Lecture 8

SYNTACTICAL STYLISTIC DEVICES

Stylistic Inversion
Inversion (from Greek inversion/inversionis – turning round) is any intentional
violation of the traditional word order. Inversion can be grammatical, i.e. enforced by
the rules of English grammar, as for example in interrogative sentences: Are you
coming? from You are coming. When the normal word order of statements is inverted
for the purpose of emphasis or to make priority and eminence, we speak about the
stylistic device of inversion.
Stylistic inversion, contrary to the grammatical one, does not change the
structural meaning of the sentence. It aims at attaching logical stress or additional
emotive coloring to the surface meaning of the utterance. For that reason stylistic
inversion is commonly accompanied by a specific intonation pattern.
It is completely wrong, however, to think that stylistic inversion is a violation of
the norms of Standard English. In fact, it is only the practical realization of the
language's potential.
Stylistic inversion can acquire many ways:
1. The object precedes the subject.
E.g. "Talent Mr. Micawber has; capital Mr. Micawber has not" (Dickens)
2 The attribute is placed after the word it modifies (when there are more than one
attributes) "With fingers weary and worn...." (Thomas Hood)
3. The predicate is placed before the subject.
"A good generous prayer it was." (Mark Twain)
4. The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence
Eagerly I wished the morrow. (E. Рое)
5. Both modifier and predicate stand before the subject "In went Mr. Pickwick"
Inversion is very popular in the journalistic style where it is presented in the way
of inverting predicate and subject in reporting clauses that come before quoted
statements: e.g. Says Darren Beagle, chief programmer at Megabux Inc., ‘This is the
breakthrough we’ve all been waiting for’.

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 Parallelism
Parallel construction is a device where two or more sentences receive identical or
similar syntactical structures going one after the other in close succession.
E.g. "There were real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to
drink it out of, and plates of the same to hold the cakes and toast in."
One of the most famous Latin parallelisms is veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw, I
conquered.
In present-day English parallelisms are common in sayings and proverbs, e.g.
Now you see them, now you don’t, Out of sight, out of mind; in verse and poetic prose,
e.g. ‘My mother groaned, my father wept – Into the dangerous world I leapt’
(W. Blake).
A pure parallel construction consists of nothing but repetition of certain structures
of the sentence. Parallelism makes basis for other stylistic devices, such as enumeration,
antithesis, polysyndeton or repetition.
Chiasmus (Reversed Parallel Construction)
Chiasmus (through Latin from Greek khiasmos – crossing) is an inversion of
word order that creates a counterbalancing effect in the second of two linked phrases.
E.g. “One must eat to live, not live to eat” (Cicero).
Chiasmus is a variation of parallelism, in which the repeated structures appear in
the cross way.
E.g. ''Down dropped the breeze,
The sails dropped down ''
According to I.R. Galperin, chiasmus may also be achieved by a change in
meanings of the repeated structures;
"As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low."
or by a sudden change from active voice to passive or vice versa,
"The register of his burial (funeral) was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the
undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it." (Dickens)
There are different variants of the structural design of chiasmus. It may appear in
parts of a simple sentence, in clauses or even in different sentences.

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 Syntactical chiasmus is used to break the monotony of parallel constructions, to
bring in some new shade of meaning or additional emphasis.
Repetition
In a broad sense, repetition (through French from Latin repetitio – a seeking
again) is doing, saying, or writing the same thing more than once. The recurrence of
words or phrases very often occurs when the speaker is under the stress of a strong
emotion.
In the example: "Stop!" - she cried, "Don't tell me! I don't want to hear; I don’t
want to hear what you've come for. I don’t want to hear." repetition is not a stylistic
device, but a means to show the excited state of the speaker.
When used as a stylistic device, the function of repetition is not to show the
emotion of the speaker, but to make a logical emphasis, to fix the reader's attention on
the key-word of the utterance.
"For that was it! Ignorant of the long and stealthy march of passion, and of the
state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant how Soams had watched her, ignorant of
Fleaur's reckless desperation.... – ignorant of all this, everybody felt aggrieved."
Repetition is classified according to compositional patterns. If the repeated word
or phrase comes at the beginning, we have anaphora; when it happens at the end, it is
epiphora.
"I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I
am above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such
a case as that. "
Repetition can also be arranged in the form of a frame: the initial parts of a
syntactical unit are repeated at the end of it. This repetition is called framing.
"Poor doll' dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have
raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and
asking guidance. Poor, little doll' dressmaker!” (Dickens)
Other kinds of repetition are linking or reduplication (also called anadipsosis)
where the last word or phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of
the next part, thus hooking the two parts together.

