TYPES AND FUNCTIONS OF SYNTACTICAL STYLISTIC

DEVICES: ELLIPSIS, INVERSION, RHETORICAL QUESTION

SYNTACTICAL STYLISTIC DEVICES
Syntactical SD deal with syntactical arrangement of the utterance which creates the
emphasis of the latter irrespective of the lexical meanings of the employed units.
ELLIPSIS
Ellipsis is a typical phenomenon in conversation, arising out of the situation. We
mentioned this peculiar feature of the spoken language when we characterized its
essential qualities and properties. But this typical feature of the spoken language
assumes a new quality when used in the written language. It becomes a stylistic
device inasmuch as it supplies suprasegmental information. An elliptical sentence
in direct intercourse is not a stylistic device. It is simply a norm of the spoken
language.
Let us take a few examples.
―So Justice Oberwaltzer—solemnly and didactically from his high seat to the
jury.‖ (Dreiser)
One feels very acutely the absence of the predicate in this sentence. Why was it
omitted? Did the author pursue any special purpose in leaving out a primary
member of the sentence? Or is it just due to carelessness?
The answer is obvious: it is a deliberate device. This particular model of sentence
suggests the author‘s personal state of mind, viz. His indignation at the shameless
speech of the Justice. It is a common fact that any excited state of mind will
manifest itself in some kind of violation of the recognized literary sentence
structure.
Ellipsis, when used as a stylistic device, always imitates the common features of
colloquial language, where the situation predetermines not the omission of certain
members of the sentence, but their absence.
It would perhaps be adequate to call sentences lacking certain members
―incomplete sentences", leaving the term ellipsis to specify structures where we
recognize a digression from the traditional literary sentence structure.
Thus the sentences ‗See you to-morrow.‘, ‗Had a good time?‘, ‗Won‘t do.‘, ‗You
say that?‘ are typical of the colloquial language. Nothing is omitted here. These are
normal syntactical structures in the spoken language and to call them elliptical,
means to judge every sentence structure according to the structural models of the
written language.
Likewise, such sentences as the following can hardly be called elliptical.
―There‘s somebody wants to speak to you.‖
―There was no breeze came through the open window.‖ (Hemingway)
"'There's many a man in this Borough would be glad to have the blood that runs in
my veins.‖ (Cronin)
The relative pronouns who, which, who after ‗somebody‘, ‗breeze‘, ‗a man in this
Borough‘ could not be regarded as ―omitted‖—this is the norm of colloquial
language, though now not in frequent use except, perhaps, with the there is (are)
constructions as above. This is due, perhaps, to the standardizing power of the
literary language. O. Jespersen, in his analysis of such structures, writes:
―If we speak here of ‗omission‘ or ‗subaudition‘ or ‗ellipsis‘, the reader is apt to
get the false impression that the fuller expression is the better one as being
complete, and that the shorter expression is to some extent faulty or defective, or
something that has come into existence in recent times out of slovenliness. This is
wrong: the constructions are very old in the language and have not come into
existence through the dropping of a previously necessary relative pronoun.‖
Here are some examples quoted by Jespersen:
―/ bring him news will raise his drooping spirits."
―...or like the snow falls in the river.‖
―...when at her door arose a clatter might awake the dead.
However, when the reader encounters such structures in literary texts, even though
they aim at representing the lively norms of the spoken language, he is apt to
regard them as bearing some definite stylistics function. This is due to a
psychological effect produced by the relative rarity of the construction, on the one
hand, and the non-expectancy of any strikingly colloquial expression in literary
narrative.
It must be repeated here that the most characteristic feature of the written variety of
language is amplification, which by its very nature is opposite to ellipsis.
Amplification generally demands expansion of the ideas with as full and as exact
relations between the parts of the utterance as possible. Ellipsis, on the contrary,
being the property of colloquial language, does not express what can easily be
supplied by the situation.
