Break-in-the narrative

Aposiopesis is a device which dictionaries define as "A stop­ping short for rhetorical effect." This is true. But this definition is too general to disclose the stylistic functions of the device. In the spoken variety of the language a break in the narrative is usually caused by unwillingness to proceed; or by the supposition that what remains to be said can be understood by the implication embodied in what was said; or by uncertainty as to what should be said.

In the written variety a break in the narrative is always a stylistic device used for some stylistic effect. It is difficult, however, to draw a hard and fast distinction between break-in-the-narrative as a typ­ical feature of lively colloquial language and as a specific stylistic device. The only criterion which may serve as a guide is that in con­versation the implication can be conveyed by an adequate gesture. In writing it is the context, which suggests the adequate intonation, that is the only key to decoding the aposiopesis. Break-in-the-narrative is a device which, on the one hand, offers a number of variants in deciphering the implication and, on the other, is highly predictable. The problem of implication is, as it were, a crucial one in sty list ics. What is implied sometimes outweighs what is expressed. In other stylistic devices the degree of implication is not so high as in break-in-the-narrative. A sudden break in the narrative will inevitably focus the attention on what is left unsaid.

Question-in-the narrative

Questions, being both structurally and semantically one of the types of sentences, are asked by one person and expected to be answered by another. This is the main, and the most characteristic property of the question, i. e. it exists as a syntactical unit of language to bear this particular function in communication. Essentially, questions belong to the spoken language and presuppose the presence of an in­terlocutor, that is, they are commonly encountered in dialogue. The questioner is presumed not to know the answer.

Question-in-the-narrative changes the real na­ture of a question and turns it into a stylistic device. A question in the narrative is asked and answered by one and the same person, usually the author. It becomes akin to a parenthetical statement with strong emotional implications.

Syntactical use of structural meaning

On analogy with transference of lexical meaning, in which words are used other than in their primary logical sense, syntactical struc­tures may also be used in meanings other than their primary ones. Every syntactical structure has its definite function, which is some­times called its structural meaning. When a structure is used in some other function it may be said to assume a new meaning which is similar to lexical transferred meaning.

Among syntactical stylistic devices there are two in which this transference of structural meaning is to be seen. They are rhetorical questions and litotes.

Rhetorical questions

The rhetorical question is a special syntactical stylistic device the essence of which consists in reshaping the gram­matical meaning of the interrogative sentence. In other words, the question is no longer a question but a statement expressed in the form of an interrogative sentence. Thus there is an interplay of two structural meanings: 1) that of the question and 2) that of the statement. Both are materialized simultaneously. Indeed, if we compare a pronouncement expressed as a state­ment with the same pronouncement expressed as a rhetorical question by means of transformational analysis, we will find ourselves com­pelled to assert that the interrogative form makes the pronouncement still more categorical, in that it excludes any interpretation beyond that contained in the rhetorical question.