Decomposition of set phrases

The meaning of a set-phrase is understood only from the combination as a whole (to pull one’s leg, to be over the moon, etc). The SD of decomposition of set phrases consists in reviving the independent meaning of the components, in other words, it makes weach word of the combination acquire its literal meaning: E.g. ‘safe and sound’ – “I leave Don Juan for the present safe - / Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded. “ [Byron] “It was raining cats and dogs and two kittens and a puppy landed on my window sill”[Chesterton]- here the author changes the set expression into a sustained metaphor, which creates a vivid image of the rain and rain-drops. Often authors decompose set-units (proverbs, idioms) to create an implication, to express a complicated idea in a short way: E.g. “Come!” he said, “milk’s spilt”[Galsworthy] Decomposed Set expressions add originality to the text. The SD of decomposition of set phrases is also widely uses in newspapers, magazines and advertisements.

№21

Transposition is a divergence between the traditional us-age of a neutral word and its situational (stylistic) usage. Words of every part of speech are united by their semantic and gram-matical properties. General lexico-grammatical meaning of nouns is substan-tivity, i. e. the ability to denote objects or abstract notions. Due to the diverse nature of substantivity, nouns are divided into proper, common, concrete, ab-stract, material and collective. Cases of transposition emerge, in particular, when concrete nouns are used according to the rules of proper nouns usage, or vice versa. It results in creation of stylistic devises named antonomasia or personification. For example: The Pacific Ocean has a cruel soul or John will never be a Shakespeare. Besides general lexico-grammatical meaning, nouns possess grammati-cal meanings of the category of number and the category of case. These meanings may also be used for stylistic objectives. According to the category of number, nouns are classified into countable and uncountable. Each group has its own regularities of usage. When these regularities are broken for stylistic reasons, speech becomes expressive. Stylistic potential of nouns is significantly reinforced by transpositions in the usage of articles as noun-determiners. Such transpositions occur against generally accepted normative postulates which run: articles are not used with names of persons and animals, some classes of geographical names, abstract nouns and names of material. Uncommon usage of articles aims at importing specific shades of meaning into speech. Thus, the indefinite article combined with names of persons may denote one representative of a family (Mary will never be a Brown), a person unknown to the communicants (Jack was robbed by a Smith), a temporary feature of character (That day Jane was different. It was a sillv Jane). Not less expressive are cases when the name of a person is used as a common noun preceded by the indefinite article: Mike has the makings of a Bvron. Stylistic usage of the definite article takes place when names of persons are modified by limiting attributes (You are not the John whom 1 married), when a proper name denotes the whole family (The Browns are good people), or when a name of a person is mod-ified by a descriptive attribute denoting a permanent feature of character (I entered the room.

№22

General lexico-grammatical meaning of adjectives is that of qualitative-ness. Qualitative adjectives are always estimative, that is why they are used as epithets (picturesque' view. idiotic shoe-laces, crazy bicycle, tremen-dous achievements) and can form degrees of comparison. Relative adjec-tives normally do not form degrees of comparison and serve as logical (non-stylistic) attributes (red colour, Italian car, dead man). However, they may be occasionally transposed into qualitative. Such transposition imports origi-nality and freshness in speech: This is the reddest colour I've ever seen in my life; "Ferrari" is the most Italian car which you can meet in this remote comer of the world; Carry was the deadest men ever present in that ambitious society. Expressiveness of adjectives may be as well en-hanced by non-grammatical transpositions in the formation of the degrees of comparison, when well-known rules of their formation are intentionally vio-lated: My bride was becoming beautifuller and beautifuller: You are the bestest friend I've ever met.