This is perhaps the reason that elliptical sentences are rarely used as stylistic
devices. Sometimes the omission of a link-verb adds emotional colouring and
makes the sentence sound more emphatic, as in these lines from Byron:
―Thrice happy he who, after survey of the good company, can win a corner.‖
―Nothing so difficult as a beginning.‖
―Denotes how soft the chin which bears his touch.‖
It is wrong to suppose that the omission of the link-verbs in these sentences is due
to the requirements of the rhythm.
INVERSION
Inversion is change of natural or recognized order of words or phases in a sentence.
The traditional word order of the English sentence is subject - predicate - object -
secondary parts of the sentence. This word order is generally neutral. However it
may be altered in accordance with aims pursued by the speaker or writer. Such
change of traditional word order of the English sentence gives additional emotional
colouring to the utterance. It is called syntactic inversion. It is used for the purpose
of placing the most important words in the most prominent places - the beginning
and the end of the line. There are the following types of inversion:
1. The object is placed at the beginning of the sentence.
Talent Mr. Micawber has, captain Mr. Micawber has not. (Dickens)
2. The predicate or predicative are placed before the subject of the sentence.
Woman are not made for attack. Wait they must.
3. The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence.
Eagerly I wished the morrow.
Another variety of inversion is when the secondary part of a sentence are
syntactically isolated from other members of a sentence with which there are
logically connected. It is isolation. (Isolated members of the sentence, detachment,
detached constructions)
"I want to go", he said, miserable.
I have to bed you for money. Daily!
Here the word is emphasized by breaking its customary connection with another
word or words.
The violation of the usual traditional connections between the members of the
sentence creates a specific sentence pattern which is reflected in the intonation of
the sentence.
An intonational pause generally precedes or follows isolated members of the
sentence thus giving them greater prominence.
With fingers weary and word
With eyelids heavy and red
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Flying her needle and thread.
In written speech isolated members are separated from the main part of the
sentence by graphic means - a comma, dash, brackets, fill stop. Isolated members
usually serve the purpose to single out certain secondary members of a sentence
and so attracting the reader's attention to certain details. A variant of detached
constructions is parenthesis. Parenthesis is a qualifying, explanatory, appositive
word, phrase or sentence which interrupts a syntactical construction.
RHETORICAL QUESTION
Rhetorical question is syntactical SD which contains a statement made in the form
of a question. In other words, the sentences which is affirmative statement in it‘s
logical sense has the form of interrogative sentence.
Wouldn‘t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no
human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress,
nor a parent a child?
Can we fly, my friends? We cannot.
Why can we not fly? As if because we are born to walk?
It is known that an interrogative sentence is more emotional than affirmative. Thus,
when the statement gets the form of a guestion it becomes more emotional and
emphatic.
Another example:
Can‖t you see, that you are cutting your own throat as well as breaking my heart in
turning your back on me? (B. Shaw. Mrs. Warren‖s Profession)
Only the context and the intonation can show whether a question is rhetorical or
not. Rhetorical questions are usually expressed by complex sentences, in which the
subordinate clasues serve as the context.
Who is here so vile that will not love his country? (Shakesperare)
Sometimes the rhetorical question occurs in a simple sentence. The sentence itself
forms the context which helps to show that the question is a rhetorical one.
What deep wounds ever closed without scar? (Byron. Childe Harold)
Rhetorical question may have either positive or negative forms: the positive form
of the rhetorical question predicts the negative answer, the negative form the
positive answer.
e.g Who will be open where is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who
never can understand?
Gentleness in passion! What could have been more seductive to the scared, starved
heart of that girls? (J.C.)
Have I not suffered things to be forgotten? (Byron)
Rhetorical questions are often very close to exclamatory sentences and sometimes
it is rather difficult to distinguish between them.
Rhetorical question is a question asked not for information but to produce some
stylistic effect. It expresses various kinds of modal shades of meaning, such as
doubts, challenges, scorn and so on. It expresses emotions.
Rhetorical questions, being more emotional than statements, are most often
used in publicist style and particularly in oratory which aims at the
elevations.