In the broad and fiery street
In the narrow lane
How beautiful is the rain! (H. W. Longfellow)
Catch repetition (anadiplosis) the end of one clause (sentence) is repeated in the beginning of the following one: …a, a…:
“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.Abrahams).
Specification of the semantics occurs here too, but on a more modest level:
“We were talking about how bad we were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course”. (J.K.Jerome).
But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. (W. Shakespeare)
"... there lived a bad man who kept a bad pig. He was a bad man because he laughed too much at the wrong times and at the wrong people. He laughed at the good brothers of M— when they came to the door for a bit of whiskey or a piece of silver, and he laughed all the time." (J. Steinbeck)
Chain repetition presents several anadiplosis: …a, a…b, b…c, c… b: "They strangers, and we strangers; they a pair / And we a solitary pair like them" (W. Wordsworth).
A smile would come into Mr.Pickwick’s face: the smile extended into a laugh: the laugh into a roar, and the roar became general.
Ordinary repetition has no definite place in the sentence. The repeated unit occurs in various positions: ...a, a….:
”I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in live. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal” (O.Wilde).
Ordinary repetition emphasizes both the logical and the emotional meanings of the repeated word (phrase).
Successive repetition is a string of closely following each other repeated units: …a, a, a…. This is the most emphatic type of emotions of the speaker. Of her father’s being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure. (Ch.Dickens)
Repetition is a powerful means of emphasis. Besides, it adds rhythm and balance to the sentence. This function is the major one in parallel constructions.
Parallel constructions may be viewed as a purely syntactical type of repetition. The point of importance is the repetition of several successive sentences or clauses, but not their lexical “flesh”. Parallel constructions usually include some type of lexical repetition, too. If so, they foreground at one go logical, rhythmic, emotive and expressive aspects of the sentence:
“What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens”. (Ch.Dickens).
Parallelism as a kind of repetition can be traced back to the oldest known specimens of poetry, for example, popular ballads. It is still widely used and may be an essential element of a poem’s structure:
“The day is cold, and dark, and dreary,
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the breast,
And the days are dark and dreary”. (E.Poe)
Reversed parallelism is called chiasmus. The second part of a chiasmus is inversion to the first part. Thus, if the first sentence or clause has a direct word order (SRO), the second one will have it inverted (OPS):
”Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down”. (Coleridge).
Inversion is very often used as an independent SD. The direct word order may be changed completely. The predicate or predicative precedes the subject, or it may be changed partially, or the object precedes the subject-predicate pair. Correspondingly, we differentiate between a partial and complete inversion:
”Down came the storm and smote again
The vessel in its strength”. (Longfellow).
The stylistic inversion should not be confused with grammatical inversion, which is the 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?” This question presupposes the answer with more certainty than the nominative one. Interrogative constructions with the direct word order may be viewed as cases of two-step (double) inversion:
direct word order →grammatical inversion → direct word order.
Suspense also deals with the arrangement of members of the sentence. It is a deliberate putting off of the completion of the sentence. Less important facts and details are introduced first. The expected information of major importance is reserved till the end of the sentence.
Detachment is based on singling out a secondary member of the sentence with the help of punctuation or intonation. The word order is not violated, but secondary members obtain their own stress and intonation. They are detached from the rest of the sentence by commas, dashes or even a full stop:
"I have to beg you for money. Daily”. (S.Lewis)
“He had been nearly killed, ingloriously, in a jeep accident”. (I.Shaw).
The second group of SDs deals with the completeness of sentence-structure.
Ellipsis is an international omission of at least one member of the sentence: “What! All my pretty chickens and their dam at one full swoop?” (W.Shakespeare).
In contemporary prose, ellipsis is mainly used in dialogue. It is consciously employed by the author to reflect the natural omission, which characterizes oral colloquial speech. Often ellipsis is met close to dialogue, in author’s introductory remarks when he comments the speech of the character. Elliptical remarks in prose resemble stage directions in drama. Both save only the most vital information. The communication act promotes normative colloquial omissions. Our everyday speech has a situational nature. The speaker understands and knows the conditions and details of the communication act. The author through ellipsis creates imitation of these oral colloquial norms. Ellipsis is the basis of the so-called telegraphic style. Connective and unnecessary words are left out in it:
”Please, drive slowly!” → “Drive slowly!” → “Slow!” (Drivers’ directions)
The biggest contributions to the telegraphic style are one-member sentences. They consist only of a nominal group, which is semantically and communicatively self-sufficient. In creative prose, one-member sentences are used in descriptions of nature, interior, appearance. They produce the effect of a detailed but laconic picture. They foreground its main components. They are also the background of dialogue where they mention the emotions, attitudes, moods of the speaker: “A row of streets. Mostly narrow streets. Mostly dirty streets. Mostly dark streets”. (P.Abrahams).
