Syntactical stylist1cs. Patterns of syntactical arrangement Inversion. Peculiar linkage

Here is a table showing the distribution of syntactical intensifiers.

GROUP 1. ARRANGEMENT

The English language is characterised by such specific syntactical feature as fixed word order. Normative is the following word order in a sentence, presented symbolically Subject, Predicate, Object, Modifier. Any shift from this word order results in some effect, and deviant structures can carry stylistic function.

Stylistic Inversion

Inversion or displacement of some component of a sentence aims at giving additional logical or emotional stress to the meaning of the utterance. Inversion may be complete - when the predicate is displaced, and partial with the displacement of secondary members of the sentence.

There are 5 structural types of inversion:

1) the object is placed in pre-position

e.g. Over everything she brooded and brooded:

2) the attribute is placed after the word it modifies

e.g. Spring begins with the first narcissus, rather cold and shy and wintry;

3) the predicative is placed before the subject

e.g. Shameless and fascinating the advertisements were;

4) the adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence e.g. Weakly she climbed the stairs and opened the door;

5) both the modifier and predicate stand before the subject

e.g. There was a rustling m the bushes on his left and suddenly like a cuckoo from a nursery clock out popped a large black bird.

Detachment

It is a stylistic device based on the author's desire to give a greater significance to a secondary member of the sentence, usually an attribute or an adverbial modifier. This member is detached from the rest of the sentence by means of such punctuation marks as commas, dashes or full stops. Being formally torn away from the word it syntactically depends on this particular element is closely related to it semantically.

e.g. He looked round, expectant. She was gone. For good.

Sometimes a detached construction may acquire the form of an explanatory or qualifying remark put into a sentence. Such variant of detachment is called parenthesis. In writing parenthesis is indicated by commas, brackets or dashes.

e.g.  It was indeed, to Forsyte eyes, an odd house.

I know (if only 1 could forget it) that you killed her.

Parallel Constructions

The necessary condition in parallel constructions is identical or similar syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence in close succession,

e.g. Summer was silent as well. In much of what had been the United States, no birds sang, no dogs barked, no frogs croaked, no fishes leaped. The south had been truly shabby, faded and desperate.

The taps had been large and brass, the floor had been of spoiled marble, the staircases had been wide, the porter had been thirteen years old, and the roof garden had been utterly empty, deserted like a closed building site.

The two examples show that one should differentiate complete (as in the first case) and incomplete, or partial parallelism (as in the second example).

Chiasmus

Chiasmus is also based on the repetition of syntactical patterns, but it has a reversed order in one of the two utterances.

e.g. She was a good sport about all this, but so was he.

Chiasmus is a syntactical, not a lexical device and one must differentiate it from parallel constructions or epigrams.

e.g. He sang as he walked and he walked as he sang, and got more inflated every minute.

Lexico-Syntactical Repetition

It is a stylistic device based on repeating words, word groups or sentences for some stylistic purposes: to draw the attention of the reader to the key-word of the utterance, to emphasise the main idea of the sentence. There are several formal varieties of repetition.

Simple Repetition

It is a repeated use of the same word or sentence one after the other.

e.g. He was the man in the Iron Mask A grey metallic face with iron cheekbones and narrow iron brow, iron folds, hard and unchanging, ran perpendicularly down his cheeks, his nose was the iron beak of some thin delicate bird of ravine.

Anaphora

The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive clauses or paragraphs.

e.g. At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture. Huge beds like four-masted ships. Beds carved and inlaid. Beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion.

Epiphora

Epiphora, as opposed to anaphora, is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses, sentences and stanzas.

e.g. She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness. Her plain face with its narrow lips was light, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight, and the white shawl she wore had all the effect of black bombazine.

Framing

The initial elements are repeated at the end of an utterance or a paragraph.

e.g. You've made a nice mess, you have. The day had fairly begun to break. Many of the lamps were already extinguished; a Jew country wagons