26. Ssd (peculiar linkage)

Asyndeton (Gr. asundetos ‘disconnected’) is a deliberate avoidance of connectives in the constructions where they would normally be used.

E.g. The noise was terrible, shattering: hundreds of tin buckets were being kicked down flights of stone steps; walls of houses were falling in; ships were going down; ten thousand people were screaming with toothache; steam hammers were breaking loose; whole warehouses of oilcloth were being stormed … (Priestley)

The absence of the connective may connote various implications: it indicates tense, energetic activities or shows a succession of minute actions. Besides, it imparts dynamic force to the syntactical unit.

Polysyndeton

It is – as opposed to asyndeton – an excessive use (repetition) of connectives.

E.g. … it was also rather exciting, which was more than could be said of the 13 bus and the lounge at the Burpenfield and her room there and the aspirin and the hot water. (Priestley)

Intentionally used, the device creates the atmosphere of bustling activity, underlines the simultaneity of actions, discloses the connection of properties enumerated (their equal significance), imparts rhythm, and promotes a high-flown tonality of narrative.

E.g. Angel Pavement and its kind, … assisted by long hours of artificial light, by hasty breakfasts and illusory lunches, by walks in boots made of sodden cardboard and rides in germ-haunted buses, by fuss all day and worry all night, had blanched the whole man, had thinned his hair and turned it grey … (Priestley)

The excessive use of conjunctions may betray the poverty of the speaker's grammar, showing the primitiveness of the character.

E.g. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don't owe him nothing; and I don't care; and I won't be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone else. (Shaw) (Cf. with the Russian a.)

The Gap-Sentence Link (cumulation)

It is a formal separation of the utterance into two parts that leads to the obvious break in the semantic texture of the utterance and forms an ‘unexpected semantic leap.’

It is usu. conveyed by a full stop. Besides, the two parts may often be connected by and or but.

E.g. He will answer. And go.

As a result, the separated part sounds stronger and attracts attention.

E.g. ‘…You didn’t reelly know what you were doing at the time, did you?’

‘That’s it. I didn’t. Nerves, y’know. Highly strung …’ (Priestley)

The gap-sentence link has various functions.

It may be used to indicate a subjective evaluation of the facts; it may introduce an effect resulting from a cause which has already had verbal expression or a sudden transition from one thought to another; it may serve to signal the introduction of inner represented speech.

27. Ssd (peculiar stylistic use of structural

meaning)

Here belong devices based on transposition which is placing a language sign in the surrounding which is unusual for its functioning.

Rhetorical question is based on the special interplay of two structural meanings – that of the question and that of the assertion – due to which the question is no longer a question but a statement expressed in the interrogative form.Hence, the SD consists in reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interrogative sentence.

E.g. ‘ Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly?’ (Maugham)

Rhetorical question usu. pronounces a judgment with a definite emotional charge: indignation, irritation, anger, doubt, challenge, scorn, irony, suggestion, or, vice versa, joy, admiration, etc.

According to Y.M. Skrebnev the following two semantic varieties of interrogative sentences make up rhetorical questions:

quasi-affirmative sentences (those with a negative predicate but an affirmative implication):

E.g. Isn't that too bad? = That is too bad, and

quasi-negative sentences (those with an affirmative predicate but a negative implication):

E.g. My God, – what was the good of it all? (Priestley) = There was no good …

Rhetorical questions are most frequently used in dramatic narration and in the publicist style.

Litotes expresses an idea by means of negating the opposite idea.

Hence, it is a device with the help of which two meanings are materialized simultaneously: the direct (negative) and transferred (affirmative).

Usu. litotes presupposes double negation which can be conveyed in different ways:

through a negative particle not or a negative pronoun no + a word with a negative affix,

E.g. It was not an unfriendly laugh, but it was not a sympathetic one either. (Priestley)

‘Why doesn’t Amy marry again? She is comparatively young, and she is not unattractive …’ (Maugham), and

through the negation of the antonym of the idea to be expressed,

E.g. Not a coward (a fool), not too bad, not overdone, not without his agreement.

Litotes is the opposite of hyperbole and may be said to be a specific form of meiosis or to produce a meiotic effect.

Though two minuses make a plus, the deliberate understatement that takes place in the use of litotes results in the weakening of the meaning obtained.

E.g. not bad is weaker than just good; not without his assistance – than with his assistance.

Function. Litotes conveys doubts of the speaker about the exact characteristics of the object, renders his irony, and serves as a euphemistic technique.

Litotes is frequent in English and seems to be used more often than in Russian.