Stylistic syntax of the English language

Points for consideration

1. The expressive value of syntax

2. The problem of the classification of expressive means and stylis­tic devices on the syntactical level

3. EM based on the reduction of the sentence structure.

4. EM based on the redundancy of the sentence structure.

Syntax and stylistics

Syntax is the branch of linguistics, which studies different types of relations between words, word-combinations and sentences. The examination of syntax provides a deeper insight into the stylistic aspect of utterance.

The length and the structure of a sentence are most conspicuous features in syntax and may be stylistically relevant. The length of any language unit is an important factor in information exchange, for the human brain can receive and transmit information only if the latter is punctuated by pauses. Theoretically speaking a sentence can be of any length, as there are no linguistic limitations for its growth, so even monstrous constructions of several hundred words each, technically should be viewed as sen­tences.

Indeed, psychologically, no reader is prepared to perceive as a syn­tactical whole those sentences in which the punctuation mark of a full stop comes after more than 500 words, or even after 45 whole pages of the text (J. Joyce. Ulysses).

What is the correlation between the length and the expressiveness of a sentence?

Let us compare the stylistic value of the following sentences:

1. The horror! The flight! The exposure! The police! (Dreiser)

2. The car was going a wild forty-five miles an hour across the open and as Macomber watched, the buffalo got bigger and bigger until he could see the gray, hairless, scabby look of one huge bull and how his neck was a part of his shoulders and the shiny black of his horns as he galloped a little behind the others that were strung out in that steady plunging gait; and then, the car swaying as though it had just jumped a road, they drew up close and he could see the plunging hugeness of the bull, and the dust in his sparsely haired hide, the wide boss of horn and his out­stretched, wide-nostrilled muzzle, and he was raising his rifle when Wilson shouted, "Not from the car, you fool!" and he had no fear, only hatred of Wilson, while the brakes clamped on and the car skidded, plowing sideways to an almost stop and Wilson was out on one side and he on the other, stumbling as his feet hit the still speeding-by of the earth, and then he was shooting at the bull as he moved away, hearing the bullets whunk into him, emptying his rifle at him as he moved steadily away, finally remembering to get his shots forward into the shoulder, and as he fumbled to re-load, he saw the bull was down. (E. Hemingway The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber) - 228 words

There is no direct or immediate correlation between the length and the expressiveness of a sentence: short sentences may be emotionally more charged, while the long ones, on the contrary, may be loose and might have only a one-sided effect.

It explains why for many years considerable controversy has centered upon the interrelation of emotional effects and emphasis on the one hand, and syntax on the other. It’s common knowledge that expressiveness and stylistic emphasis are achieved, first and foremost, by means of intensification of semantic features in an utterance or in its part. The scope of intensifying instruments is very large, it includes pitch, stress, pausation and other phonetic means and numerous lexical and semantic items. And how does syntax contribute to the creation of expressiveness and emotions?

Some linguists, in particular, K.A.Dolinin, suggest that syntax, as contrasted to lexis, is in­capable of conveying emotions as such, but it immediately reacts to their presence or absence.

E.A.Trofimova defines expressiveness in syntax as the structural reaction of syntax to the presence or absence of emotions.

E.g.: He rushed in. – In he rushed.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11