Syntactic stylistic devices

ELLIPSIS – an elliptical sentence is such a syntactic structure in which there is no subject, or predicative, or both.

e.g. – Where do you go?

_ To the disco.

_Hullo! Who are you?

_The staff

_Where are the others?

_At the front.

APOSIOPESIS (BREAK-IN-THE-NARRATIVE) – like ellipsis, aposiopesis is also realized through incompleteness of sentence structure, though this incompleteness is of different structural and semantic nature.

e.g. If you go on like this ….

So, you just go, and what about ….

ASYNDETON – it is deliberate omission of structurally significant conjunctions and connectives.

e.g. John couldn’t have done such a silly thing, he is enough clever for that. Father, mother, brother, cousins.

We had heard planes coining, seen them pass overhead, watched them go far to the left, heard them bombing.

REPETITION – stylistic repetition of language units in speech (separate words, word-combinations or sentences) is one of the most frequent and potent stylistic devices.

e.g. I am weary, weary, weary of the whole thing!

Victory is what we need, victory is what we expect.

ENUMERATION – it is a syntactic device of naming object so that there appears a chain of homogeneous parts of the sentence.

e.g. There were cows, hens, goats, peacocks and sheep in the village.

The principal production of these towns appears to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk,shrimps,officers and dock-yard men.

POLYSINDETON – it is stylistically motivated redundant repetition of conjunctions or prepositions.

e.g. The dog barked and pulled Jack, and growled and raged.

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength.

PARALLEL CONSTRUCTIONS – parallelism is a stylistic device of producing two or more syntactic structures according to the same syntactic pattern.

e.g. Marry cooked dinner, John watched TV, Peter played tennis.

The cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing.

INVERSION – it is a stylistic phenomenon of intentional changing word-order of the initial sentence model.

e.g. In come Jack. Little chances Benny had.

ANADIPLOSIS (catch repetition) - repetition of the same element or unit at the end of the preceding and at the beginning of the following utterance,

e.g. With Bewick on my knee I felt happy:happy at last in my way.

ANAPHORA - repetition of the first word or group of words at the beginning of several successive sentences or clauses,

e.g. And everywhere there were people. People going into gates and people coming out of gates. People staggering and falling. People fighting and cursing.

APOKOINU CONSTRUCTION - blend of two clauses through a word which has two syntactical functions, one in each of the two blended clauses,

e.g. There was a door led into the kitchen.

BREAK - a sudden interruption in speech caused by some strong emotion or reluctance to continue or finish the sentence for some other reason,

e.g. "My God! If the police come -find me here!

CHAIN REPETITION - combination of several catch repetitions,

e.g. A smile would come into Mr. Pickwick's face: a smile be extended into laugh, the laugh into roar, the roar became general.

CHIASMUS - reversed parallelisism,

e.g. The public wants a thing, therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is supplied with a thing, therefore it wants it.

DETACHMENT - isolation of some parts of the sentence to make it more prominent,

e.g. A sound of singing came down the water to him, trailing, distant,high and sweet.

EPIPHORA - repetition of the final word or groups of words in several succeeding sentences or clauses,

e.g. Through the brain slowly shifted the things they had done together. Walking together. Dancing together.

RHETORICAL QUESTION - presentation of an affirmative or negative statement in the form of a question,

e.g. Is there not blood enough upon your penal codes that must be pored forth?

RING REPETITION - repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of some utterance,

e.g. I am a good girl, I am...