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I have been given this line from Ian Frazier's “Hidden City”:

Bent window blinds; tragic, drooping, bright-green shower curtain; dark hallway opening onto two bare bedrooms.

I am supposed to classify its sentence structure as simple, compound, complex, compound-complex, loose, periodic, parallel, or running. Do you guys see any reason it would be one of these/which it would be? I'm stumped.

Laurel
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Aspen Abood
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    It's not a sentence because it doesn't have a finite verb. It's simply a noun phrase. – BillJ Dec 03 '20 at 16:43
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    Well, a series of noun phrases intoned as sentences, comprising a series of visual descriptions. It's poetry, and you can classify it any way you like (or your teacher likes). Not that it will be of any use to do so, but it makes some kinds of teachers happy. – John Lawler Dec 03 '20 at 17:48
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    You might call it a "stream-of-consciousness" text. Syntax / grammar is barely relevant to such things. – FumbleFingers Dec 03 '20 at 18:38
  • Does this answer your question? Fragments in speech vs Fragments in novels? Nordquist gives literary quotes showing good practice. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 03 '20 at 19:16
  • If you want to delete your question, register your account and click on “delete”, which will appear under the post. Do not edit your question to vandalize it. – Laurel Dec 03 '20 at 23:19
  • Call it what you like. The point is that it can't be analysed as one of the clause types mentioned by the OP. – BillJ Dec 04 '20 at 08:12

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If I remember well, they are called elliptical clauses. They may not have a subject or a verb, but from the context one ca guess the missing words. If the context doesn't help, and such sentences are used as John has indicated as poetry, then I guess that the reader is invited to fill in the missing words or concepts. Hope this helps

fev
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