Syntactical stylistic devices

CLASSIFICATION

1. Particular Use of Colloquial Constructions

• Ellipsis

• Break

• Question-in-the-Narrative

• Represented Speech

2. Stylistic use of structural Meaning

• Rhetorical question

• Litotes

3. Compositional Patterns of Syntactical Arrangement

• Inversion

• Repetition. Parallel Construction Chiasmus

• Detachment

• Enumeration

• Suspense

• Climax (gradation) + Anticlimax

• Antithesis

4. Particular Ways of Combining Parts of Utterance

• Asyndeton

• Polysyndeton

• The Gap-Sentence-Link (Cf: Kukharenko: - Attachment)

• Apokoinu Construction

I: Particular Use of Colloquial Constructions

Ellipsis [I’lipsis]

(Greek ‘elleipsis’ –недостаток, нехватка)

Ellipsis is a typical phenomenon in conversation. It is simply a norm of the spoken language (not a SD) when one or 2 principal parts of the sentence are omitted in direct intercourse. The missing parts can be easily restored.

e.g.: Alice (merely): Where’s the man I’m going to marry?

Genevra [d I’nevr ]: Out in the garden.

Alice (crossing to windows): What’s he doing out there?

Genevra: Annoying Father.

When used in writing, ellipsis can become a SD. In this case it imitates the common features of colloquial language, where the situation predetermines the absence of certain members of the sentences like “See you tomorrow”, “Had a good time?” “Won’t do”, “You say that?” are normal syntactical structures. When such structures appear in literary texts, they bear some definite stylistic function. This is due to a psychological effect produced by the relative rarity of the construction in literary narrative, on the one hand, and non-expectancy of any strikingly colloquial expression, on the other.

We should distinguish between the author’s ellipsis (1) and ellipsis in the speech of the characters (2) of a literary work. The former allows to emphasize the most essential points in the utterance: the latter helps to create the natural atmosphere of colloquial speech.

Cf. the two types of ellipsis:

(1) I went to London as one goes to exile; she – to New York.

e.g. I led her to a chair and tried to soothe her as one might – a frightened child.

(2) Couldn’t come earlier, being away since 6 o’clock; on my feet since that time. Utterly exhausted.

Break-in-the Narrative (Aposiopesis)

[ po(u)saio(u)’pi:sis] – апозиопесис, умолчание,недосказ

(From the Greek ‘aposiopesis’- молчание)

Aposiopesis is a device which is defined as “stopping short for rhetorical effect”. This is true. But this definition is too general to disclose the stylistic functions of the device.

In oral intercourse, a break-in-the-narrative is usually caused by unwillingness to continue speaking, by uncertainty as to what should be said and the like. In writing, a break is always a SD used for some stylistic effect.

In conversation we can express what is implied by an adequate gesture. In writing it is the context that suggests the adequate intonation, which is the only key to decoding the aposiopesis.

e.g. (I) “If you continue your intemperate way of living, in six months’ time …” (warning)

(2) “You just come home or I’ll…” (threat)

The second example shows that without a context the implication (подразумеваемое) can only be vague. But when one knows that the words were said by an angry father to his son over the telephone, the implication becomes more apparent.

Aposiopesis is a syntactical SD which can convey a very strong upsurge (подъём) of emotions to the reader. The idea of this device is that the speaker cannot proceed: his feelings deprive him of the ability to express himself in words.

e.g. (Byron) Don Juan’s address to Julia:

“And oh, if e’er I should forget, I swear –But that’s impossible, and cannot be.”

Break-in-the-narrative as a SD is used in complex sentences, in particular, conditional sentences. The if-clause is given full, and the second part is only implied.

It may also be used in other syntactical structures for euphemistic considerations –unwillingness to name a thing which is offensive to the ear.

Break is a device which, on the one hand, offers a number of variants in deciphering the implication and, on the other hand, is highly predictable. The problem of implication is crucial in Stylistics. What is implied often outweighs what is expressed. (In other SDs the degree of implication is not so high as in break). A sudden break-in-the –narrative will inevitably focus the attention of the reader on what is left unsaid.

The role of intonation in aposiopesis cannot be overestimated.

The pause after the break is generally charged with meaning and it is the intonation only that will decode the communicative significance of the utterance.