Stylistic Functions of Grammar Categories and the Role of Transposition

Transposition of lexico-grammatical classes of nouns. Stylistic function of articles, genitive case, plural number. Stylistic functions of different grammatical categories in different parts of speech.

1. Stylistic transposition of pronouns.

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2. Adjectives, stylistic function of degrees of comparison.
3. Stylistic functions of verbal categories.
4. Stylistic functions of adverbs.

Style is less investigated on the morphological level than on any other one because very many scholars hold the opinion that stylistic connotations appear only when the use of grammatical phenomenon departs from the normative usage and functions on the outskirts or beyond the system of Standard language. Nevertheless stylistic connotations don’t necessarily mean the violation of the normative speech patterns. They are based on different cases of transposition.

Transposition is the usage of different parts of speech in unusual grammatical meaning which breaks the usual correlation within a grammatical category and is used to express the speaker’s emotions and his attitude to the object of discussion. It is the shift from one grammatical class to another, controversy between the traditional and situational reference on the level of morphology. (I. V. A. )

Transposition of lexico-grammatical class (LGC) of NOUNS: Transposition of nouns is based on the usage of nouns in unusual exico-grammatical class (LGC), thus causing a stylistic effect. According to their usual LGC they are subdivided into: Personal nouns (agents) (man, woman, children) Living beings (birds, cats, dogs) Collective nouns (mankind, peerage) Material nouns (water, stone) Abstract nouns (clarity, kindness), etc. Transposition from one LGC to another causes expressive, evaluative, emotive and functional connotations. Thus transposition of personal nouns denoting animals to those denoting people causes metaphorization and appearance of zoo morphemes: ass, bear, beast and bitch.

Pig, donkey, monkey may have tender but ironical connotation, while swine, ass, ape acquire rude, negative coloring. Negative connotation is intensified by emphatic constructions: you impudent pup, you filthy swine”. I was not going to have all the old tabbies bossing her around just because she is not what they call “our class” (A. Wilson) Emotive and expressive connotations are achieved in transposition of abstract nouns into personal nouns (abstract nouns used in plural): “The chubby little eccentricity :: a chubby eccentric child. ”

Transposition of parts of speech (A>N): “Listen, my sweet (coll. )”, a man of intelligence, a flush of heat (bookish). Stylistic functions of the Genitive case, plural number and the articles The genitive case is considered to be a formal sign of personification alongside with the personal pronouns ‘he and she’ referred to inanimate objects. The genitive case is limited in its usage to the LGC of nouns denoting living beings: my father’s room, George’s sister. When used with nouns of some other class the genitive case gets emotive coloring and an elevated ring: “England’s troubles.

My country’s laws”. “The trees had eagerness in every turg, stretching their buds upward to the sun’s warmth; the blackbirds were in song” (J. Galsworthy) The suffix‘s’ may be also added to the phrase or to the whole sentence: She’s the boy I used to go with’s mother. He’s the niece, I told you about’s husband. A comic effect is achieved due to many factors: The suffix is added not to a stem but to a noun, followed by a subordinate clause. Logical incompatibility of the following words placed together: she’s the boy; he’s the niece; about’s husband.

The use ofPlural number in unusual collocations is also a source of expressiveness: One I’m – sorry – for –you is worth twenty I – told – you – so’s. The sentence has a jocular ring because a plural ending ’s’ is added to the whole sentence together with the numeral ‘twenty’. Abstract nouns used in plural become countable, concrete and acquire additional expressive connotation making the description more vivid and impressive: “Oh! Wilfred has emotions, hates, pities, wants; at least sometimes; when he does his stuff is jolly good.

Otherwise he just makes a song about nothing – like the rest (J. Galsworthy) …”; “The peculiar look came into Bossiney’s face which marked all his enthusiasms”. Sometimes the forms of singular and plural of abstract nouns have different shades of the given abstract notion and are used for emphasis: “He had nerve but no nerves. ” LGC of Material nouns as a rule have no plural but in descriptions of nature and landscapes they may be used in plural for the sake of expressiveness: The snows of Kilimanjaro, the sands of Africa, the waters of the Ocean.