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 "A smile would come into Mr. Pickwick's face: the smile extended into a laugh:
the laugh into a roar, and the roar became general" (Dickens)
This repetition pattern is also called chain-repetition.
Enumeration
Enumeration is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, phenomena,
properties, actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of
which, being syntactically in the same position, are forced to display some kind of
semantic homogeneity, remote though it may seem.
"Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole
residuary legatee". (Dickens)
Antithesis
Antithesis (through Latin from Greek antithesis – setting against, opposition) is a
construction in which words are opposed but balanced. E.g. “For many are called, few
are chosen”, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” (Bible) Technically, the first part in
such constructions is the thesis, the second the antithesis.
It is important to distinguish the stylistic device of antithesis from ordinary
logical oppositions. In a logical opposition the two contrasted objects are antonyms,
whose properties are set one against another (e.g. hell-heaven, up-down). In antithesis
the contrasted pairs are not regarded as objectively opposite concepts, they are rather
put into the context where they become opposite.
"Youth is lovely, age is lonely,
Youth is fiery, age is frosty:" (Longfellow)
Asyndeton
When the connective between parts of a sentence or between sentences is
deliberately omitted where it is expected according to the norms of the literary language
we have the phenomenon of asyndeton.
"Soames turned away; he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing
before an open grave, watching an coffin slowly lowered" (Galsworthy)
Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is the stylistic device of connecting sentences, or phrases, or words
by using connectives before each component part.

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 "The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect." (Dickens)
Ellipsis
Ellipsis as a stylistic device is a deliberate digression from the traditional literary
sentence structure.
"I bring him news will raise his drooping spirits."
Not all cases of ellipsis can be regarded as stylistic devices. There are many
elliptical sentences which are quite normal syntactic structures. E.g. "See you soon",
"You say that?" it is only when ellipsis produces a stylistic effect that it results in a
stylistic device.
Break-in- the-Narrative (Aposiopesis)
Aposiopesis is a stylistic device of stopping short for the purpose of conveying to
the reader a very strong upsurge of emotions. The idea of this device is to show to the
reader that the speaker is so excited that he is unable to express his emotions in terms of
language.
And oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear-
But that's impossible, and cannot be."
Question- in- the- Narrative
When a question begins to fulfill a function not directly arising from its linguistic
and psychological nature, it acquires a certain volume of emotional charge and results in
a stylistic device called Question- in- the- Narrative.
"How long must it go on? How long must we suffer? Where is the end? What is
the end?"
Rhetorical Questions
The rhetorical question is a special stylistic syntactical device which consists in
restructuring a question into a statement, which though is expressed in the form of an
interrogative sentence. Rhetorical questions are usually a combination of a categorical
pronouncement and an exclamation.
"Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?"

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 Litotes
Litotes (through Latin from Greek litotes – meagerness) is a positive and often
emphatic statement made by denying something negative. In litotes negation is used to
establish a positive feature. The negatives ‘no’ or ‘not’ are pronounced more
emphatically than in ordinary negative sentences, thus bringing to mind the
corresponding antonym.
The stylistic effect of litotes depends mainly on the intonation.
"He was not without taste..." "He found that this was no easy task."