1、Chapter 1Syntactic Devices1.1 IntroductionSyntactic devices here refer to variation in the use of sentence structures for stylistic or rhetorical effect, and are different from the processes of transformation of basic sentence patterns according to grammar rules. Thus the ordinary declarative, inter
2、rogative, negative, and exclamative structures, and the construction of simple, compound, and complex sentences as such do not come in for technical discussion. It is the way sentence structures are used in a stylistic way that concerns us, as, for example, when an interrogative sentence is used as
3、a rhetorical question, or when declarative sentences are made loose or periodic, and so on.The discussion of syntactic variation in this sense brings up, therefore, the question of non-grammatical properties of sentences like length, complexity, looseness, for instance, and of artistic features like
4、 balance or climax. In classical rhetoric, the manipulation of the normal arrangement of words in a sentence for artistic effect could take many forms, and such deviations were finely distinguished. Such deviations in construction were termed schemes of construction and included under Figures of Spe
5、ech, a practice seldom adhered to, today. In this chapter, many of the most common schemes are included. All this means that writers have a large repertoire of syntactic devices to choose from. They could, for example, make frequent use of simple sentences, or alternate long and short sentences. The
6、y could write either loose or periodic sentences, or combine looseness with balance, etc. And they could only choose correctly if they knew what effect each device is meant to achieve.The syntactic devices discussed below constitute the major options available, and the effects they are meant to achi
7、eve.1.2 Long and Short SentencesThe rhetorical effect of long or short sentences depends on purpose and context. Without an appropriate purpose or context, short sentences used abundantly in a passage only make for choppiness and monotony. Likewise, too many long sentences can make a passage heavy a
8、nd laborious.Skillful writers, however, can exploit variation in sentence length to great effect to express different moods or attitudes, to describe action or events or to emphasize a point. Let us see some examples.(1) Dick Boulton looked at the doctor. Dick was a big man. He knew how big a man he
9、 was. He liked to get into fights. He was happy. Eddie and Billy Tabeshaw leaned on their cant-hooks and looked at the doctor. The doctor chewed the beard on his lower lip and looked at Dick Boulton. Then he turned away and walked up the hill to the cottage. They could see from his back how angry he
10、 was. They all watched him walk up the hill and go inside the cottage.(E. Hemingway:”The Doctor and the Doctors Wife”)Now if we didnt know this passage was written by Hemingway, we might say the first five sentences are “choppy,” and could be combined into one or two sentences. But the author has a
11、purpose for using the short plain sentences. Their very bareness ans brevity underscore the latent power of Dicks size. And Dick was happy, knowing the advantage he had over the physically less powerful doctor. The short simple sentences help to build up the right atmosphere for Dicks confrontation
12、with the doctor.(2) When the dyke swept out, Al turned and ran. His feet moved heavily. The water was about his calves when he reached the truck. He flung the tarpaulin off the nose and jumped into the car. He stepped on the starter. The engine turned over and over, and there was no bark of the moto
13、r. He choked the engine deeply. The battery turned the sodden motor more and more slowly, and there was no cough. Over and over, slower and slower. Al set the spark high. He felt under the seat for the crank and jumped out. The water was higher than the runningboard. He ran to the front end. Crank-c
14、ase was under water now. Frantically he fitted the crank and twisted around and around, and his clenched hand on the crank splashed in the slowly flowing water at each turn. At last his frenzy gave out.(John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath)In this description of Als attempt to start his truck in floo
15、d waters, Steinbeck effectively uses very short sentences to describe some of Als actions, and longer ones to describe the engines slow reactions. The longest sentence is used when Al frantically tries to crank the engine alive. (3) She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her h
16、ead was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.(James Joyce: “Eveline”)Anyone who has read this story will feel how effectively the short 3-word sentence coming after two long ones emphasizes Evelines extreme tiredness.The above examples
17、 illustrate how short sentences can be used effectively to achieve rhetorical effect, especially in combination with longer sentences. Long sentences, by themselves, however, have rather special purposes and contexts. Legal documents, official documents and scientific paper contain a much larger pro