The same effect is achieved when PUs with nouns denoting weight and measure lose their concrete meaning and become synonyms to the pronouns much, many, a lot of, little, few: Tons of funs, loads of friends; a sea of troubles, a pound of pardons. Stylistic functions of articles The indefinite article before a proper name creates an additional evaluative connotation due to the clash of nominal and logical meanings (antonomasia): I don’t claim to be a Rembrandt. Have a Van Deyk? A century ago there may have been no Leibnitz, but there was a Gauss, a Faraday, and a Darwin (Winner).

The indefinite article stresses a very high evaluation of the role of the scientists in the development of the world science. But very often the indefinite article before the name of ordinary people denotes negative characteristics of the persons under those names: “I will never marry a Malone or a Sykes” (Sh. Bronte) The definite article before the surname may stress that the person is famous or notorious: “Yes, the Robinson. Don’t you know? The notorious Robinson. ” (J. Conrade)

The repetition of the article intensifies the expressiveness of the enumerated nouns: “The waiting – the hope – the disappointment – the fear – the misery – the poverty – the flight of his hopes – and the end to his career – the suicide, perhaps, of the shabby, slip-shod drunkard (Ch. Dickens). Stylistic transposition of pronouns The personal pronoun is a formal sign of the 1st person narration. If used too often it denotes the speaker’s self-estimation, self-satisfaction and egoism: “And that’s where the real businessman comes in: where I come in. But I am cleverer than some.

I don’t mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your father’s measure, I saw that he had a sound idea; I saw…I knew…I explained… (B. Shaw) When I is substituted for the indefinite one or you in a generalizing function the contact of the speaker and listener is closer, making the words of the speaker sound modest and reserved: “You see, Chris, even in quite a small provincial town you could have a clinic, a little team of doctors, each doing his own stuff” (A. Cronin). “I am ancient but I don’t feel it. That’s one thing about painting, it keeps you young.

Titian lived to ninety-nine and had to have plague to kill him off”. (J. Galswarthy) I may be substituted by nouns a man, a chap, a fellow, a girl. Thus the listener is included in the events and feelings portrayed. Archaic pronouns (Archaisms): thee (you), thou (your), thy (your), thine (yours) thyself (yourself) are used in poetry and create a high-flown atmosphere: Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert (P. B. Shelly). Pronouns he, she, it may be formal indication of personification when used in reference to natural phenomena as the sun(he) and the earth(she) in T. Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

When he or she are substituted for it living beings are reduced to the class of things, hence a humorous or an ironical effect and mostly negative evaluation being created. The same function is performed by pronouns what, this, that, anything and nouns beast, brute, creature: “Is there anything wrong with me, Mister Mate? It asked” (J. Conrad). ‘We’ may denote some group of people with whom the speaker connects himself: “Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things you know, unless we want something in their place; and not always then. (J. Galsworthy) Proverbs: We never know the value of water till the well is dry.

We soon believe what we desire. There exist the so-called Pluralis Majestatis “We, the king of Great Britain”’ and Pluralis Modestiae or the author’s “we”. In fiction Pluralis Modestiae brings associations with scientific prose and produces the impression of historic truth (authenticity). “We soon believe what we desire” (Pluralis Modestiae) The pronoun “they” denotes that the action is performed by a group of people where the speaker is not included, as if he is separated from them: “My poor girl, what have they been doing to you! ”

Demonstrative pronouns this and that single the objects out of the whole class and emotionally stress them: “George: Oh, don’t be innocent, Ruth. This house! This room! This hideous, God-awful room! ” This and That may express anger and irritation, merriment and mockery especially in case of redundancy typical of familiar-colloquial style: “They had this headmaster, this very cute girl”. “By all means let us have a policy of free employment, increased production, no gap between exports and imports, social security, a balanced This and a planned That, but let us also have fountains, exquisite fountains, beautiful fountains…”(J. B. Priestley)

Demonstrative pronouns are especially expressive when used with possessive ones in postposition and accompanied by epithets: that lovely ring of yours, that brother of mine, this idea of his, that wretched puppy of yours! Adjectives, stylistic function of degrees of comparison Adjectives possess a single grammatical category of comparison, meant to portray the degrees of intensity with the help of comparative and superlative degrees contributing to the expressive stylistic function: ‘a most valuable idea, the newest fashion of all, a foolish, foolish wife, my wife is a foolishness herself, Is she as foolish as that? . The usage of the comparative degree with other than qualitative adjectives makes them foregrounded due to their expressiveness: ‘“You cannot be deader than the dead” (E. Hemingway). Polysyllabic adjectives form degrees of comparison with more and most, but in case of the synthetic forms –er and –est the utterance sounds expressive and stylistically relevant: ‘Curiouser and curiouser! Cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English’ (L. Carrol).

