Aposiopesis

Reported Speech Verbs

Appendix

The imperatives in Reported speech

Expressions That Change in Reported Speech

Certain expressions must change in the reported form of speech:

this that these those here there tomorrow the following day or the next day next month the following month or the next month today that day tonight that night this afternoon that afternoon yesterday the day before or the previous day last year the year before or the previous year last night the night before or the previous night  

The word now does not have to change, but it can change to then. Most native English speakers don't change now.

He said, "I was sick yesterday, but now I'm all right."

He said that he had been sick the day before but that now he was all right.

He said that he had been sick the day before but that then he was all right.

The imperatives is the expression of the order, advice, request, ect. in the sentence.

In the Indirect Speech the imperatives are changed with the infinitive.

He said, “Speak more slowly.”
He said to speak more slowly.

With the verb tell there always must be a pronoun, that is the opposite form the verb say.

He said, “Drink a cup of hot tea.”
He said to drink a cup of hot tea.
He told me to drink a cup of hot tea.

With the imperatives we don’t use the sequence of tenses, because the infinitive replace it.

To make a negative sentence we put not before the infinitive.

He said, “Don’t open the window.”
He said not to open the window.

ask ‑ to get information or to make a request for someone to do something (He asked her...)

beg - to ask strongly and emotionally for someone to do something (She begged him...)

tell ‑ to give information or to give a command (He told us....)

order ‑ to give somebody a strong command (She ordered them....)

answer ‑ to respond (We answered [him]...)

respond ‑ to answer (He responded [ to her]...)

remind ‑ to tell somebody something that he or she might have forgotten (He reminded me...)

exclaim ‑ to state information with great emotion (not used for giving commands) (He exclaimed [ to her]...)

explain ‑ to state information that will help somebody understand something (She explained [ to him]...)

Reported Speech Action Verbs (These verbs are often used to report short exchanges.)

thank - He thanked her. (He said thank you to her.)

greet - She greeted him. (She said hello to him.)

agree - He agreed. (He said that somebody was right or that he would do what somebody wanted.)

refuse - She refused. (She said that she wouldn't obey somebody or that she wouldn't do somebody a favor.)

It is a sudden and dramatic breaking off of a thought in the middle of a sentence as though the speaker were unwilling or unable to continue. Both elliptical points (...) and a dash may mark it in print.

e.g. "Oh, I want to help you, Andrew, only - do you really believe" - Baumer look a deep breath. Then, low voiced, he replied, "I knew a...".

As is seen from the examples a sudden break in the narrative may convey doubt, indecision sometimes - anger, threat, thus carrying an emotive function. When used in the author's speech or personages' inner dialogues aposiopesis promotes the creation of emotional tension.

e.g. And yet - his whole alibi depends on her word. But in that case –.

Question-in-the-Narrative

is asked and answered by one and the same person, usually the author

For what is left the poet here? // For Greeks a blush - for Greece a tear. (Byron - Don Juan)

- does not contain statement unlike a rhetorical question;

- assume a semi-exclamatory nature;

- is very often used in oratory;

- sometimes gives the impression of an intimate talk between the writer and the reader; Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. (Ch.Dickens)

- may also remain unanswered (there are only hints of the possible answers) How long must it go on? Now long must we suffer? Where is the end? What is the end? (Norris)

- presumes that the questioner does not know the answer.

It is a question asked solely to produce an emotional effect. The answer is either self evident or immediately provided by the questioner.

e.g. But if you can't help yourself, who can? I suppose nobody.

Such questions help maintain closer contact with the reader or with the listener. They are much favoured by orators for an obvious advantage of taking over the initiative and, by mere verbal trickery, of making people believe that the thoughts imposed on them are their own thoughts.

Represented Speech

English writers use three ways of reproducing actual speech:

1) direct speech-representing actual speech as it is;

2) indirect speech-representing actual speech through the author's speech;

3) represented speech, also related by the author, combining lexical and syntactical peculiarities of colloquial and literary speech. Represented speech reproduces the spoken words or thoughts of a character almost directly, but still within the author's speech.

e.g. It was funny to think that in a few hours she would be someone else, someone's wife...what did that mean? Who would she be then? Represented speech in the passage conveys the thoughts of a person that were never actually pronounced. The use of represented speech is a powerful device in the hands of writers; it presents the words and even the inner speech (thoughts) of personages more vividly and emotionally than indirect speech. Represented speech may be marked by certain grammatical features:

• the tense-forms of the verbs are switched from t present to the past.

• personal pronouns are changed from the 1st and 2nd person to the 3rd person;

• but the syntactical structure of the utterance doesn't change.

There are two major types of represented speech: uttered represented speech and unuttered represented speech or inner monologue.

Uttered Represented Speech

e.g. Then Barley himself was distracted while he tried in his passable French to explain to a tall Palestinian that no, he was afraid he was NOT a member of the Peace Group, old boy, and alas NOT me manager of the hotel either.

In this example the URS proper begins with the word no. Like author's narration it lacks inverted commas and is marked by preservation of the third person instead of the first person and the Past Tense instead of the Present. The peculiarities of the character's speech are as follows: colloquial address old boy, the use of the word no, which is indicative of the dialogue in progress, the repetition of the particle NOT and the interjection alas t0 snow the emotional state of the speaker.