18、portion of long sentences than other categories of writing. The Preamble to The Charter of the United Nations, for instance, contains a single sentence of over 170 words. Sentences in such documents are made long by the fact that statements and opinions have to be made very clear and explicit, with
19、no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation.In literary prose writing, however, long sentences serve a different purpose. They are used to describe actions or feelings that come in quick succession, to describe simultaneous or continuous action, or to indicate a close cause-and-effect relation
20、ship.(4)The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass , and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dogs coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horses fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheeps wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every se
21、ed armed with an appliance of dispersal, twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a mans trouser cuff or the hem of a womans skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possesse
22、d of the anlage of movement. (John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath)In this famous passage by Steinbeck, the delicate process of seed-dispersal is beautifully described in a long sentence.In the passage below, however, the long sentence is used for a different purpose.(5) Talking in low excited voices
23、 we could walk rapidly back toward town under the rustle of September leaves, in cool streets just grayed now with that still, that unearthly and magical first light of day which seems suddenly to rediscover the great earth out of darkness, so that the earth emerges with an awful, a glorious sculptu
24、ral stillness, and one looks out with a feeling of joy and disbelief, as the first men on this earth must have done, for to see this happen is one of the things that men will remember out of life forever and think of as they die.(Thomas Wolfe: “Circus at Dawn”)The long sentence here (really a one-se
25、ntence paragraph) is used effectively to convey the writers thoughts and feelings as the sights and sounds of early dawn crowd into his mind and eyes.1.3 The Simple Sentence1.3.1 Characteristics of the Simple SentenceIn contemporary linguistics, a sentence is simple not only because it contains a si
26、ngle independent clause, but also because all its constituent elements (subject, verb, object, complement, adverbial) are phrases, not clauses. In the past, a sentence like the following, with an attributive clause, would be considered a complex sentence, but today it is accepted as a simple sentenc
27、e, as the complexity is at the phrase level. (See Quirk et al. , 1985, p.719 Note, 990. )They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room.(E. Hemingway: “Cat in the Rain” )This feature of the simple sentence, that it can carry a lot of information at
28、the phrase level, makes it a convenient vehicle for writers who wish to pack a number of relevant or related details into a statement, for clarity, brevity or emphasis. Rhetorically, then , a simple sentence can be made quite complex in form and content, and the statement made in some textbooks on r
29、hetoric that the complex sentence, as compared with the simple or compound sentences, shows more “maturity” in logical arrangement is not entirely justified. The sentence above, rewritten with a subordinate clause as:They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs whenever they went on
30、 their way to and from their room.Really does not sound as effective as the original version.It is therefore necessary for us to have some knowledge of how a simple sentence can be made rhetorically effective, and of the grammatical choice available to us to do so. As the complexity of simple senten
31、ces mainly involves the modification of nouns by attribution, and of verbs by adverbials, our discussion will be limited to the way the head word of a noun phrase is modified, and to the way verbs are modified by adverbial phrases. 1.3.2 The Noun Phrase in Simple SentenceThe head word of noun phrase
32、 may be modified in the following ways:A.Pre-modificationIn pre-modification, the head word may have adjectives, nouns, phrase or sentences placed before it.1) the tall, thin, sickly-looking man (adjectives)2) the college administration building (nouns)3) a day-by-day arrangement (adverb phrase)4) a
33、 do-it-yourself book (sentence)B. Post-modificationPost-modification may be done in at least five ways.1) skills in writing (prepositional phrase)2) skills to survive (infinitive phrase)3) skills requiring speed (participle ing phrase)4) skills learned at school (participle ed phrase)5) skills which
