Lexical SDs. Lexico -syntactical SDs

1. Lexical SDs. Lexico-syntactical SDs Lecture 3 - continued

2. 8. Pun • is the humorous use of a word in 2 different senses; • is more independent than zeugma and • freer in the use of its members (can be based on any part of speech).

3. Puns • Can be based on: • simultaneous realisation of 2 different meanings: • similarity of sound between two words with different meanings.

4. 9. Epithet • - a stylistic device based on the interplay of the emotive and logical meanings in an attributive or adverbial word, • used to characterize a thing • with the aim of giving an individual evaluation of its properties and features. • is always subjective and evaluative, revealing the author’s attitude and feelings towards the thing described.

5. Epithet • According to the degree of freshness: • Traditional epithets - have been used so frequently with certain nouns that they have become stable word-combinations or clichés: sweetsmile, rosy-fingered dawn. • Fresh/Genuine epithets – are expressive and emotional: a ghost-like face, a sleepless pillow

6. Epithet • According to the compositional structure: • Simple (1-word epithets): at its inhuman height • Compound: sea-wet sand • Two-step epithets - are supplied with an intensifier: a marvelously radiant smile • Reversed epithets: two nouns linked by “of”. The noun defined is contained in the “of-phrase”, the epithet is expressed by the 1st noun: a shadow of a smile; a memory of a voice. The reversed epithet is metaphoric.

7. Epithet • Phrase epithets (hyphenated): He was back in the role of the humble-man-trying-to-please; She had one of those take-all-the-bloom-off-the-girl affairs. The phrase, transferred into a hyphenated epithet loses its independence and assumes a new stylistic quality, which is revealed both in the intonation pattern and graphically.

8. Epithet • According to distribution in the sentence: • Single (a dry look); • Pairs (a delightful and merry holiday); • Streams (the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, fatal, great city [O’H.]) • The main feature of an epithet is their aptness, freshness, pictorial quality.

9. 10. Oxymoron • a combination of two words • in which the meanings of the two clash • being opposite in sense. • e.g. deafening silence; sweet sorrow virtual reality • Such contrasting compositions reveal the discrepancy of reality of life itself.

10. Oxymoron • According to the degree of freshness: • Genuine – reveals new shades of meaning, joining words of contradictory meaning in an unexpected context; • Trite – through frequent repetition has lost its stylistic quality and has become a word-combination (an intensifier + a word intensified). They belong to the language-as-a-system: • Terribly sorry. Awfully nice.

11. Oxymoron • According to structure: • Noun + noun: speed limit • adj. + noun: irregular pattern • adv. + adj.: pretty ugly • prep. phrases: alone in the crowd • adj. + adj.: bittersweet days • adv. + noun, • adj. + adv., • adv. + verb.

12. 11. Hyperbole • a conscious/deliberate exaggeration, • the aim of which is to intensify one of the features of the object described. • It produces clarity and vividness, sharpens the reader’s ability to grasp the author’s message. Those dark mornings, which burst over unhappy London like gigantic bombs, filled with dirty water. They sweep, lash and machine-gun the streets with rain.

13. Hyperbole • According to the degree of freshness: • hyperbole may lose its aesthetic expressive quality through frequent repetition and become a unit of language-as-a-system. Examples of trite hyperbole: thousand pardons, million thanks, Haven’t seen you for ages, scared to death. • fresh/genuine hyperboles

14. 12. Understatement • the size, shape, dimensions, characteristic features of the objects are not overrated, but intentionally underrated • (a stylistic device opposite to hyperbole) • a pocket-size woman; • He was knee-high to a grass-hopper

15. 13. Periphrasis • Is the renaming of an object by a phrase • that foregrounds some particular feature of the object. • Too long and vague periphrases are called circumlocutions (разглагольствование).

16. Periphrasis • There are 3 structural types of periphrasis: • Logical is based on 1 of the inherent properties of the object described: the instruments of destruction (guns/weapons/pistols); • Imaginative is based either on metaphor or on metonymy: to tie a knot (get married); • Euphemistic P. is used to replace an unpleasant or indecent word or expression: to possess a vivid imagination (to lie); to get something in a dishonest manner (to steal).

17. Periphrasis • According to the degree of freshness: • Genuine • Traditional: is understandable outside the context, it is not a stylistic device, but merely a synonymous phrase: gentlemen of the long robe (lawyers); the fair sex, my better half.

18. Lexico-Syntactical Devices Antithesis Climax Anticlimax

19. 1. Antithesis • - a figure of speech • characterized by strongly contrasting • words, • clauses, • sentences • or ideas. • Man proposes, God disposes. • Search other for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.

20. Antithesis • Antithesis is a balancing of one term against another for emphasis: • A saint abroad and a devil at home. • The opposition is based on relative opposition, which arises from the context. • Youth is lovely, age is lonely;Youth is fiery, age is frosty. (Longfellow)

21. Antithesis • Antithesis is used in parallel constructions, e.g.: • It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. • He ordered a bottle of worst possible port wine at the highest possible price. • Don’t be afraid your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin!

22. Antithesis • Functions: • rhythm-making/forming (parallel constructions), • dissevering, • comparative, • copulative. • Types: • antithesis proper in cases like: Mrs. N. had a large home and a small husband; • and developed antithesis (presents completed statements or pictures semantically opposite to one another).

23. 2. Climax / Gradation • Arrangement of sentences (or the homogeneous parts of the sentence), • which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, emotional tension in the utterance. • Each successive unit is perceived as stronger that the previous one. • In climax we observe parallelism of constructions of three or more steps: • For that one instant there was no one in the room, in the house, in the world besides themselves.

24. Climax There are 3 types of increase of significance: • Logical climax is based on the relative importance of component parts regarding the concepts they express. This relative importance may be evaluated both objectively and subjectively. • It was a mistake, a blunder, a lunacy! • Say yes. If you don’t I’ll break into tears, I’ll sob, I’ll moan, I’ll groan.

25. Climax • Emotional climax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words with emotive meaning. • Of course, it is important. Incredibly, urgently, desperately important. • I am a bad man, a wicked man, but she is worse. She is bad, she is badness. She is Evil. She not only is evil, but she is Evil. • Quantitative climax is achieved by numerical increase/decrease. • They looked at hundreds of houses, they climbed thousands of stairs, they inspected innumerous kitchens.

26. 3. Anticlimax • Is a sudden reversal of expectations roused by a non-completed climax. • The ideas may be arranged in an ascending order of significance, they may be poetical, elevated, but the final one, which the reader expects to be culminating, is trifling or farcical. • Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination.