Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices

Structural syntactical stylistic devices are in special relations with the intonation involved.

Only after dinner did I make up my mind to go there.

I made up my mind to go there only after dinner.

It was in 1958 that the first Tchaikovsky contest was held in Moscow.

The first Tchaikovsky contest was held in1958 in Moscow.

The English affirmative sentence is regarded as neutral if it maintains the regular word order, i.e., Subject – Verb (Predicate) – Object. Any other order of the parts of the sentence may also carry the necessary information, but the impact on the reader will be different.

Stylistic inversion makes prominent this or that member of the sentence and through it renders some emotional colouring to the whole sentence. Stylistic inversion should not be regarded as a violation of the language, but it realizes the potentialities of the language.

The following patterns of stylistic inversion are most frequently met in both English prose and English poetry. Specific intonation pattern is the inevitable satellite of inversion.

1. The object is placed at the beginning of the sentence.

“ Talent Mr. Micawber has; capital Mr. Micawber has not.” (Ch.Dickens)

2. Postposition of the attribute.

“With fingers weary and worn …” (Thomas Hood)

“Once upon the midnight dreary …” (E.A.Poe)

3. a) The predicative is placed before the subject.

“ A good generous prayer it was.” (Mark Twain)

b)The predicative stands before the link verb and both are placed before the subject.

“ Rude am I in my speech…” (W.Shakespeare)

4. The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence.

“ Eagerly I wished the morrow.” (E.A.Poe)

“My dearest daughter, at your feet I fall.” (Dryden)

5. Both modifier and predicate stand before the subject.

“In went Mr. Pickwick.” (Ch.Dickens)

“ Down dropped the breeze…” (Coleridge)

Detached construction is one of the secondary parts of the sentence placed so that it seems formally independent of the word it logically refers to. The detached part, being torn away from its referent, assumes a greater degree of significance and is given prominence by intonation.

(Attribute) “She stood there, white with horror. ”

“Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and unsteady in his gait. ” (Thackerey)

(Adverbial modifier) “He entered the room, his hands in his pockets.

“How do you like the Army?” Mrs. Silburn asked. Abruptly

,conversationally. (J.D.Salinger)

(Prepositional object) “It was indeed, to Forsyte eyes, an old house.” (J.Galsworthy)

(Apposition) “They put him under laughing gas, poor lad. ”

A variant of detached construction is parenthesis. Parenthesis is a qualifying or explanatory word, phrase, clause, sentence, or other sequence which interrupts a syntactic construction without otherwise affecting it, having often characteristic intonation and indicated in writing by commas, brackets or dashes.

“The main entrance (he had never ventured beyond) was a combination of glass and iron.”

“Bossiney’s aunt (Louisa was her name) was in her kitchen when June was announced.” (J.Galsworthy)

“That bit of gold meant food, life and power to go on writing and – who was to say? – may be to write something that would bring him many pieces of gold.”

Parallelism (Parallel construction) is based upon a recurrence of syntactically identical sequences which lexically are completely or partially different.

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