Syntax & Word Order
Cumulative (Loose) Sentence
Main clause first, then modifiers added after it, each one sharpening the picture. The grammar finishes early, so everything after reads as elaboration. The standard sentence of modern American prose.
"He dipped his hands in the bichloride solution and shook them, a quick shake, fingers down, like the fingers of a pianist above the keys." — Sinclair Lewis
Don't confuse it with Periodic Sentence. The periodic sentence withholds its main clause until the end; cumulative delivers it first and then unspools.
In the Reader — 4 excerpts
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
The sun lay on the grass and warmed it, and in the shade under the grass the insects moved, ants and ant lions to set traps for them, grasshoppers to jump into the air and
Travels with
Devices that share a passage with cumulative (loose) sentence most often — company reveals character.
Parallelism 5 Anaphora 5 Passive Voice 4 Asyndeton 4 Metaphor 3 Personification 3
The rest of the family
Hyperbaton Anastrophe Periodic Sentence Parataxis Parenthesis Apposition / Appositive Zeugma Hendiadys Pleonasm Enumeration / Accumulatio Passive Voice Cleft Sentence