Unuttered Represented Speech or inner monologue

reflects the feelings and thoughts of a character. It resembles indirect speech in shifting tenses (from present to past) and the pronouns (from the first person to the third person) but it also retains some features of direct speech, such as: direct questions, elliptical constructions, breaks, exclamatory words, colloquialisms, etc.

e.g. Unhappily, Andrew began to compound an antipyretic mixture. Spirits of nitre, salicylate of sodium – where the dickens was the soda sal? Oh, there it was!

Sometimes the shift from the author's speech to the represented speech may be difficult to detect.

e.g. "She had not realised till lately now to lose they were, these bonds of love. But thank Heaven she had loosened them," where the only markers of inner monologue are emphatic these and thank Heaven.

GROUP 4. STYLISTIC USE OF STRUCTURAL MEANING

Both rhetorical question and litotes are devices, based on the effect of transposition. What is transposition? Broadly speaking, transposition is placing a language sign in the surrounding which is unusual for its functioning.

Rhetorical question (риторический вопрос)

– peculiar interrogative construction which semantically remains a statement;

- does not demand any information but

- serves to express the emotions of the speaker and also

- serves to call the attention of listeners;

- makes an indispensable part of oratoric speech for they very successfully emphasise the orator's ideas.

••

a) a special syntactical stylistic device the essence of which consists in reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interrogative sentence; Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace?

b) a statement expressed in the form of an interrogative sentence;

c) an utterance in the form of a question which pronounces judgement and also expresses various kind of modal shades of meanings, as doubt, challenge, scorn, irony and so on; Who is here so vile that will not love his country? (W.Shakespeare)

- is generally structurally embodied in complex sentences with the subordinate clause containing the pronouncement;

- may be looked upon as a transference of grammatical meaning

••

вопрос, который не предполагает ответа, ставится не для того, чтобы побудить слушателя сообщить нечто неизвестное говорящему, а чтобы привлечь внимание, усилить впечатление, повысить эмоциональный тон, создать приподнятость

Being your slave, what should I do but tend // Upon the hours and times of your desire? (W.Shakespeare - Sonnet LVII) - Для верных слуг нет ничего другого // Как ожидать у двери госпожу. (пер. С.Я.Маршака)

Rhetorical question is a good example of the effect of transposition: orators sometimes use a sentence that has the form of a question instead of an exclamation. Rhetorical question is one that expects no answer. It is asked in order to make a statement rather than to elicit a reply.

e.g. If both ways led to terror and death, what good lay in choice?

Simultaneous realisation of two meanings that of a question and of an assertion endows the utterance with an emotional charge. The effect is the strongest with negative-interrogative sentences which are capable of implying various shades of emotive meaning and modality.

e.g. Are you not much better than they?

Rhetorical questions are most frequently used in dramatic narration and in publicistic style.

Litotes (литота)

– a two-component structure in which two negations are joined to give a possessive evaluation

- the first component is always the negative particle "not", while the second, always negative in semantics, varies in form from a negatively affixed word (as above) to a negative phrase

Her face was not unpretty. (K.Kesey)

It was not unnatural if Gilbert felt a certain embarrassment. (E.Waugh)

••

a) is a stylistic device consisting of a peculiar use of negative constructions: the negation plus noun or adjective serves to establish a positive feature in a person or thing

- is a deliberate understatement used to produce stylistic effect: it is a negation that includes affirmation;

- is a means by which the natural logical and linguistic property of negation can be strengthened; He found that this was no easy task.

- is used in different styles of speech, excluding those which may be called the matter-of-fact styles, like official style and scientific prose

b) a construction with two negations

not unlike, not unpromising, not displeased

Soames, with his lips and his squared chin was not unlike a bull dog. (J.Galsworthy)

is a device whereby an affirmation is expressed by denying its contrary. Usually litotes presupposes double negation - one through a negative particle (no, not), the other - through a word with negative meaning.

e.g. Not hopeless. Not without love. Not a coward. Not too awful.

The stylistic function of litotes is to convey doubts of the speaker concerning the exact characteristics of the object, or a feeling, as in the following example: I felt 1 wouldn't say 'no' to a cup of tea.

SUMMARISING SECTION: SYNTACTICAL INTENSIFTERS

1. Inversion; complete / partial. The effect achieved: logical / emotive stress.

2. Detachment: the syntactical function of the isolated segment. What punctuation mark is used, what kind of stress is added to the meaning of the segment?

3. Parallelism: complete / partial. Its functions: rhythm-forming / supporting contrast / semantic equality of the parts / emotive intensification.

4. Repetition:

4.1. Lexico-syntactical: anaphora / epiphora / anadiplosis. What element is repeated? What kind of stress is added?

4.2. Lexical: What element is repeated? The function of the device: rhythm-forming / intensification of a feeling / showing monotonous action/continuity of action.

4.3. Synonimical: What meaning is repeated? What meaning / nuance of meaning is added?

5. Enumeration: the basis for the concrete case of enumeration: dependence, cause and result/likeness/dissimilarity/sequence/experience (personal/ social)/proximity.

6. Climax: logical/emotive/quantitative. What feature is stressed?

7. Asyndeton: Function: to show energetic, tense activities/to show a succession of minute actions.

8. Polysyndeton: Functions: to create the atmosphere of bustling activity / to show equal importance of enumerated elements.

9. Aposiopesia: Implications realised by the device: unwillingness to proceed/ uncertainty/implication ('speaking silence') / a warning/a threat/irritation.

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