Syntactical stylistic devices

Lecture 13

General considerations. The syntactical whole. The paragraph.

It is well known that the study of the sentence and its types and especially the study of the relations between different parts of the sentence has had a long history. Rhetoric was mainly engaged in the observation of the juxtaposition of the members of the sentence and in finding ways and means of building larger and more elaborate spans of utterance, as for example, the period or periodical sentence. Modem grammars have greatly extended the scope of structural analysis and have taken under observation the peculiarities of the relations between the members of the sentence, which somehow has overshadowed problems connected with structural and semantic patterns of larger syntactical units. Stylistics takes as the object of its analysis the expressive means and stylistic devices of the language which are based on some significant structural point in an utterance, whether it consists of one sentence or a string of sentences. Stylistic syntactical patterns may be viewed as variants of the general syntactical models of the language and are the more obvious and conspicuous if presented, not as isolated elements or accidental usages, but as groups easily observable and lending themselves to generalization.

This idea is expressed by Prof. G. Vinokur in his «Маяковский - новатор языка», where he maintains that in syntax it is no new material that is coined, but new relations, because the syntactical aspect of speech is nothing more than a definite combination of grammatical forms, and in this sense the actual words used are essentially immaterial. Therefore syntactical relations, particularly in poetic language, are that aspect of speech in which everything presents itself as actualization of the potential and not merely the repetition of the ready-made. By "the potential" G. Vinokur apparently means variations of syntactical patterns. But here we are faced with the indisputable interdependence between form and content; in other words, between the syntactical design of the utterance and its concrete lexical materialization. A closer examination of the structural elements will show that they outnumber the semantic units: nineteen structural elements and eleven which are meant to be semantic. The following inferences may be drawn from this fact:

1) it is the structural element of the utterance that predetermines the possible semantic aspect;

2) the structural elements have their own independent meaning which may be called structural or, more widely, grammatical;

3) the structural meaning may affect the lexical, giving contextual meaning to some of the lexical

units.

The termsyntactical whole is used to denote a larger unit than a sentence. It generally comprises a number of sentences interdependent structurally (usually by means of pronouns, connectives, tense- forms) and semantically (one definite thought is dealt with). Such a span of utterance is also characterized by the fact that it can be extracted from the context without losing its relative semantic independence. So the syntactical whole may be defined as a combination of sentences presenting a structural and semantic unity backed up by rhythmic and melodic unity. Any syntactical whole will lose its unity if it suffers breaking. As a stylistic term the word utterance must be expanded. Any utterance from a stylistic point of view will serve to denote a certain span of speech (language-in- action) in which we may observe coherence, interdependence of the elements, one definite idea, and last but not least, the purport of the writer. The purport is the aim that the writer sets before himself, which is to make the desired impact on the reader. So the aim of any utterance is a carefully thought- out impact. Syntactical units are connected to achieve the desired effect and it is often by the manner they are connected that the desired effect is secured. It follows then that a syntactical whole can be embodied in a sentence if the sentence meets the requirements of this compositional unit. Most epigrams are syntactical wholes from the point of view of their semantic unity, though they fail to meet the general structural requirement, viz. to be represented in a number of sentences. It is important to point out that this structural unit, in its particular way of arranging ideas, belongs almost exclusively to the belles-lettres style, though it may be met with to some extent in the publicists style. Other styles, judging by their recognized leading features, do not require this mode of arranging the parts of an utterance except in rare cases which may be neglected. Syntactical wholes are to be found in particular in poetical style. Here the syntactical wholes, as well as the paragraphs, are embodied in stanzas. Due to the most typical semantic property of any poetical work, viz., brevity of expression, — there arises the need to combine ideas so that seemingly independent utterances may be integrated into one poetical unity, viz., a stanza.

A paragraph is a graphical term used to name a group of sentences marked off by indentation at the beginning and a break in the line at the end. But this graphical term has come to mean a distinct portion of a written discourse showing an internal unity, logical in character. In fact the paragraph as a category is half linguistic, half logical. As a logical category it is characterized by coherence and relative unity of the ideas expressed, as a linguistic category it is a unit of utterance marked off by purely linguistic means: intonation, pauses of various lengths, semantic ties which can be disclosed by scrupulous analysis of the morphological aspect and meaning of the component parts, etc. Bearing this in mind, we shall not draw a mark of demarcation between the logical and the linguistic analysis of an utterance, because the paragraph is a linguistic expression of a logical arrangement of thought. Paragraph structure is not always built on logical principles alone, as is generally the case in the style of scientific prose. In the building of paragraphs in newspaper style, other requirements are taken into consideration, for instance, psychological principles, in particular the sensational effect of the communication and the grasping capacity of the reader for quick reading. The length of a paragraph normally varies from eight to twelve sentences. The longer the paragraph is, the more difficult it is to follow the purport of the writer. In newspaper style, however, most paragraphs consist of one or perhaps two or three sentences. Paragraphs of a purely logical type may be analysed from the way the thought of the writer develops. Attempts have been made to classify paragraphs from the point of view of the logical sequence of the sentences. Thus in manuals on the art of composition there are models of paragraphs built on different principles:

1) from the general to the particular, or from the particular to the general;

2) on the inductive or deductive principle;

3) from cause to effect, or from effect to cause;

4) on contrast, or comparison.

So the paragraph is a compositional device aimed either at facilitating the process of apprehending what is written, or inducing a certain reaction on the part of the reader. The paragraph in some styles, such as scientific, publicists and some others generally has atopic sentence, i.e., a sentence which embodies the main idea of the paragraph or which may be interpreted as a key- sentence disclosing the chief thought of the writer. The topic sentence of this paragraph is placed at the beginning. It consists of two ideas presented in a complex sentence with a subordinate clause of time. The idea of the topic sentence is embodied in the main clause which states that Goldsmith derived "little reputation but much profit" out of some of his works. The subordinate clause of time is used here as a linking sentence between the preceding paragraph which deals with "The Deserted Village" and "She Stoops to Conquer" and the one under scrutiny.

Questions.

1) What is syntactical whole?

2) What is a paragraph?

3) What is a topic sentence?

4) What are the models of paragraphs built on different principles?