SD Based on Usage of Meanings of Category of Number

In the English language as in many other languages, grammatical category of number is realized by two forms – the singular and the plural. In opposition of forms: “singular plural” the plural form is considered to be “marked”, that’s why the possibilities of usage of the plural form for stylistic objectives are wider. According to the category of number, nouns are classified into countables and uncountables. Each group has its own regularities of usage. When these regularities are broken for stylistic reasons, speech becomes expressive. a) Uncountable nouns in the singular or, countable nouns in the singular, occasionally realizing the meaning of more than oneness, evoke picturesque connotations. In this case such nouns can denote a number of homogeneous objects. They denote not the set of all the homogeneous objects of the kind, but the meaning of a part of them (or a group of them):

e.g. to hunt tiger = to hunt tigers;

to keep chick = to keep chicks;

to shoot duck = to shoot ducks.

In Russian: бить зайца – охотиться на зайцев;

ходить на медведя – охотиться на медведей.

This SD is often used in fiction because the meaning of the singular can create a higher degree of abstractness, and it denotes notional associations:

e.g. By God they were soldiers. The Old Hun was a soldier… The Old Hun

would come down through the Trentino, and cut the railway at Vicenza and

then where would the Italians be. (E. Hemingway)

In Russian :«Глубокий сон во стане шведа» (А.Пушкин);

«Слева наши, справа наши, не отстать бы на ходу,

немец кухни с теплой кашей второпях забыл в саду»

(А. Твардовский)

b) Usage of plural forms of nouns are also widely observed in fiction. A SD is based on the violation of normal combination of morphemes in the structure of a word: adding of the plural ending –s to nouns, which don’t normally take plural ending:

1) Plural ending – s can be added to proper names. Here we mean not the cases when plural form denotes members of the same family: the Forsytes, the Smiths. Here we refer cases when the usage of the plural ending –s can be used to denote the whole nation:

e.g. “ The real war of the world was not between the Bill Davidsons and the Jean

Duvals and the Hans Müllers. ” (R. Aldington)

(т.е. англичанами, французами и немцами).

The stylistic effect is intensified by the usage of the same proper names in the singular in the same text:

e.g. What Bill Davidson and Jean Duval and Hans Müller ought to do was to stop blowing each other to hell (R. Aldington).

2) SD based on enumeration of nouns denoting persons, objects and events in the plural used as homogeneous members of a sentence:

e.g. Men, pals, red plush seats, white marble tables, waiters in white aprons. Miss

Moss walked through them all. (K. Mansfield)

3) Nouns denoting materials don’t usually take the plural ending. But if they do take the plural ending –s, they are used to denote “different sorts of the given materials”: oils, sugars, coffees, wines.

e.g. There is marked difference in quality between these coffees.

(English Language Teaching)

In Russian: Масла, бензины, вина, смазки.

They have no stylistic value. In this case we can speak only about functional-stylistic meaning, because these forms are used only in definite spheres of professional activity.

Nouns denoting materials can also be used in the plural form to create special stylistic expressive effect with the meaning “great quantity of something”.

e.g. The waters of the Atlantic; “a Daughter of Snows” (a title of Jack London’s story); sands of Africa.

In this case the plural form, in Academician V.V. Vinogradov’s opinion, has “intensifying meaning of qualitative character”; it denotes not quantity in its common (usual) meaning, it means length.

Usage of abstract nouns in the plural form also creates a SD. Here we can mention two cases:

1) Abstract nouns denoting nature phenomena can take the plural form. They have the meaning of intensiveness, recurrence and durations of a phenomenon: mists, frosts, rains, winds.

e.g. In winter there were great snows (H. Bates)

It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales.

(R. Stevenson)

2 ) Abstract nouns can take the plural form. In this case they acquire the meaning “ a great number of smth.,” and at the same time intensive-qualitative meaning:

e.g. I simply hated the idea of being cast out of his affections. (J. Galsworthy)

Winfrid has emotions, hates, pities, wants – at least sometimes. (J. Galsworthy)

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