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Main Characteristics of the Sentence. Syntactal SDs

Stylistic study of the syntax begins with the study of the length and the structure of a sentence. It appears, the length of any language unit is a very important factor in information exchange, for the human brain can receive and transmit information only if the latter is punctuated by pauses.

Unable to specify the upper limit of sentence length we definitely know its lower mark to be one word. One-word sentences possess a very strong emphatic impact, for their only word obtains both the word- and the sentence-stress. The word constituting a sentence also obtains its own sentence-intonation which, too, helps to foreground the content. Cf.: "They could keep the Minden Street Shop going until they got the notice to quit; which mightn't be for two years. Or they could wait and see what kind of alternative premises were offered. If the site was good. – If. Or. And, quite inevitably, borrowing money." (J.Br.) As you see, even such conjunctions, receiving the status of sentences, are noticeably promoted in their semantic and expressive value.

Abrupt changes from short sentences to long ones and then back again, create a very strong effect of tension and suspense for they serve to arrange a nervous, uneven, ragged rhythm of the utterance.

To convey pausation and intonation in the written form of speech order of words and punctuation are used.

The possibilities of intonation are much richer than those of punctuation. Indeed, intonation alone may create, add, change, reverse both the logical and the emotional information of an utterance. Punctuation is much poorer and it is used not alone, but emphasizing and substantiating the lexical and syntactical meanings of sentence-components. Points of exclamation and of interrogation, dots, dashes help to specify the meaning of the written sentence which in oral speech would be conveyed by the intonation. It is not only the emphatic types of punctuation listed above that may serve as an additional source of information, but also more conventional commas, semicolons and full stops. E.g.: "What's your name?" "John Lewis." "Mine's Liza. Watkin." (K.K.) The full stop between the name and the surname shows there was a pause between them and the surname came as a response to the reaction (surprise, amusement, roused interest) of John Lewis at such an informal self-introduction.

Exercise I. Comment on the length, the structure, the communicative type and punctuation of sentences, indicating connotations created by them:

1. Now, although we were little and I certainly couldn't be dreaming of taking Fonny from her or anything like that, and although she didn't really love Fonny, only thought mat she was supposed to because she had spasmed him into this world, already, Penny's mother didn't like me. (J.B.)

2. Soldiers with their cartridges gone wandered aimlessly out of the chaparral, dragging their rifles and plunged into the brush again on the other side of the railroad, black with powder, streaked with sweat, their eyes vacantly on the ground. (J.R.)

3. I like people. Not just empty streets and dead buildings. People. People. (P. A.)

4. "You know so much. Where is she?" "Dead. Or in a crazy house. Or married. I think she's married and quieted down." (T.C.)

5. "Jesus Christ! Look at her face!" Surprise. "Her eyes is closed!" Astonishment. "She likes it!" Amazement.

"Nobody could take my picture doing that!" Moral disgust. "Them goddam white folks!" Fascinated fear. (Wr.)

6. What courage can withstand the ever-enduring and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? (W. I.)

7. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one... single – more... inch... of... curve – Then his feathers raffled, he stalled and fell. (Rch. B.)

8. A boy and a girt sat on stools drinking pop. An elderly man alone – someone John knew vaguely by sight – the town clerk? – sat behind an empty Coca-Cola bottle. (P. Q.)

9. The neon lights in the heart of the city flashed on and off. On and off. On. Off. On. Off. Continuously. (P. A.)

10. What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief. Doubt. (S.R.)

Rhetorical Question

Rhetorical question.Unlike an ordinary question, the rhetorical question does not demand any information but serves to express the emotions of the speaker and also to call the attention of listeners. Rhetorical questions make an indispensable part of oratoric speech for they very successfully emphasize the orator's ideas. In fact the speaker knows the answer himself and gives it immediately after the question is asked. The interrogative intonation and / or punctuation draw the attention of listeners (readers) to the focus of the utterance.

