Chapter III. Syntactical level

Main Characteristics of the Sentence. Syntactical SDs. Sentence Length. One-Word Sentences. Sentence Structure. Punctuation. Arrangement of Sentence Members. Rhetorical Question. Types of Repetition. Parallel Constructions. Chiasmus. Inversion. Suspense. Detachment. Completeness of Sentence Structure. Ellipsis. One-Member Sentences. Apokoinu Constructions. Break. Types of Connection. Polysyndeton. Asyndeton. Attachment

 

Stylistic study of the syntax begins with the study of the length and the structure of a sentence. It appears, the length of any language unit is a very 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 the 124th word (Joyce Carol Oates. Expensive People), or 128th word (E. Hemingway. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber), or 256th word (T. Pynchon. The Crying of Lot 49), or 631 st word (N. Mailer. Why Are We in Vietnam?), or even after 45 whole pages of the text (J. Joyce. Ulysses).

Unable to specify the upper limit of sentence length we definitely know its lower mark to be one word. 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. Cf.: "They could keep the Minden Street Shop going until they got the notice to quit; which mightn't be for two years. Or they could wait and see what kind of alternative premises were offered. If the site was good. - If. Or. And, quite inevitably, borrowing money." (J.Br.) As you see, even synsemantic conjunctions, receiving the status of sentences are noticeably promoted in their semantic and expressive value.

Abrupt changes from short sentences to long ones and then back again, create a very strong effect of tension and suspense for they serve to arrange a nervous, uneven, ragged rhythm of the utterance.

There is no direct or immediate correlation between the length and the structure of a sentence: short sentences may be structurally complicated, while the long ones, on the contrary, may have only one subject-predicate pair. Cf.: "Through the windows of the drag-store Eighth street looked extremely animated with families trooping toward the center of the town, flags aslant in children's hands, mother and pa in holiday attire and sweating freely, with patriarchal automobiles of neighbouring farmers full of starched youngsters and draped with bunting." (J.R.) Almost 50 words of this sentence cluster around one subject-predicate centre "Eighth street looked animated".

At the same time very short sentences may boast of two and more clauses, i.e. may be complex, as we observe in the following cases: "He promised he'd come if the cops leave." (J.B.) "Their father who was the poorest man in town kept turning to the same jokes when he was treated to a beer or two." (A. S.) Still, most often, bigger lengths go together with complex structures.

Not only the clarity and understandability of the sentence but also its expressiveness depend on the position of clauses, constituting it. So, if a sentence opens with the main clause, which is followed by dependent units, such a structure is called loose, is less emphatic and is highly characteristic of informal writing and conversation. Periodic sentences, on the contrary, open with subordinate clauses, absolute and participial constructions, the main clause being withheld until the end. Such structures are known for their emphasis and are used mainly in creative prose. Similar structuring of the beginning of the sentence and its end produces balanced sentences known for stressing the logic and reasoning of the content and thus preferred in publicist writing.

A word leaving the dictionary to become a member of the sentence normally loses its polysemy and actualizes only one of its meanings in the context. The same is true about the syntactical valency: a member of the sentence fulfils one syntactical function. There are cases, though, when syntactical ambivalence is preserved by certain members of a sentence which fact creates semantic ambiguity for it allows at least two different readings of the sentence. In the now famous quotation from N. Chomsky "The shooting of the hunters..." the second part may be regarded both as an attribute ("whose shooting" = who was shooting) and as аи object ("whose shooting" = who was shot). Another sentence, composed by Yu. Apresyan to prove the effectiveness of transformational procedures, shows a much bigger syntactical ambivalence, for practically each of its members can be viewed as playing more than one syntactical role, which brings the total number of possible readings of the sentence to 32 semantic variants. Here it is: "Приглашение рабочих бригад вызвало осуждение товарища Иванова".

Sometimes syntactical ambivalence, like the play on words on the lexical level, is intentional and is used to achieve a humorous effect. Cf.: "Do you expect me to sleep with you in the room?" (B.Sh.) Depending on the function of "with you" the sentence may be read "to sleep with you! in the room" (and not in the field, or in the garden) or "to sleep with you in the room" (and not alone, or with my mother). The solution lies with the reader and is explicated in oral communication by the corresponding pausation and intonation. To convey them in the written form of speech order of words and punctuation are used.

The possibilities of intonation are much richer than those of punctuation. Indeed, intonation alone may create, add, change, reverse both the logical and the emotional information of an utterance. Punctuation is much poorer and it is used not alone, but emphasizing and substantiating the lexical and syntactical meanings of sentence-components. Points of exclamation and of interrogation, dots, dashes help to specify the meaning of the written sentence which in oral speech would be conveyed by the intonation. It is not only the emphatic types of punctuation listed above that may serve as an additional source of information, but also more conventional commas, semicolons and full stops. E.g.: "What's your name?" "John Lewis." "Mine's Liza. Watkin." (K.K.) The full stop between the name and the surname shows there was a pause between them and the surname came as a response to the reaction (surprise, amusement, roused interest) of John Lewis at such an informal self-introduction.