Expressive devices may be created by transposition of pronouns. When objective forms of personal pronouns are used predicatively instead of nom-inative forms, sentences obtain colloquial marking (It is him: It is her: It is me: It is them: It is us,). The meaning of the pronoun I may be contextually rendered by the pronouns we, you, one, he, she and others. The so-called "scientific we" is used in scientific prose instead of / for modesty reasons. The same replacement in a routine conversation creates a humoristic effect (a tipsy man coming home after a workday and addressing his wife cheerful-ly, about himself: Meet us dear! We have come!). When the pronoun you is replaced by the pronoun one, the statement becomes generalized, its infor-mation being projected not only to the listeners, but to the speaker himself: One should understand, that smoking is really harmful! When / is substi-tuted by he, she, or nouns (the guy, the chap, the fellow, the fool, the girl, etc), the speaker either tries to analyse his own actions with the eyes of a stranger, externally, or he is ironical about himself. Stylistic effects may also be achieved by the usage of archaic pronouns: the personal pronoun thou (2 person singular) and its objective form three, the possessive pronoun thy and its absolute form thine, the reflexive pronoun thyself. These obsolete pro-nouns create the atmosphere of solemnity and elevation, or bring us back to ancient times.

№23

Transposition of verbs is even more varied than that of nouns. It is ex-plained by a greater number of grammatical categories the meanings of which may be transposed. Most expressive are tense forms, mood forms and voice forms. One of peculiar features of English tense forms is their polysemantism. The same form may realize various meanings in speech. Deviation from the general (most frequently realized) meaning makes verbs stylistically coloured. Commonly, the present continuous tense denotes an action which takes place at the moment of speaking. But it may also denote a habitual action (John is constantly grumbling), an action which occupies a long period of time (Sam is wooing Mary now), and an action of the near future (Pete is starting a new life tomorrow). In such cases the present continuous tense becomes synonymous with the present or future indefinite. But there is a difference. While the sentence "John constantly grumbles" is a mere statement, the sentence "John is constantly grumbling" introduces the negative connota-tions of irritation, condemnation, regret, sadness and others. There is a rule that verbs of sense perception and mental activity are not used in the continuous tense forms. This rule is often broken by the speaker intentionally or subconsciously. In both cases verbal forms convey additional stylistic meanings of subjective modality (I am seeing you = lam not blind; I am understanding you = You need not go into further details; I am feeling your touch = So tender you are, etc.). One of peculiar verbal transpositions is the change of temporary planes of narration when events of the past or future are described by present tense forms. Such transposition brightens the narration, raises its emotional tension, expresses intrigue, makes the continuity of events visual and graphic: It was yesterday and looked this way. The perpetrator comes to his victim, takes a long dagger out of his inner pocket and stabs the poor man right into his belly without saying a word. The man falls down like a sack, a foun-tain of blood spurting from the wound. Transposition is not the only way to make verbs expressive. A good many verbal forms are expressive in themselves. The imperative mood forms are not just commands, invitations, requests or prohibitions. They are a perfect means of rendering an abundance of human emotions. The sentence Just come to me now may contextually imply love or hate, threat or warning, promise or desire. A wide range of subjunctive mood forms offers a good stylistic choice of synonymous ways to verbalize one and the same idea. Compare the following synonymous pairs of sentences: It is time for me to go = It is time that I went; It is necessary for him to come = It is neces-sary that he come; We must go now not to be late = We must go now lest we be late; Let it be = So be it. The first sentence of each pair is stylistically neutral while the second sentence is either bookish or obsolescent. In many contexts passive verbal forms are more expressive than their active counterparts. Compare: A round table occupied the centre of the room = The centre of the room was occupied by a round table; They answered him zothing = He was answered nothing; They forgave him his rudeness = Ie was forgiven his rudeness.

№24

Instrumentation is the art of selecting and combining sounds in order to make utterances expressive and melodic. Instrumentation unites three basic stylistic devices: alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia.

Alliteration is a stylistically motivated repetition of consonants. The re-peated sound is often met at the beginning of words: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper. Alliteration is often used in children's rhymes, because it emphasizes rhythm and makes memorizing easier. The same effect is employed in advertising, so that slogans will stick in people's minds: Snap, crackle and p.op_A\\iteTation is used much more in poetry than in prose. It is also used in proverbs and sayings, set expressions, football chants, and advertising jingles.