Apokoinu is an asyndetical connection of two clauses where one word has two syntactical functions: “Then sprang from his seat Hagen thus spoke”.
In apokoinu constructions the omission of the pronominal (adverbial) connective creates a blend of the main and the subordinate clauses. The predicate or the object of the first one is simultaneously used as the subject of the second one:
“There was a door led into the kitchen”. “He was the man killed that deer”.
This construction was widely spread in Old and Middle English. In Modern English it represents a hasty, careless colloquial speech:
“Here is a gentleman wants to know you”. (Galsworthy)
“There is nothing does irritate me more than seeing other people sitting about doing nothing when I’m working”. (J.K.Jerome).
Break (aposiopesis) promotes the incompleteness of sentence structure. Break is also used mainly in the dialogue or in other forms of narrative, which imitate spontaneous oral speech. It reflects the emotional or psychological state of the speaker. A sentence may be broken because the speaker’s emotions prevent him from finishing it:
“I just work here,” he said softly. ‘If I didn’t - he let the rest hang in the air, and kept on smiling”. (R.Chandler).
Another case of the break is the desire to cut short the information with which the sentence began. In such cases, there are usually special remarks by the author. They indicate the intentional abruptness of the end:
“This is a story how a Baggins had an adventure. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained - well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end”. (A.Tolkien).
In many cases break is the result of the speaker’s uncertainty as to what exactly he is to promise, to threaten, to beg. Dashes and dots are used to mark the break. Full stop may also be used in cast-iron structures:
“Good intentions, but”; “It depends”.
The arrangement of sentence members and the completeness of sentence structure involve various types of connection. These types of connection are used within the sentence or between sentences. Repeated use of conjunctions is called polysyndeton:
“And in the sky the stars are met
And on the wave a deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue
And on the heaven that clear obscure”. (Byron).
Deliberate omission of conjunctions is called asyndeton:
“No warmth - no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member;
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!” (Th.Hood).
Both polysyndeton and asyndeton have s strong rhythmic impact. Besides, the function of polysyndeton is to strengthen the idea of equal logical or emotive importance of connected sentences. Asyndeton helps to create the effect of terse, energetic, active prose, cutting off connecting words. These types of connection are more characteristic of the author’s speech.
Attachment (gap-sentence link, annexation) is mainly used in various representations of the voice of the personage - dialogue, reported speech. The second part of the sentence is separated from the first one by a full stop, but their semantic and grammatical ties remain very strong. The second part appears as an afterthought. It is often connected with the first part with the help of a conjunction. The conjunction in this case is foregrounded:
“It wasn’t his fault. It was yours. And mine.” (S.Lewis)
“Prison is where she belongs. And my husband agrees one thousand per cent”. (T.Capote).
YIII. Lexico-Syntactical Stylistic Devices
8.1. Antithesis
8 2. Climax
8.3. Anticlimax
8.4. Simile
8.5. Litotes
8.6. Periphrasis
The emphasis of lexico-syntactical SDs depends both on the arrangement of sentence members and on the lexico-semantic aspect of the sentence.
Antithesis is a good example of them. Syntactically antithesis is just another case of parallel constructions, but semantically the two parts of antithesis are opposite to each other:
“Some people have much to live on and little to live for”. (O.Wilde).
Antithesis is a semantic opposition emphasized by its realization in similar structures. It is often observed on the morphemic level. Two antonymous affixes may create a powerful effect of contrast:
“The pre-money wives did not go together with their post-money daughters”. (E.Hemingway).
The main function of antithesis is to stress the dissimilarity of the described phenomenon. It shows that this phenomenon is a dialectical unity of two or more opposing features:
“Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace,
Were these hours - can their joy or their bitterness cease?” (Byron).
Another type of semantically complicated parallelism is presented by climax. In it each next word combination, clause, sentence is logically more important or emotionally stronger and more explicit:
“Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!” (Ch.Dickens)
“I am firm, thou art obstinate, and he is pig-headed”. (B.Charlestone)
In antithesis we deal with antonyms, in climax we deal with strings of synonyms or semantically related words, which belong to the same thematic group. The negative form of the structures, which form climax, reverses the order in which climax-components are used:
“No tree, no shrub, no blade of grass that was not owned”. (Galsworthy).
When climax expresses quality or quantity, its positive form uses the ascending order of relative synonyms and its negative form - the descending one.
The types of climax are logical, emotive, and quantitative depending on the nature of the emphasized phenomenon. The most widely spread model of climax is a three-step construction. Intensification of logical importance of emotion, of quantity, of size, of dimensions is gradually rising from step to step. A two-step construction is more often used in emotive climax. The second part repeats the first one and it is further strengthened by an intensifier:
“He was so helpless, so very helpless!” (W.Deeping)
“She felt better, immensely better”. (W.Deeping)
“I have been so unhappy here, so very, very unhappy”. (Ch.Dickens).