Having the form of an interrogative sentence, a rhetorical question contains not a question but a covert statement of the opposite: Who does not know Shakespeare? (the implication is "everybody knows"); Is there not blood enough ... that more must be poured forth? (Byron) (= there certainly is enough blood). This king, Shakespeare, does not he shine over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest, indestructible? (Carlyle) (= he certainly does).

The effect of the majority of syntactical stylistic devices depends on either the completeness of the structure or on the arrangement of its members. The order in which words (clauses) follow each other is of extreme importance not only for the logical coherence of the sentence but also for its connotational meanings. The following sprawling rambling sentence from E. Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, with clauses heaping one over another, testifies to the carelessness, talkativeness and emotionality of the speaker: "Well, Tony rang up Michael and told him that I'd said that William, thought Michael had written the review because of the reviews I had written of Michael's book last November, though, as a matter of fact, it was Tony himself who wrote it." (E.W.) More examples showing the validity of the syntactical pattern were shown in Exercise I on the previous page.

Types of Repetition

One of the most prominent places among the SDs dealing with the arrangement of members of the sentence decidedly belongs to repetition. We have already seen the repetition of a phoneme (as in alliteration), of a morpheme (as in rhyming, or plain morphemic repetition). As a syntactical SD repetition is recurrence of the same word, word combination, phrase for two and more times. According to the place which the repeated unit occupies in a sentence (utterance), repetition is classified into several types:

1. anaphora: the beginning of two or more successive sentences (clauses) is repeated – a..., a..., a... . The main stylistic function of anaphora is hot so much to emphasize the repeated unit as to create the background textile nonrepeated unit, which, through its novelty, becomes foregrounded. The background-forming function of anaphora is also evident from the kind of words which are repeated anaphorically. Pay attention to their semantics and syntactical function in the sentence when working with Exercise II.

2. epiphora: the end of successive sentences (clauses) is repeated – ...a, ...a, ...a. The main function of epiphora is to add stress to the final words of the sentence.

3. framing: the beginning of the sentence is repeated in the end, thus forming the "frame" for the non-repeated part of the sentence (utterance) – a... a. The function of framing is to elucidate the notion mentioned in the beginning of the sentence. Between two appearances of the repeated unit there comes the developing middle part of the sentence which explains and clarifies what was introduced in the beginning, so that by the time it is used for the second time its semantics is concretized and specified.

4. catch repetition (anadiplosis): the end of one clause (sentence) is repeated in the beginning of the following one – ...a, a.... Specification of the semantics occurs here too, but on a 'more modest level.

5. chain repetition presents several successive anadiploses: ...a, a...b, b...c, c. The effect is that of the smoothly developing logical reasoning.

6. ordinary repetition has no definite place in the sentence and the repeated unit occurs in various positions: ...a, ...a..., a.. . Ordinary repetition emphasizes both the logical and the emotional meanings of the reiterated word (phrase).

7. successive repetition is a string of closely following each other reiterated units: ...a, a, a... This is the most emphatic type of repetition which signifies the peak of emotions of the speaker.

Parallel Constructions. Chiasmus (хиазм)

As you must have seen from the brief description, repetition is a powerful means of emphasis. Besides, repetition adds rhythm and balance to the utterance. The latter function is the major one in parallel constructions which may be viewed as a purely syntactical type of repetition for here we deal with the reiteration of the structure of several successive sentences (clauses), and not of their lexical "flesh". True enough, parallel constructions almost always include some type of lexical repetition too, and such a convergence produces a very strong effect, foregrounding at one go logical, rhythmic, emotive and expressive aspects of the utterance.

Reversed parallelism is called chiasmus. The second part of a chiasmus is, in fact, inversion of the first construction. Thus, if the first sentence (clause) has a direct word order – SPO, the second one will have it inverted – OPS.

Exercise II. From the following examples yon will get a better idea of the functions of various types of repetition, and also of parallelism and chiasmus:

1. I wake up and I'm alone and I walk round Warley and I'm alone; and I talk with people and I'm alone and I look at his face when I'm home and it's dead. (J.Br.)

2. "To think better of it," returned the gallant Blandois, "would be to slight a lady, to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry towards the sex, and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my character." (D.)

