Nominative sentences are the biggest contributors to the telegraphic style

E.g. The guns! Silence. Then again – flash. Boom. Flash. Boom. The guns. (R. Aldington)

In creative prose one-member sentences are mostly used in descriptions (of nature, interior, appearance, etc.), where they produce the effect of a detailed but laconic picture foregrounding its main components. The main stylistic function of nominative sentences is to present a detailed description of the background, the situation or the place of action.

E.g. More running footsteps. A heavy pounding of many feet. Helmeted firemen streaming in. With them, bright lanterns, heavy equipment – axes, power jacks, cutting tools, lever bars. Little talk. Short staccato words. Grants, sharp orders. (A.Hailey)

One-word sentences possess a very strong emphatic impact, for their only word obtains both the word and the sentence stress. The word constituting a sentence also obtains its own sentence-intonation, which, too, helps to foreground the content.

Nominative sentences are widely used in stage directions (especially in initial, opening remarks, serving the same purpose as expositions in novels or stories):

Lady Sneerwell’s dressing-room.; Snake drinking chocolate. (Sheridan)

Functions and stylistic effect

- to increase the dynamism of narration

- to create the telegraphic style

- to produce the effect of a detailed but laconic picture

- to foreground the main components of the narration or description

- to acquaint the reader with the place or background of action

- to present a kaleidoscopic range of images

4. Aposiopesis is a sudden break in speech caused by some strong emotions, confusion, uncertainty, embarrassment or reluctance to finish the sentence. It means “silence” in Greek. To mark the break, dashes and dots are used.

E.g. "I... I think you're just outrageous. The way you say things... The things you say... I... I've never met anyone the least like you. I..." (A.Christie)

Break is also used mainly in the dialogue or in other forms of narrative imitating spontaneous oral speech. It reflects the emotional or/and the psychological state of the speaker: a sentence may be broken because the speaker’s emotions prevent him from finish­ing it.

A break in the narration is usually caused by unwillingness to proceed; or by the supposition that what remains to be said can be understood by the implication embodied in what has been said; or by uncertainty as to what should be said. In conversation the implication can be conveyed by an adequate gesture. In writing it is the context, which suggests the adequate interpretation, that is the only key to decoding the aposiopesis.

In the sentence: "You just come home or I’ll..." the implication is a threat.

The problem of implication is, as it were, a crucial one in stylistics. What is implied sometimes outweighs what is expressed in other stylistic devices the degree of implication is not so high as in break-in-the narrative.

E.g. “Well …” – the word hung in the air, like smoke in a closed room. (R.Chandler)

I. Arnold distinguishes two kinds of break-in-the-narrative: suppression and aposiopesis. Suppression leaves the sentences unfinished as a result of the speaker’s deliberation to do so. The use of suppression can be accounted for by a desire not to mention something that could be reconstructed from the context or the situation. It is just the part that is not mentioned that attracts the reader’s attention. It is a peculiar use of emphasis that lends the narration a certain psychological tension.

E.g. If everyone at twenty realized that half his life was to be lived after forty … (Waugh)

Aposiopesis, in her interpretation means an involuntary halt in speech because the speaker is too excited or overwhelmed to continue.

Aposiopesis is a stylistic syntactical device to convey to the reader a very strong upsurge of emotions. The idea of this stylistic device is the speaker cannot proceed, his feelings depriving him of the ability to express himself in terms of language.

Functions and stylistic effect

- to imitate spontaneous oral speech

- to reflects the emotional or/and the psychological state of the speaker

- to convey to the reader a very strong upsurge of emotions

- to show the speaker’s inability or unwillingness to finish the utterance

- to express the desire to cut short a certain informa­tion

- to focus the attention on what is left unsaid

V. Kukharenko distinguishes one more type of reduced patterns, the so the called apokoinu constructions.

It is a construction, which is based on the blend of two clauses through a word, which has two syntactical functions, one in each of the two blended clauses.

E.g. There is no one can hurt you.

There was a door led into the kitchen. E. Hemingway

It is your unfairness disgusts me. (Maartens)

In apokoinu constructions the omission of the pronominal (adverbial) connective creates a blend of the main and the subordinate clauses so that the predicative or the object of the first one is simultaneously used as the subject of the second one.

E.g. He was the man killed that deer. (R. W.)

The double syntactical function, played by one word produces the general impres­sion of clumsiness of speech and is used as a means of speech charac­teristics in dialogue.

Functions and stylistic effects

- a means of speech charac­teristics in dialogue (to produce the general impres­sion of clumsiness of speech)

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11