34、 require speed (restrictive attributive clause)skills, which require speed (non-restrictive attributive clause)C. Apposition In apposition, nouns are put next to each other in some kind of relationship, ranging from most appositive to least appositive. The main forms of relationship are three, some
35、with sub-forms.1) Equivalence (most appositive) a ) the general manager, Tom Jones (appellation)b ) a general manager, Tom Jones (identification)c ) Tom Jones, the general manager (designation)d ) the PLA, or the Peoples Liberation Army (rewording)2) AttributionThe appositive, in attribution, can be
36、 replaced by a non-restrictive clause.a) the captain, and old man (who is an old man)b) the young woman, the victim of the gang assault3）Inclusion (least appositive)This form is the least appositive as the first member of the apposition is not identical with the second, but includes it, instead.a) l
37、arge cities, such as (like) Shanghai and New Yorkb) famous novelists, for example Dickens and Hardy (exemplification)c) Chinese food, particularly Shichuan cuisined) Children, especially very young children (particularization)Apart from the above, mention should also be made of the appositive clause
38、 in simple sentences. Appositive clauses are restrictive or non-restrictive, and function in the same way as attributive clauses to modify or clarify the head word in a noun phrase:A. Restrictive appositive clause1) He denied the fact that he was guilty2) The rumour that he was involved was squashed
39、B. Non-restrictive appositive clause3) They discussed the possibilities, that the air battle could be won4) The suggestion of the chairman, that he should resign, was rejected by the committee.We can now see that, with all the possible ways of adding information to a noun phrase as shown above, it i
40、s not surprising that the simple sentence can be made very complicated indeed. Below are some examples of simple sentences which illustrate the result of the effective combination of methods in a variety of ways. In the following examples, the head word of all modified noun phrase is italicized, for
41、 easy reference. (1) The slow-moving, idly gazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon the extremely pretty young foreign lady who was passing through it upon his arm.(Henry James: Daisy Miller)(The prepositional object lady comes in for more modification than the subject head crowd.)(2) The new
42、 earth, freshly torn from its parent sun, was a ball of whirling gases, intensely hot, rushing through the black spaces of the universe on a path and at a speed controlled by immense forces. (Rachel Carson: The Sea Around Us )(Participle ing and ed, and prepositional phrases are the post-modificatio
43、n methods used here.)(3)A foreign policy cognizant of Americas considerable strengths and dedicated to enhancing them would automatically allow domestic quality-of life issues priority on the national agenda.(The Atlantic, July 1991)(The complexity of this sentence comes from the post-modification o
44、f the subject head, and of the pre-modification of the indirect object, issue.)(4) This seemed an utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to its own devices for a few hours and come back to, and find that it had not stirred, this constant and trustworthy body of water.(E. B. White: “Once Mo
45、re to the Lake”)(Apposition is used here, with the appositive lake heavily post-modified.)1.3.3 Adverbials in Simple SentencesAdverbials convey concepts of time, space, process (manner, means, etc.), respect (restriction), contingency (cause, result, concession, condition, ect.), and degree. Accordi
46、ng to the sense or emphasis intended, adverbials may be placed at initial position, at end position, or in middle position in a clause or sentence. At the same time they may occur either singly, or together in various relationships.(1) At dawn they set out. (One adverbial at initial position. )(2) A
47、t dawn they set out for the journey on foot.(3 adverbials, of time, purpose and means respectively, one at initial, two at end positions)Adverbials may be of various forms, but for our purposes we will discuss mainly the phrase forms below:a) the prepositional phraseb) the to-infinitive phrasec) the
48、 participle -ing phrased) the participle -ed phraseAdverbials used singly offer no problem to a writer. But if two or more adverbials are used, the problem of hierarchy (which comes first?) and other relationships arise. In other words, the co-occurrence of adverbials in a sentence is not random. Th
49、ere are certain accepted norms. These may be summarized as follows:Space: a) predicate adverbial before sentence adverbialb) smaller location before larger location(3) He works at a hotel in Shanghai.Time: time duration before time frequency before time position, i. e. dfp(4) He reads for an hour every day in the evening.d f p(5) They visited us a few times in 1990.f pProcess: Adverbials of manner, means, instrument and agent can co-occur in the following order:mannermeansinstrumentagent(6) She was dressed in clean white clothes by her mother. (manner) (a
