Stylistic syntax

Syntactical categories have long been the object of stylistic research. There are different syntactical means and different classifications. The classifications discussed earlier in this book demonstrate different categorization of expressive means connected with syntax. However there axe a few general principles on which most of the syntactical expressive means are built. The purpose of this paragraph is to consider the basic techniques that create stylistic function on the syntactical level common for most stylistic figures of this type and illustrate them with separate devices.

The major principles at work on the sentence level are

I. The omission or absence of one or more parts of the sentence. II. Reiteration (repetition) of some parts.

III. The inverted word order.

IV. The interaction of adjacent sentences.

j_# The omission of the obligatory parts of a sentence results in ellipsis of various types. An elliptical sentence is a sentence with one or more of the parts left out. As a rule the omitted part can be reconstructed from the context. In this case ellipsis brings into relief typical features of colloquial English casual talk.

The laconic compressed character of elliptical sentences lends a flavour of liveliness to colloquial English. In fiction elliptical sentences have a manifold stylistic function. First of all they help create a sense of immediacy and local colour. Besides they may add to the character's make up, they lead to a better understanding of a mood of a personage.

Wish I was young enough to wear that kind of thing. Older I get the more I like colour. We're both pretty long in the tooth, eh? (Waugh)

Often elliptical sentences are used in represented speech because syntactically it resembles direct speech. The use of elliptical sentences in fiction is not limited to conversation. They are sometimes used in the author's narration and in the exposition (description which opens a chapter or a book).

/ remember now, that Sita's braid did not hurt. It was only soft and heavy, smelling of Castile soap, but still I yelled as though something terrible was happening. Stop! Get off! Let go! Because I couldn't stand how strong she was. (Erdrich)

A variety of ellipsis in English are one-member nominal sentences. They have no separate subject and predicate but one main part instead. One-member sentences call attention to the subject named, to its existence and even more to its interrelations with other objects. Nominal sentences are often used in descriptive narration and in

Chapter 3. Stylistic Grammar

exposition. The economy of the construction gives a dynamic rhyth^ to the passage. One-member sentences are also common in stage remarks and represented speech.

Matchbooks. Coaster trays. Hotel towels and washcloths. He was sending her the samples of whatever he was selling at the time. Fuller brushes. Radio antennas. Cans of hair spray or special wonder-working floor cleaners. (Erdrich)

Break-in-the narrative is a device that consists in the emotional halt in the middle or towards the end of an utterance. Arnold distinguishes two kinds: suppression and aposiopesis. Suppression leaves the sentence unfinished as a result of the speaker's deliberation to do so. The use of suppression can be accounted for by a desire not to mention something that could be reconstructed from the context or the situation. It is just the part that is not mentioned that attracts the reader's attention. It's a peculiar use of emphasis that lends the narration a certain psychological tension.

If everyone at twenty realized that half his life was to be lived after forty... (Waugh)

Aposiopesis means an involuntary halt in speech because the speaker is too excited or overwhelmed to continue.

But Mr. Meredith, Esther Silversleeves said at last, these people are heathens! Esther was the most religious of the family.—Surly you cannot wish... her voice trailed off. (Rutherfurd)

Decomposition is also built on omission, splitting the sentences into separate snatches. They are the result of detachment of parts of sentences. This device helps to throw in the effect of relief or express

3.4. Stylistic syntax

a highly dynamic pace of narration. Decomposition maybe combined with ellipsis.

Him, of all things! Him! Never! (Lawrence)

II. Reiteration is never a mechanical repetition of a word or structure. It is always accompanied by new connotations. The repetition stresses not the denotative but the connotative meaning.

The usage area of reiteration is casual and non-casual speech, prose and poetry.

Different types of reiteration may be classified on the compositional principle:

Anaphora is the repetition of the same element at the beginning of two or more successive clauses, sentences or verses.

They were poor in space, poor in light, poor in quiet, poor in repose, and poor in the atmosphere of privacy—poor in everything that makes a man's home his castle. (Cheever)

Framing is an arrangement of repeated elements at the beginning and at the end of one or more sentences that creates a kind of structural encasement.

He had been good for me when I was a callow and an ignorant youth; he was good for me now. (Shute)

Anadiplosis is such a figure in which a word or group of words completing a sentence is repeated at the beginning of a succeed­ing sentence. It often shows the interaction of different parts of ^a Paragraph or text.

Chapter 3. Stylistic Grammar

My wife has brown hair, dark eyes, and a gentle disposition. Because of her gentle disposition, I sometimes think that she spoils the children, (Cheever)

Epiphora consists in the repetition of certain elements at the end of two or more successive clauses, sentences or paragraphs.

Trouble is, I don't know if I want a business or not. Or even if I can pay for it, if I did want it. (Shute)

III. Inversion is upsetting of the normal order of words, which is an important feature of English.

By changing the logical order this device helps to convey new shades of meaning. The denotative meaning is the same but the emotive colouring is different.

Galperin describes five types of inversion that are connected with the fixed syntactical position of the sentence members. Each type of inversion produces a specific stylistic effect: it may render an elevated tone to the narration:

Ofbeechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

(Keats)

/ will make my kitchen, and you will keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom.

(Stevenson)

— or make it quick-paced and dynamic: In he got and away they went. (Waugh)

3.4. Stylistic syntax

Bang went Phi/brick's revolver. Off trotted the boys on another race. (Waugh)

Sometimes inversion may contribute to the humorous effect of the description or speech characterisation:

To march about you would not like us? suggested the station master. (Waugh)

IV. Interaction of adjacent sentences is a compositional syntactical technique.

One of the major emphatic means is the use of parallel con­structions. They are similarly built and used in close succession. It is a variety of repetition on the level of a syntactical mod­el. Parallel constructions more than anything else create a certain rhythmical arrangement of speech. The sameness of the structure stresses the difference or the similarity of the meaning. Some­times parallel constructions assume a peculiar form and the word order of the first phrase is inverted in the second. The resulting device is called chiasmus. It is often accompanied by a lexical repetition:

They had loved her, and she had loved them. (Caldwell)

Work— work—work!

From weary chime to chime/

Work— work—work As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam Seam, and gusset, and band...

(Hood)

Chapter 3. Stylistic Grammar

The climax is such an arrangement of a series of clauses or phrases that form an ascending scale, in which each of the sen-1 tences is stronger in intensity of expression than the previous one.

We're nice people and there isn't going to be room for nice people any \ more. It's ended, it's all over, it's dead. (Cheever)

Another device is the anticlimax, also called back gradation, which is a figure of speech that consists in an abrupt and often ludicrous descent, which contrasts with the previous rise. The descent is often | achieved by the addition of a detail that ruins the elevated tenor of J the previous narration.

Its main stylistic function is to give the thought an unexpected j humorous or ironic twist.

/ hate and detest every bit of it, said Professor Silenus gravely. Nothing I have ever done has caused me so much disgust. With a deep sigh he rose from the table and walked from the room, the fork with which he had been eating still held in his hand. (Waugh)

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