauses that have some logical relationship, such as contrast.

Hope this helps.

Sorry, Mister Micawb, I didn't see your response. If I had I would have bowed out gracefully. I'm a noob, so I'm not trying to be uppity.

Mister Micawber · Answer

Hello, g-at-bbe, and welcome to English Forums.

No, you may be right according to your grammar book; I have not checked one. However, I see no structural difference between these as alternative constructions:

He is rich but he is unhappy

and

The stew is hot and the stew is delicious.

That is why I think that calling the first a compound sentence is misleading.

Anonymous · Answer

I know what you mean. I was thinking essentially the same thing until I happened to come across a good site that touched on this very point. Apparently the key point in the first sentence is the implied contrast which is absent in the second. Anyway, I actually came away feeling as though I'd learned something, so I guess all's well that ends well. It's just that I hate to step on other people's posts, regardless of who's "right" or "righter."

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you g-at-bbe for your helpful description.

Please help me to distinguish below two sentences

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