N. M. Rayevska modern english
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RE-EVALUATION OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES
Observations on the contextual use of various sentence-patterns furnish numerous examples of re-interpretation of syntactic structures by which we mean stylistic transpositions resulting in neutralisation of primary grammatical meaning. The asymmetric dualism of the linguistic sign1 appears to be natural and is fairly common at different levels of language.
The linguistic mechanism, prosodic features in particular, work naturally in many ways to prevent ambiguity in such patterns of grammatical structure.
Expressive re-evaluation of sentences can be connected with shifts of their syntactic content.
Such is the use of the so-called pseudo-subclauses of comparison, time and condition which in transposition function as independent units of communication. A few typical examples are:
As if I ever told him about it!
Syn. I never told him about it.
Higgins: As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. (Shaw)
Cf. syn. I never stop thinking...
Cf. "Я не писал Вам писем..." "Ну-да", хохотала девица. "Как-буд-то я не знаю Вашего почерка". (Чехов)
"As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs", said the Pigeon, "but I must be on the lookout for serpents night and day." (Garroll)
"Me, indeed!"—cried the Mouse who was trembling down to the end of his tail.
"As if I would talk on such a subject!" (Carroll)
Examples of pseudo-subclauses of condition functioning as independent units are:
"Well, if you aren't a wonder," Drouet was saying, complacently, squeezing Carrie's arm. "You are the dandiest little girl on earth." (Dreiser)
If there isn't Captain Donnithorne a-coming into the yard! (Eliot) — here the direct and the indirect negations cancel each other, the result being positive (he is coming).
A special case of functional re-evaluation of sub-clauses of condition will be found in "wish-sentences":
That wasn't what he had meant to say. If only he knew more, if only he could make others feel that vision, make them understand how they were duped into hatred under the guise of loyalty and duty. (Aldington)
If only Fleur and he had met on some desert island without a past — and Nature for their house! (Galsworthy)
1
See: S. Karcevsky. Dualisme asymétrique du signe linguistique. TCLP. Prague, 1929.280
In sentence-patterns of this type the idea of the principal clause seems to be suppressed, but they occur so often that at last we hardly think of what is left out, the remaining part becomes a regular idiomatic expression which we must recognise as a complete sentence, an independent unit of communication.
Even without any continuation the if-clause is taken at more than its face-value and becomes to speaker or hearer alike, a complete expression of wish.
Like in some other types of sentence-patterning such contextual variations are not specifically English and may be traced in many languages.
Compare analogous developments in Russian and Ukrainian:
Ax, кабы зимою цветы расцветали!
Как бы мы любили, да не разлюбляли. (А. Толстой)
Ой, якби зимою квіти розквітали!
Sub-clauses of time are syntactically re-evaluated in patterns like the following:
Oh, when she plays!
Problems of Implicit Predication
Formal subordinative relations in composite sentences are sometimes weakened and the second part of the sentence comes to function as an optional element, not necessarily needed to complete the meaning of the first.
Such borderline cases between subordination and coordination will be found, for instance, in syntactic structures with if-clauses which give rather some additional information about the event involved than the condition under which the action is performed. A few typical examples are:
She was pretty, too, if my recollection of her face and person are correct.
In upper and middle classes we're doing it all the time and blinking the moral side, if there is one. (Galsworthy)
That's still the American who counts, especially if you lump in the Dutch and Scandinavians stock Americans like this fellow Hallorsen. (Galsworthy)
If she made a mistake she has paid for it, if ever a woman did. (Doyle)
Related to this are syntactic structures with implicit predication.
The absence of the direct logical relationship between the explicit parts of the composite sentence can suggest the omission of a certain predicative unit in its surface structure. The formal organisation of such a sentence does not reflect the actual syntactic relations of its parts.
In spoken English and literary prose such compression in sentence-structure is fairly common.
A few typical examples are:
..."It's just a crazy old thing," she said. ' I just slip it on sometimes when I don't care what I look like."
"But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean," pursued Mrs. McKee.