Climax may be suddenly interrupted by an unexpected turn of the thought. It defeats expectations of the reader or listener. It ends in complete semantic reversal of the emphasized idea. In this case, it is called anticlimax.
Anticlimax is a slackening of tension in a sentence or longer piece of writing. The ideas fall in dignity, or become less important at the close:
”A woman who could face the very devil himself - or a mouse - loses her grip and goes all to pieces in front of a flash of lightning”. (M.Twain).
Emphatic punctuation, dashes most often, is used between the ascending and the descending parts of the anticlimax.
A structure of three components is presented in simile. This SD is popular at all times. Simile is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two different classes. The object, which is compared, is called a tenor. The object, which it is compared, is called the vehicle. The tenor and the vehicle form the two semantic poles of the simile. They are connected by link words. The link words are: words:”like”, “as”, “as though”, “as like”, “such as”, “as …as”, etc.
Simile should not be confused with simple (logical, ordinary) comparison. Simile and comparison are structurally identical but semantically different. In the simple comparison, objects belong to the same class: “She is like her mother”. In simile they belong to different classes:”She is like a rose”. A simple comparison states an evident fact.
A simile is used for purposes of expressive evaluation, emotive explanation, and highly individual description. The tenor and the vehicle may be expressed in a brief manner or may be extended. This last case of sustained expression of likeness is known as epic, or Homeric simile.
In a metaphor, two unlike objects, actions or phenomena are identified on the grounds of possessing one common characteristic. In a simile, two objects are compared on the grounds of similarity of some quality. This feature is called foundation of a simile. It may be explicitly mentioned:
“He stood immovable (foundation) like a rock (the vehicle) in a torrent”. (J.Reed)
“His muscles are hard (foundation) as rock (the vehicle)”. (T.Capote)
Sometimes the foundation of the simile is not quite clear from the context. The author supplies it with a “key”:
“The conversation she began behaved like green logs: they fumed but would not fire”. (T.Capote).
A simile may add to the stock of language phraseology when it becomes trite. Simile is called disguised, if the link between the tenor and the vehicle is expressed by notional verbs: “resemble”, “seem”, “recollect”, “remember”, “look like”, “appear”, etc. The realization of comparison is suspended; the likeness between two objects seems less evident:
“His strangely taut, full-width grin made his face large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light”. (J.Jones).
Litotes is a two-component structure. In it two negations are joined in order to give a positive evaluation, but the positive effect is weakened. Some lack of the speaker’s confidence in his statement is implied: “not unkindly” = “kindly”. The first component of a litotes is always the negative particle “not”. The second is always negative in semantics. However, it varies in form from a negatively affixed word to a negative phrase.
Litotes is especially expressive when the semantic center of the whole structure is stylistically or emotionally coloured:
“His face was not unhandsome”. (A.Huxley)
“Her face was not unpretty”. (K.Kesey)
The function of litotes has much in common with that of understatement. They both weaken the effect of the utterance. Nevertheless, litotes has its specific “double negative” structure and it weakened only the positive evaluation.
Periphrasis is a very peculiar SD. It consists of using a roundabout form of expression instead of a simple one. More or less complicated structure is used instead of a word. Longer phrasing with descriptive epithets, abstract general terms are used in place of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression:
“I understand you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be replaced”. (Ch.Dickens).
Depending on the mechanism of the substitution periphrases are classified into figurative (metonymic and metaphoric) and logical.
The first group is made of phrase-metonymies and phrase-metaphors:
”The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa”. (I.Shaw).
Logical periphrases are phrases, which are synonymic with the words substituted by periphrases:
“Mr. Pont was dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American millionaires”.
Once a feature writer of Boston Transcript, with a fondness for using three words where one would do, referred to bananas as 'elongated yellow fruit.' This periphrasis so fascinated Charles W. Morton that he began collecting examples of 'Elongated Yellow Fruit' writing. Samples: "In the New York Herald Tribune a beaver was almost incognito as 'the furry, paddle-tailed mammal.' "The Denver Post elongated 'mustache' into 'under-nose hair crops.' "To the Associated Press, Florida tangerines were 'that zipper-skinned fruit.'
This periphrasis may also be considered euphemistic. It offers a more polite qualification instead of a coarser one.
The main function of periphrasis is to convey a purely individual perception of the described object. The generally accepted nomination of the object is replaced by the description of one of its features or qualities. The author thinks that this feature or this quality is the most important for the characteristic of the object and foregrounds it. The trite periphrases serve as universally accepted periphrastic synonyms: “the gentle (soft, weak) sex”; “my better half”; “millions of Law”.