Interaction of Syntactical Structures

Sentences consisting a coherent narration are logically connected. This circumstance brings about certain structural connection, structural influence of one sentence upon the neighbouring one. Structural assimilation of sentences is stylistically relevant.

Parallelism means a more or less complete identity of syntactical structures of two or more contiguous sentences or verse lines:

«The cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing,

The small birds twitter,

The lake doth glitter»

(Wordsworth)

Parallelism is often accompanied by the lexical identity of one or several members of each sentence. In this case parallelism serves as a syntactical means of making the recurring parts prominent, more conspicuous than their surroundings.

Chiasmus is a special variety of parallelism. It is a reproduction in the given sentence of the general syntactical structure as well as of the lexical elements of the preceding sentence, the syntactical positions of the lexical elements undergoing inversion:

«The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail...» (Dickens).

Anaphora is the use of identical words at the beginning of two or more contiguous sentences or verse lines. Sometimes it is combined with parallelism, e.g.:

«Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow!

Farewell to the straits and green valleys below!

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods!

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods!»

(Burns)

The expressive purpose of anaphora is to imprint the elements, emphasized by repetition, in the reader's memory, to impart a peculiar kind of rhythm to the speech and to increase the sound harmony.

Epiphora is recurrence of identical elements in the end of two or more contiguous utterances, e.g.:

«Now this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a cornet of dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore...» (Dickens).

Epiphora contributes to rhythmical regularity of speech, making prose resemble poetry. It may be combined with anaphora and parallelism.

Stylistic Value of Syntactical Categories

Syntactical categories may possess certain stylistic value. Some of them display expressive potentialities; others imply appurtenance to special spheres of sub-languages, i.e. they are non-neutral.

LECTURE 7

The Connection between Parts of the Sentence

There are two polar types of syntactic connection in the sentence: subject-predicate relation and secondary relation, i.e. relations between secondary parts of a sentence. The subject-predicate relation serves to convey a piece of information, to inform the hearer about something. The secondary parts of the sentence make, together with their head-words, mere word-combinations, i.e. composite denominations, functionally equivalent to simple words.

Between the two polar types of syntactical connection there exists an intermediate type - a semi-predicative connection which occurs when a secondary part of the sentence becomes «detached».

Detachment means that a secondary member a) becomes phonetically separated, b) obtains emphatic stress, c) sometimes, though not necessarily, changes its habitual position. This secondary part of the sentence, remaining what it has been (an attribute, an adverbial modifier, etc.), at the same time assumes the function of an additional predicative; it comes to resemble the predicate.

Detachment makes the word prominent. Thus, from the point of view of stylistics, detachment is nothing but emphasis.

Theoretically, any secondary part of the sentence can be detached:

«Smither should choose it for her at the stores - nice and dappled» (Galsworthy) - detachment of the attribute.

«Talent, Mr.Micawber has, capital, Mr. Micawber has not» (Dickens) - detachment of the direct object.

Parenthetic Elements, i.e. words, phrases and clauses disconnected grammatically with their syntactical surroundings, also possess stylistic value. Parenthesis may perform the following stylistic functions:

• to reproduce two parallel lines of thought, two different planes of narration (in the author's speech), e.g.:

«...he was struck by the thought (what devil's whisper? -what evil hint of an evil spirit?) - supposing that he and Roberta - no, say he and Sondra - (no, Sondra could swim so well and so could he) - he and Roberta were in a small boat somewhere...» (Dreiser);

• to make the sentence or clause more conspicuous, more emphatic, e.g.:

«The main entrance (he had never ventured to look beyond that) was a splendiferous combination of a glass and iron awning...» (Dreiser);

• to strengthen the emotional force by making part of the utterance interrogative or exclamatory, e.g.:

«Here is a long passage - what an enormous prospective I make of it! - leading from Peggoty's kitchen to the front door» (Dickens);

to avoid monotonous repetition of similar constructions;

to impart colloquial character to the author's narration.