This device is used in the language of advertising thus breaking the valency of the incompatible elements joined together: “the orangemostest drink in the world”. There are several structural combinations with adjectives that are very expressive: A duck of a boy. A devil of a fellow. Good and strong. Nice and warm. Most happy. Much of a lad. More of a realist; very happy; most happy; the greatest pleasure. Stylistic functions of verbal categories Stylistic potentialities of verbs are not enough investigated. Transposition is one of the main sources of expressiveness. Transposition from the past to the present is stylistically relevant.

It brings the events which happened in the past closer to the reader. Description becomes more vivid and lively. This kind of transposition is called Historical (dramatic) present. Historical present instead of the past: “And then on the night of the banquet she appears in her emeralds, and throughout the evening Max pays attention to no one else”. (M. Mitchel) (to make the narrative more vivid and dramatic). “Looking back, as I was saying into the back of my infancy, the first objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of things, are my mother and Pegotty, what else do I remember?

Let me see… There comes out of the cloud, our house – not new to me, but quite familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground floor is Pegotty’s kitchen, opening into a back yard…” (Ch. Dickens) Transposition of the future to the present to stress its potential possibility: “But mark my words! The first woman, who fishes for him, hooks him! ” Transposition of the Imperative mood to the Indicative mood: “I can’t stand it! Don’t tempt me! You are coming home with me now” (Dr. ) - (in emotional speech of characters)

Transposition of tenses in speech characterization in colloquial speech: “I says, he, she ain’t; You done me a hill turn”. Archaic verbal forms are stylistically marked: dost, knowest, doth, liveth – to create the atmosphere of antiquity in historical novels and in poetry. Transposition from future into present tenses:’ It’s a mercy that he did not bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But mark my words, the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him. (Future action seems potentially performed). Indefinite >Continuous: “suddenly their heads cast shadows forward. A car behind them is coming up the hill.

Its lights dilate and sway around them” (J. Updyke). Past event are described as if going on before the eyes of the reader who becomes a participant of the events. Indicative<> Imperative: “I can’t stand it! Don’t tempt me! You’re coming home with me now”! (Dreiser). - (in emotional speech of characters) Transposition of auxiliaries may be not only expressive but also functional – stylistic. Thus, in speech characterization of heroes there appear the forms of colloquial speech: I, he, and we ain’t, I says, we has (was, is). You done me a hill turn. Time ‘as changed.

Archaic verbal forms: -st, dost, -th, doth (knowest, knoweth, liveth) create the atmosphere of the past centuries and a highly elevated coloring. Modal verbs used in pseudo–clauses acquire expressiveness and indignation mixed with nervousness: ‘That he should be so careless! ’ ‘Not that they should give a warning’. Grammatical forms (modal verbs) may acquire expressiveness when repeated several times: And Death shall have no dominion Dead men naked, they shall be one With man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not, And death shall have no dominion (D. Thomas). The idea of the union of man and nature is intensified in the constant and insistent repetition of shall indicating in this context not only modality but promise and solemn prophecy. It makes the poem very expressive and emotional, pointing out persistent necessity and affirmation. Adverbs are not enough investigated. Their stylistic relevance in the scientific texts is based on their usage as logical connectives.

Logical sequence of utterances is achieved with the help of an adverb now in the scientific style. “Now there is no normal process except death which completely clears the brains from all past impressions; and after death it is impossible to set it going again”. (N. Viner) Now- right away - (in colloquial speech): She also senses this terrific empathy from him right away. N+wise=ADV: budgetwise, trade unionwise: “I am better off living in Connecticut, but transportationwise and entertainmentwise I am a loser. ” In fiction verbs are used to create the temporal plane of narration.

In E. Hemingway’s novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” the adverb ‘now’ serves a metronome of dramatic actions before and after the explosion of the bridge. Now, ever, never, forever are the key-words in E. Hemingway’s prose presenting the shift of the past, present and future. Temporal plane of narration is created with the help of intensifiers: now, never, forever, again: “Just as the earth can never die, neither will those who have ever been free, return to slavery. There is forever for them to remember them in”. (E. Hemingway) - The stylistic function of intensification.

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