Assonance is a stylistically motivated repetition of stressed vowels. The repeated sounds stand close together to create a euphonious effect and rhyme: The ram in Spam falls mainly on the plain. We love to spoon beneath the moon in June. Just like alliteration, assonance makes texts easy to memo-rize. It is also popular in advertising for the same reason. Assonance is seldom met as an independent stylistic device. It is usually combined with alliter-ation, rhyming, and other devices.

Onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds which imitate natural sounds: wind wailing, sea murmuring, rustling of leaves, bursts of thunder, etc. Words which represent this figure of speech have aural similarity with the things they describe: buzz = жужжать, hiss = шипеть, cuckoo = куковать. Animal calls and sounds of insects are evoked onomatopoeically in all languages. For example, cock-a-doodle-do! is conventionally the English representation for the crowing of a cock. Onomatopoeia is not an exact reproduction of natural sounds but a subjective phenomenon. Onomatopoeia is used for emphasis or stylistic effect. It is extensively featured in children's rhymes and poetry in general. Expressiveness of speech may be also significantly enhanced by such phonetic means as tone. Tone is the atti-tude of the speaker or writer as revealed in the choice of vocabulary or the intonation of speech. Attitude expressed in tone may be rendered con-sciously or unconsciously. It could be said that there is no such thing as a text or verbal utterance without a tone.

№25

Versification is the art of writing verses. It is the imaginative expression of emotion, thought, or narrative, mostly in metrical form and often using figura-tive language. Poetry is actually the earliest form of literature, and was creat-ed precisely to be spoken - in the days before many could read. The main concepts of versification are rhyme and rhythm. Rhyme is the accord of syllables in words: fact - attract, mood - intrude; news - refuse. Such an accord is met at the end of two parallel lines in verses. Rhyme is a sound organizer, uniting lines into stanzas. Rhyme is created according to several patterns. Vertically, there are such rhymes: adjacent (aa, bb), cross (ab, ab) and reverse (ab, ba). According to the variants of stress in the words being rhymed, rhymes are classified into male (the last syllables of the rhymed words are stressed), female (the next syllables to the last are stressed) and dactylic (the third syllables from the end are stressed). Rhythm is a recurring stress pattern in poetry. It is an even alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Lines in verses are built with poetic feet. A foot is a combination of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables. The most popular poetic feet are trochaic foot, iambus, dactyl, amphibrach, and anapest.

№26

Basic notions of graphic expressive means are punctuation, orthogra­phy or spelling, text segmentation, and type. Punctuation is used in writing to show the stress, rhythm and tone of the spoken word. It also aims at clarifying the meaning of sentences. There are such common marks of punctuation: the full stop [. ], the comma [, ], the colon [: ], the semicolon [; ], brackets [()], dash [ - ], hyphen [ – ], the exclamation mark [! ], the oblique stroke [ / ], the iterrogative (question) mark [? ], inverted commas (quotation marks) [" "], suspension marks [...], the apostrophe [ ‘ ].

Miscellaneous remarks on punctuation.

• Many aspects of punctuation are ultimately a matter of personal prefer­ence and literary style.

• The general tendency in most public writing today is to minimise the amount of punctuation used.

• There are also minor differences in practice between the UK and the USA.

• The suggestions made above are based generally on conventions in the UK.

• Double punctuation ["What's the matter!?"] is rarely used, except in very informal writing such as personal letters or diaries.

• The combination of colon-plus-dash [: — ] is never necessary. Some people use this [it's called 'the pointer'] to indicate that a list will follow, but the colon alone should be sufficient.

• The importance of punctuation can be illustrated by comparing the two following letters. In both cases, the text is the same. It's the punctuation which makes all the difference!

№27

Date: 2016-02-19; view: 6833; Нарушение авторских прав