3. I might as well face facts; good-bye "Susan, good-bye a big car, good-bye a: big house, good-bye power, good-bye the silly handsome dreams. (J.Br.)

4. I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. (O.W.)

5. I wanted to knock over the table and hit him until my arm had no more strength in it, then give him the boot, give him the boot, give him the boot – I drew a deep breath. (J.Br.)

6. Now he understood. He understood many things. One can be a person first. A man first and then a black man or a white man. (P. A.)

7. Obviously – this is a streptococcal infection. Obviously. (W.D.)

8. And a great desire for peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her. (A.B.)

9. When he blinks, a parrot-like look appears, the look of some heavily blinking tropical bird. (A. M.)

10. And everywhere were people. People going into gates and coming out of gates. People staggering and falling. People fighting and cursing. (P. A.)

11. Then there was something between them. There was. There was. (Dr.)

12. He ran away from the battle. He was an ordinary human being that didn't want to kill or be killed. So he ran away from the battle. (St.H.)

13. "Secret Love", "Autumn Leaves", and something whose title he missed. Supper music. Music to cook by. (U.)

14. Living is the art of loving.

Loving is the art of caring.

Caring is the art of sharing.

Sharing is the art of living. (W.H.D.)

Inversion

Inversionwhich was briefly mentioned in the definition of chiasmus is very often used as an independent SD in which the direct word order is changed either completely so that the predicate (predicative) precedes the subject; or partially so that the object precedes the subject-predicate pair. Correspondingly, we differentiate between partial and a complete inversion.

The stylistic device of inversion should not be confused with grammatical inversion which is a norm in interrogative constructions. Stylistic inversion deals with the rearrangement of the normative word order. Questions may also be rearranged: "Your mother is at home?" asks one of the characters of J. Baldwin's novel. The inverted question presupposes the answer with more certainty than the normative one. It is the assuredness of the speaker of the positive answer that constitutes additional information which is brought into the question by the inverted word order. Interrogative constructions with the direct word order may be viewed as cases of two-step (double) inversion: direct w/o – grammatical inversion – direct w/o.

Suspense (Retardation)

This is a compositional device by which the less important part of the message is in some way separated from the main part, and the latter is given only at the end of the sentence, so that the reader is kept in suspense.

"Mankind", says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend was obliging enough to read and explain to me," for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw". (Ch. L.)

Detachment (обособление)

A specific arrangement of sentence members is observed in detachment,a stylistic device based on singling out a secondary member of the sentence with the help of punctuation (intonation). The word-order here is not violated, but secondary members obtain their own stress and intonation because they are detached from the rest of the sentence by commas, dashes or even a full stop as in the following cases: "He had been nearly killed, ingloriously, in a jeep accident." (I.Sh.) "I have to beg you for money. Daily." (S.L.) Both "ingloriously" and "daily" remain adverbial modifiers, occupy their proper normative places, following the modified verbs, but – due to detachment and the ensuing additional pause and stress – are foregrounded into the focus of the reader's attention.

Exercise III. Find and analyse cases of detachment, suspense and inversion. Comment on the structure and functions of each:

1. She narrowed her eyes a trifle at me and said I looked exactly like Celia Briganza's boy. Around the mouth. (S.)

2. He observes it all with a keen quick glance, not unkindly, and full rather of amusement than of censure. (V.W.)

3. She was crazy about you. In the beginning. (R.W.)

4. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden-how many tones of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind – how many visions of what had been and what he hoped was yet to be – rose up before him in the old, dull, silent church! (D.)

5. It was not the monotonous days uncheckered by variety and uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high or the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. (D.)

6. Of all my old association, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me. (D.)

7. Corruption could not spread with so much success, though reduced into a system, and though some ministers, with equal impudence and folly, avowed it by themselves and their advocates, to be the principal expedient by which they governed; if a long and almost unobserved progression of causes and effects did not prepare the conjuncture. (Bol.)

8. I have been accused of bad taste. This has disturbed me not so much for my own sake (since I am used to the slights and arrows of outrageous fortune) as for the sake of criticism in general. (S.M.)