Exercise I. Comment on the length, the structure, thecommunicative type and punctuation of sentences, indicatingconnotations created by them:

1. The sick child complained that his mother was going to read to him again from the same book: "What did you bring that book I don't like to be read aloud to out of up for?" (E.)

2. Now, although we were little and I certainly couldn't be dreaming of taking Fonny from her or anything like that, and although she didn't really love Fonny, only thought mat she was supposed to because she had spasmed him into this woild, already, Penny's mother didn't like me. (J.B.)

3. The congregation amened him to death; a big sister, in the pulpit, in her long white robe, jumped up and did a little shout; they cried. Help him, Lord Jesus, help him! and the moment he sat down, another sister, her name was Rose and not much later she was going to disappear from the church and have a baby - and I still remember the last time I saw her, when I was about 14 walking the streets in the snow with her face all marked and her hands all swollen and a rag around her head and her stockings falling down singing to herself- stood up and started singing. (J.B.)

4. Than Roy no one could show a more genuine cordiality to a fellow novelist. (S.M.)

5. Such being at bottom the fact, I think it is well to leave it at that. (S M.)

6. Yet at least Mucho, the used car salesman, had believed in the cars. Maybe to excess: how could he not, seeing people poorer than him come in, Negro, Mexican, cracker, a parade seven days a week, bringing the most Godawful of trade-ins: motorized metal extensions of themselves, of their families and what their whole lives must be like, out there so naked for anybody, a stranger like himself, to look at, frame cockeyed, rusty underneath, fender repainted in a shade just off enough to depress the value, if not Mucho himself, inside smelling hopelessly of children, supermarket booze, two, sometimes three generations of cigarette smokers, or only of dust - and when the cars were swept out you had to look at the actual residue of these lives, and there was no way of telling what things had been truly refused (when so little he supposed came by that out of fear most of it had to be taken and kept) and what had simply (perhaps tragically) been lost: clipped coupons promising savings of 5 to 10 cents, trading stamps, pink flyers advertizing specials at the market, butts, tooth-shy combs, help-wanted ads. Yellow Pages torn from the prione book, rags of old underwear or dresses that were already period costumes, for wiping your own breath off the inside of a windshield with so you could see whatever it was, a movie, a woman, or car you coveted, a cop who might pull you over just for drill, all the bits and pieces coated uniformly, like a salad of despair, in a grey dressing of ash, condensed exhaust, dust, body wastes - it made him sick to look, but he had to look (Th.P.)

7. Soldiers with their cartridges gone wandered aimlessly out of the chapparal, dragging their rifles and plunged into the brush again on the other side of the railroad, black with powder, streaked with sweat, their eyes vacantly on the ground. (J.R.)

8. Strolling up and down the Main Street, talking in little groups on the corners, lounging in and out of strike headquarters were hundreds of big strong-faced miners in their Sunday best. (J.R.)

9. I am, he thought, a part of all that I have touched and that has touched me, which having for me no existence save that I gave to it, became other than itself by being mixed with what I then was, and is now still otherwise, having fused with what I now am, which is itself a cumulation of what I have been becoming. (T.W.)

10. I like people. Not just empty streets and dead buildings. People. People. (P. A.)

11. "You know so much. Where is she?" "Dead. Or in a crazy house. Or married. I think she's married and quieted down." (T.C.)

12. "Jesus Christ! Look at her face!" Surprise. "Her eyes is closed!" Astonishment. "She likes it!" Amazement.

"Nobody could take my picture doing that!" Moral disgust. "Them goddam white folks!" Fascinated fear. (Wr.)

13. What courage can withstand the ever-enduring and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? (W. I.)

14. "You talk of Christianity when you are in the act of banging your enemies. Was there ever such blasphemous nonsense!" (B.Sh.)

15. What is the good of sitting on the throne when other fellows give all the orders? (B.Sh.)

16. And what are wars but politics

Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody? (R. Fr)

17. Father, was that you calling me? Was it you, the voiceless and the dead? Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Was it you thus baptized unto Death? (D.)

18. "Let us see the state of the case. The question is simple. The question, the usual plain, straight-forward, common-sense question. What can we do for ourself? What can we do for ourself?" (D.)

19. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one... single - more... inch... of... curve-Then his feathers raffled, he stalled and fell. (Rch. B.)

20. "Jake, will you get out!" said Magdalen. (I.M.)

21. A boy and a girt sat on stools drinking pop. An elderly man alone - someone John knew vaguely by sight - the town clerk? - sat behind an empty Coca-Cola bottle. (P. Q.)

22. What your doctor learned: biggest A.M.A. convention ever is full of medical news about remedies and treatments he may (sob!) be using on you. (M.St.)

23. The neon lights in the heart of the city flashed on and off. On and off. On. Off. On. Off. Continuously. (P. A.)

24. Bagdworthy was in seventh heaven. A murder! At Chimneys! Inspector Badgworthy in charge of the case. The police have a clue. Sensational arrest. Promotion and kudos for the afforementioned Inspector. (Ch.)

25. What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief.Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief. Doubt. (S.R.)