2.3. Syntactic stylistic devices based on the change of word order

Inversion

Inversion is a syntactic phenomenon of the deliberate changing of word order in the initial sentence model. Word order is a crucial syntactical problem in many languages. In English it has peculiarities which have been caused by the concrete and specific way the language has developed. The English language has developed a fixed word order which in the great majority of cases shows without fails what is the Subject of the sentence. This fixed word order is Subject— Verb (Predicate) — Object (S—P—O).

This predominance of fixed word order makes conspicuous any change in the structure of the sentence and inevitably calls forth a modification in the stylistic meanings.

There are two types of inversion: grammatical and stylistic. Grammatical inversion is aimed at the change of the communicative type of sentence and has no stylistic value.

Stylistic inversion is aimed at logical or emotional intensification of a certain sentence element. It attaches the additional emotional colouring to the surface meaning of the utterance. It is always semantically and stylistically motivated:

Talent Mr. Micawber has; capital Mr. Micawber has not (Ch. Dickens).

Rude am I in my speech... ( W.Shakespeare).

Of his own class he saw nothing (J. London).

Безбожний царю, творче зла,

Правди гонителю жестокий (Т. Шевченко).

Detachment

A specific arrangement of sentence members is observed in detachment. Detachment (відокремлення) is a stylistic device based on singling out structurally and semantically a secondary member of the sentence with the help of punctuation: dashes, commas or even a full stop. When placed in a certain syntactic position, a detached sentence component may seem formally independent of the words it refers to, though the word order may not be violated and semantic connections between the elements remain strong:

He had been nearly killed, ingloriously, in a jeep accident (I. Show).

I have to beg you for money. Daily (S. Lewis).

There was a world of anticipation in her voice and of confidence too, as she walked past me on to the terrace (D. du Maurier).

Горіли свічки, сяяли в рушниках ікони...Але це відійшло, розтануло разом з ладанними димами, зостався...лише цей довершений архітектурний витвір, оця симфонія пластики (О. Гончар).

Due to the detachment the adverbial modifiers ingloriously and daily and attributive construction of confidence in the English examples and the subject оця симфонія пластики in the Ukrainian one have become foregrounded into the reader’s focus of attention.

Stylistic function of detachment is determined by the syntactic role of the isolated element, its place in the sentence, general linguistic and stylistic context of the utterance.

Detachment is aimed at foregrounding of the isolated sentence element which according to author’s standpoint acquires greater emotional or logical importance. Detachment is used in descriptive and narrative discourses in order to make a written text akin to the spoken one, live and emotionally charged. Detachment is one of the most powerful means of rendering speaker’s emotions or mirroring character’s emotional /psychological state. It is used in descriptions of nature, events, situations in order to impress the reader and to create the presence effect:

Володькові очі все ширшають і ширшають, на щоках з’явились рум’янці. Щось дуже сильне тягне його туди. Так хотілося б, так дуже хотілося б... Бачити. Чути. Знати (У. Самчук).

Марта ревнувала Антона. Уперто, затаєнно, сильно, до всіх і до всього (М. Коцюбинський).