9. On, on he wandered, night and day, beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale moon; through the dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night; in the grey light of morn, and the red, glare of eve. (D.)

10. Benny Collan, a respected guy, Benny Collan wants to marry her. An agent could ask for more? (T.C.)

11. Women are not made for attack. Wait they must. (J. C.)

12. Out came the chase – in went the horses – on sprang the boys – in got the travellers. (D.)

13. Then he said: "You think it's so? She was mixed up in this lousy business?" (J.B.)

14. And she saw that Gopher Prairie was merely an enlargement of all the hamlets which they had been passing. Only to the eyes of a Kennicot was it exceptional. (S.L.)

Types of connection

The arrangement of sentence members, the completeness of sentence structure necessarily involve various types of connection used within the sentence or between sentences. Repeated use of conjunctions is called polysyndeton; deliberate omission of them is, correspondingly, named asyndeton. Both polysyndeton and asyndeton, have a strong rhythmic impact. Besides, the function of polysyndeton is to strengthen the idea of equal logical (emotive) importance of connected sentences, while asyndeton, cutting off connecting words, helps to create the effect of terse, energetic, active prose.

These two types of connection are more characteristic of the author's speech. The third type – attachment (gap-sentence, leaning sentence, link) on the contrary,' is mainly to be found in various representations of the voice of the personage – dialogue, reported speech, entrusted narrative. In the attachment the second part of the utterance is separated from the first one by a full stop though their semantic and grammatical ties remain very strong. The second part appears as an afterthought and is often connected with the beginning of the utterance with the help of a conjunction. Cf: "It wasn't his fault. It was yours. And mine. I now humbly beg you to give me the money with which to buy meals for you to eat. And hereafter do remember it: the next time I shan't beg. I shall simply starve." (S.L.); "Prison is where she belongs. And my husband agrees one thousand per cent." (T.C.)

Exercise IV. Specify stylistic functions of the types of connection given below:

1. Then from the town pour Wops and Chinamen and Polaks, men and women in trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons. They come running to clean and cut and pack and cook and can the fish. The whole street rumbles and groans and screams and rattles while the silver rivers of fish pour in out of the boats and the boats rise higher and higher in the water until they are empty. The canneries rumble and rattle and squeak until the last fish is cleaned and cut and cooked and canned and then the whistles scream again and the dripping smelly tired Wops and Chinamen and Polaks, men and women struggle out and droop their ways up the hill into the town and Cannery Row becomes itself again – quiet and magical. (J. St.)

2. "What sort of a place is Dufton exactly?"

"A lot of mills. And a chemical factory. And a Grammar school and a war memorial and a river that runs different colours each day. And a cinema and fourteen pubs. That's really all one can say about it." (J.Br.)

3. By the time he had got all the bottles and dishes and knives and forks and glasses and plates and spoons and things piled up on big trays, he was getting very hot, and red in the face, and annoyed. (A. T.)

4. Bella soaped his face and rubbed his face, and soaped his hands and rubbed his hands, and splashed him, and rinsed him, and toweled him, until he was as red as beetroot. (D.)

5. Secretly, after the nightfall, he visited the home of the Prime Minister. He examined it from top to bottom. He measured all the doors and windows. He took up the flooring. He inspected the plumbing. He examined the furniture. He found nothing. (L.)

6. With these hurried words Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed the postboy on one side, jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps, wafered the bill on the street-door, locked it, put the key into his pocket, jumped into the dickey, gave the word for starting. (D.)

7. "Well, guess it's about time to turn in." He yawned, went out to look at the thermometer, slammed the door, patted her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yawned, wound the clock, went to look at the furnace, yawned and clumped upstairs to bed, casually scratching his thick woolen undershirt. (S.L.)

8. "Give me an example," I said quietly. "Of something that means something. In your opinion." (T.C.)

9. "I got a small apartment over the place. And, well, sometimes I stay over. In the apartment. Like the last few nights." (D.U.)

10. "He is a very deliberate, careful guy and we trust each other completely. With a few reservations." (D.U.)

Переглядів: 1972