"If Chaster could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it". (Fitzgerald)
281
...James and the other eight children of "Superior Dosset", of whom there are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five per cent and your money back — if you know what that means. (Galsworthy)
...And if it is any satisfaction to you, we are not formally engaged. (Galsworthy)
The predicative unit to which the if-clause would be logically attached is not formally expressed and remains in deep-sense structure:
"...And if it is any satisfaction to you, I can tell you that we are not formally engaged."
Linguistic studies of recent times have made it obvious that the interdependence of the clauses in parataxis is not absolute.
The logical connection of the co-ordinated clauses makes it clear that apparently independent clauses are often not absolutely independent, and one of them implicitly stands in some grammatical relation to the other.
Take, for instance, clauses co-ordinated by the disjunctive or in such composite sentences as:
- ...Are those yours, Mary?
- I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missis on you. Out half the night. (Joyce) (Stop, if you don't, I'll tell...)
..."Go out. Leave this house, or I'll do you an injury". That fellow to talk of injuries! (Galsworthy) Leave this house! If you don't I'll...)
FINAL REMARKS ON SUBORDINATION
The synsemantic character and overlapping relations observed in va rious types of composite sentences bear immediate relevance to their lexico-grammatical organisation, the potential valency of connectives introducing sub-clauses, in particular. Conjunctions, adverbs and conjunctive phrases perform contained syntactic functions of a remarkable variety of types.
That is well known, for instance, as a clause-marker introducing subject, object, predicative, attributive clauses and adverbial sub-clauses of purpose; in adverbial clauses of result, time, condition and concession that is fairly common as correlated with other pronominal or adverbial words: so ... that, for all that, now that, but that.
The use of that is common in emphatic patterns with it is ... that.
It is to be noted that the traditional classification of conjunctions into coordinative and subordinative must be taken with some points of reservation. Instances are not few when clauses introduced by subordinative connectives and clauses to which they are joined are equal in their functional level. This is the case, for instance, with descriptive attributive clauses or, say, clauses introduced by the coordinative conjunction for that very often functions as absolutely synonymous with the subordinative because.
282
In some patterns with the subordinative conjunction though the opposition between hypotaxis and parataxis comes to be neutralised. The conjunction though can introduce independent sentences. Terminal punctuation and initial capital letters will make it clear in the written language.
The potential meaning of a given category is, in fact, the sum of the common parts of its actual meanings in various contexts of use. An attempt to identify some potential meaning without considering all the actual occurrences of the category will be futile.
Certain specialised parts of actual meanings are not covered by a potential meaning statement, although in characterising the distributional value of a given category these parts are just as significant as the more general components.
It is also important to remember that not all the general potential meaning of a category will be relevant in each occurrence.
This, however, must be taken with much reservation, for indeed it is hardly possible to make potential meaning statements that would apply to each occurrence of a certain category. The meaningful segmentations may vary from sentence to sentence.
A distinction that is relevant to one occurrence of the pattern may sometimes have no bearing at all on another use.
Borderline cases will be found in clauses introduced by the conjunctive word while used in some contexts with the implication of contrast rather than temporal relations.
Difficulties of grammatical analysis sometimes arise in sentences with the coordinative conjunctions yet and so.
Variation in the functional level of clauses introduced by such connectives is always signalled by the lexico-grammatical organisation of the whole sentence, the meaning of the connective word itself, in particular. What may sometimes be ambiguous in the written language is made clear in spoken language by the terminal pauses of intonation which will always show how the components of the utterance group themselves in each context.
ASYNDETON
There is another type of syntactic addition which gets along without any connection at all. Clauses juxtaposed in this way are not attached to one another in any grammatical way, they simply abut against each other, they make contact but are not connected. Grammar books differ in identifying the linguistic essence of such syntactic structures. According to the traditional angle of view, they are classified in most languages into compound and complex sentences.
A different approach is found in N. S. Pospelov's 1 treatments of asyndeton in Russian syntax where asyndetic sentences are viewed as a special syntactic category with no immediate relevance to subordination or coordination.
1
H. С. Поспелов. О грамматической природе и принципах классификации бессоюзных сложных предложений. «Вопросы синтаксиса современного русского языка». 1956, pp. 338—345.283
This angle of view has been taken also in other books and work-papers on this specialised topic. 1
The multiplicity of ways in which asyndetic sentences are formed in many if not all languages gives, however, every reason to say that sentence-patterns of this type in all the variety of their lexico-grammatical organisation can hardly be adequately described on the whole as irrelevant to subordination and coordination.
Our survey of asyndeton in Modern English with its own semantic traits and features of syntactic arrangement gives sufficient evidence to point out that in some types of asyndetic composite sentences subordinate relations are quite prominent.
The first to be mentioned here are patterns with the attributive clauses, sometimes referred to as "contact-clauses", because what characterises them is the close contact between the antecedent and the clause, e. g.:
You don't care about them! They're not the gimcrack things you and your friends like, but they cost me seventy pounds!" (Galsworthy)
It's a pretty large thing I'm going on to and I'll need a lot of clever medical advice. (Cronin)
That the criterion of subordination is relevant to asyndetic sentences may well be illustrated by object and conditional clauses. Examples are:
He knew there were important ideas working in the other man's mind. (Cronin)
Old Jolyon said he would wait ... (Galsworthy)
I'm afraid there's no doubt about it. (Galsworthy)
Had I been a mere clod, neither would I have desired to write nor would you have desired me for a husband. (London)
Observe also the following examples of asyndeton where the close contact between two clauses is suggestive of causal relations:
Timothy was very poorly, he had had a lot of trouble with the chimney sweep in his bedroom; the stupid man had let the soot down the chimney. (Galsworthy)
" Why, yes", she answered, as the music stopped, trying to keep an even tone to her voice. She was glad they were walking toward a chair. (Dreiser)
In other types of asyndetic composite sentences the meaning of result or consequence is quite prominent, e. g.:
Warmth, softness, light, a sweet scent, all those things so familiar to her she never even thought about them, she watched that other receive. (Mansfield)
She had put on so much weight he would scarcely recognise her. (Cronin)
Asyndetic sentences are fairly common after the introductory it is, e. g.:
1
See: Грамматика русского языка, т. 2, ч. 2, 1954, pp. 382—384. Л. П. Зайцева. Типы бессоюзных сложных предложений в современном английском языке. Автореферат канд. дисс, Л., 1955.284
It is an apple she wants, not a pear.
A similar case is found in patterns like: What is this I hear?
As can be seen from the above examples the semantic relations between clauses are signalled only by the lexical meaning of the words making up the sentence. And this is one more example to illustrate the interaction between vocabulary and syntax which must never be overlooked in grammatical analysis.
A word will be said about asyndetic sentences in which the relative pronoun as a subject can be dispensed with (the so-called "apokoinou" principle).
"There's a gentleman downstairs wishes to see the lady", said Alderson. "It's her father, I think", he added quietly. (Dreiser)
REPRESENTED SPEECH
Represented speech is a common device in narrative writing. Syntactic structures with represented speech differ in their grammatical organisation and stylistic value.
Intended to express the character's feelings and thoughts, psychological traits or mental state of mind through the writer's narration, they are most expressive and affective.
Represented speech (free reported speech) does not give the speaker's exact words as they were uttered. In quotation marks, it does not report the speakers words from the author's point of view either as the case is in indirect speech. Reporting an utterance indirectly by back-shifting the verb it omits the reporting clauses which are conventional signals of indirect speech.
There are two points to remember about the grammatical organisation of such syntactic structures:
- the use of the tenses, the future-in-the-past in independent sentences, in particular, which is distinct from the direct speech, and the use of personal pronouns;
- the use of exclamatory nominal sentences as distinct from indirect speech.
Represented speech is fairly common in 20th century literary prose. With some writers it has developed into a special manner of style. Structures of this type are skilfully used by creative writers. The use of free indirect speech for describing "interior monologue" has become a very widespread, if not standard practice in the fiction of the 20th century. In Galsworthy's novels, for instance, they are so effective and add so much to the artistic value of his writings that merit special consideration. They are always "in character", well befitting the personality and social standing of the character. We find here interrogative, vocative sentences, rhetoric questions; structures of this kind are not infrequently introduced into various dialogues, where the direct and indirect speech are used alongside with represented speech. Translation from one form to another lends variety to narration.
285
Examine the following extracts from J. Galsworthy to see how skilfully these stylistic resources of syntax serve his pen:
"Bonsoir, monsieur!" How softly she had said it. To know what was in her mind! The French — they were like cats — one could tell nothing! But — how pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one's arms! What a mother for his heir! And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a French wife, ana their curiosity, and of the way he would play with it and buffet it — confound them! The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows deepened in the water. "I will and must be free", he thought. "I won't hang about any longer. I'll go and see Irene. If you want things done, do them yourself. I must live again — live and move and have my being." And in echo to that queer biblicality church-bells chimed the call to evening prayer.
Few things are so subjective as the use of represented speech. By a skilful use of its various patterns the writer is able to imply with emotive shades of meaning his own attitude concerning the person spoken to or of.
NOMINALITY IN ENGLISH SENTENCE-STRUCTURE
Nounal-verbal contrast, viewed in terms of functional interaction of these two major classes of words, is an interesting object of linguistic investigation in any language.
Noun and verbs are organically related and constantly aiding to and supporting each other in communication. Nominality must naturally be distinguished differently in different languages. English shares this feature with a number of tongues, but its development has led to such significant idiosyncratic traits as merit special attention.
In present-day English the tendency to compactness through nominality is brought into particular prominence.
The variety of grammatical forms in nominalisation may be well illustrated by the following:
- the extensive use of one-member sentences;
- the use of infinitival sentences as independent units of communicative value;
- the frequency value of noun-adjunct groups (premodification of nouns by nouns);
- compression of different types of subclauses by nominalisation (gerundive, infinitival, participial nominals and absolute nominal phrases). This makes it possible to do without a subclause which would be otherwise necessary.
- different types of sentence patterning in syntactic structures introducing the direct speech.
Nominality of this latter type presents a special linguistic interest as relevant to some obvious "peripheral" changes in present-day English syntax and its stylistic aspects.
Syntactic compression is obviously relevant to such problems of modern linguistics as semantic aspects of syntax, the problem of implicit predication and flexibility in syntactic hierarchy. The trend to activising compression leads to laconism and lends variety to speech.
286
Semantic interpretation of syntactic structures, problems of implicit predication, surface and deep sense structure are still in a rudimentary stage of investigation. The two aspects of syntactic description — "semantic syntax" and "syntax of surface structures" — are organically related to each other but none should be brought to the front at the expense of the other.
In terms of content there are homonymous structural patterns of sentences, i. e. patterns identical in their grammatical organisation and different in terms of content. And on the other hand, one semantic sentence pattern may be expressed by different formal sentence patterns.
Involving vocabulary in studying syntax helps to distinguish the semantic markers which signal the necessary meaning in each case.
Ambiguity is commonly narrowed down by the context, linguistic or situational. There are also cases when it is resolved on a span larger than a sentence.
Implicit predication in composite sentences is often suggested by the violation of direct logical relationships between the explicit parts of the sentence. This is the case, for instance, in syntactic structures with annexation, sentences with overlapping adverbial relations, syntactic structures introducing direct speech.
In compression by nominalisation a sentence dispenses with a sub-clause which results in closer cohesion of its elements and greater con-density of the whole sentence structure.
This relative compactness of the English sentence and the use of various condensers as its synonymic alternatives is one of many syntactic features that shows the analytical character of Modern English.
Synonymic correlation of sub-clauses and their nominal condensers merits attention in terms of grammatical aspects of style.
Nominals functioning as synonymic alternatives of verbal sub-clauses are in most cases well adapted to their purpose in different spheres of application.
It will be helpful to distinguish between one-member and two-member structures of the secondary predication:
| Participle I | She came in and sat down at her place, feeling exceedingly watched. (Dreiser) | He stood in the road, with the sun shining on him. (Hemingway) |
| Participle II | Wholly depressed he started for Thirteenth Street. (Dreiser) | His rifle fell by him and lay there with one of the man's fingers twisted through the trigger guard (Hemingway) |
| Infinitive | Brian laughed to think of it. (Sillitoe) | Drouet was waiting for Carrie to come back. (Dreiser) |
| Gerund | He wound up by saying he would think it over, and came away. (Dreiser) | |