We have already pointed out the peculiarities of nominal meaning. The interplay between the logical and nominal meanings of a word is called antonomasia. As in other stylistic devices based on the interaction of lexical meanings, the two kinds of meanings must be realized in the word simultaneously. If only one meaning is materialized in the context, there is no stylistic device, as in hooligan, boycott and other examples given earlier. Here are some examples of genuine antonomasia. "Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit. But the name of these is Few, and of the other Legion, and the influence of the good is powerless to counteract the mortal poison of the bad. (Dickens)
The use of the word name made the author write the words 'Few', and 'Legion' with capital letters. It is very important to note that this device is mainly realized in the written language, because generally capital letters are the only signals to denote the presence of the stylistic device. The same can also be observed in the following example from Byron's "Don Juan":
"Society is now one polished horde,
Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."
In these two examples of the use of antonomasia the nominal meaning is hardly perceived, the logical meaning of the words few, legion, bores, bora/being too strong. But there is another point that should be mentioned. Most proper names are built on some law of analogy. Many of them end in -son (as Johnson) or -er (Fletcher). We easily recognize such words
a statistical investigation of word-order made on the basis of a series of representative 19th century writers. It was found that the order S P was used in from 82 to 97 per cent of all sentences containing all three members, while the percentage for Beowulf was 16 and for King Alfred's prose 40.
This predominance of SP word-order makes conspicuous any change in the structure of the sentence and inevitably calls forth a modification in the intonation design.
The most conspicuous places in the sentence are considered to be the first and the last: the first place because the full force of the stress can be felt at the beginning of an utterance and the last place because there is a pause after it. This traditional word-order had developed a definite intonation design. Through frequency of repetition this design has imposed itself on any sentence even though there are changes introduced in the sequence of the component parts. Hence the clash between seman-tically insignificant elements of the sentence when they are placed in structurally significant position and the intonation which follows the recognized pattern.
Thus in Dickens' much quoted sentence:
"Talent Mr. Micawber has; capital Mr. Micawber has not."
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The first and the last positions being prominent, the verb has and the negative not get a fuller volume of stress than they would in ordinary (uninverted) word-order. In the traditional word-order the predicates has and has not are closely attached to their objects talent and capital. English predicate-object groups are so.bound together x that when we tear the object away from its predicate, the latter remains dangling in the sentence and in this position sometimes calls forth a change in meaning of the predicate word. In the inverted word-order not only the objects talent and capital become conspicuous but also the predicates has and has not.
In this example the effect of the inverted word-order is backed up by two other stylistic devices: antithesis and parallel construction. Unlike grammatical inversion, stylistic inyersion does not change the structural meaning of the sentence, that is, the change in the juxtaposition of the members of the sentence does not indicate structural meaning but has some superstructure! function^S tylistic inversion aims at attaching logical stress or addi'tional emotional colouring to the surface meaning of the utterance. Therefore a specific intonation pattern is the inevitable satellite of inversion.1}
Stylistic inversion in Modern English should not be regarded as a violation of the norms of standard English. It is only the practical realization of what is potential in the language itself.
The following patterns of stylistic inversion are most frequently met in both English prose and English poetry.
1. The object is placed at the beginning of the sentence (see the example above).
1 See: . . .-. , , 1947, . 6.
2. The attribute is placed after the word it modifies (postposition
of the attribute). This model is often used when there is more than one
attribute, for example:
"With fingers weary and worn..." (Thomas Hood) "Once upon a midnight dreary..." (E. A. Poe)
3. a) The predicative is placed before the subject, as in
"A good generous prayer it was." (Mark Twain)
or b) the predicative stands before the link-verb and both are placed before the subject, as in
"Rude am I in my speech..." (Shakespeare)
4. The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sen
tence, as in:
"Eagerly I wished the morrow." (Poe)
"My dearest daughter, at your feet I fall." (Dryden)
"A tone of most extraordinary comparison Miss Tox said it in."
(Dickens)
5. Both modifier and predicate stand before the subject, as in:
"In went Mr. Pickwick." (Dickens) "Down dropped the breeze..." (Coleridge)
These five models comprise the most common and recognized models of inversion.
However, in modern English and American poetry, as has been shown elsewhere, there appears a definite tendency to experiment with the word-order to the extent which may even render the message unintelligible. In this case there may be an almost unlimited number of rearrangements of the members of the sentence.
Inversion as a stylistic device is always sense-motivated. There is a tendency to account for inversion in poetry by rhythmical considerations. This may sometimes be true, but really talented poets will never sacrifice sense for form and in the majority of cases inversion in poetry is called forth by considerations of content rather than rhythm.
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Inverted word-order, or inversion, is one of the forms of what are known as emphatic constructions. What is generally called traditional word-order is nothing more than unemphatic construction. Emphatic constructions have so far been regarded as non-typical structures and therefore are considered as violations of the regular word-order in the sentence. But in practice these structures are as common as the fixed or traditional word-order structures. Therefore inversion must be regarded as an expressive means of the language having typical structural models.
Detached Construction
Sometimes one of the secondary parts of a sentence by some specific consideration of the writer is placed so that it seems formally independ-
ent of the word it logically refers to. Such parts of structures are called detached. They seem to dangle in the sentence as isolated parts.j The detached part, being torn away from its referent, assumes a greater degree of significance and is given prominence by intonation. The structural patterns of detached constructions have not yet been classified, but the most noticeable cases are those in which an attribute or an adverbial modifier is placed not in immediate proximity to its referent, but in some other position, as in the following examples:
1) "Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his eyes".
(Thackeray)
2) "Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in
his gait." (Thackeray)
Sometimes a nominal phrase is thrown into the sentence forming a syntactical unit with the rest of the sentence, as in:
"And he walked slowly past again, along the river an evening of dear, quiet beauty, all harmony and comfort, except within his heart." (Galsworthy)
The essential quality of detached construction lies in the fact that the isolated parts represent a kind of independent whole thrust into the sentence or placed in a position which will make the phrase (or word) seem independent. But a detached phrase cannot rise to the rank of a primary member of the sentenceit always remains secondary from the semantic point of view, although structurally it possesses all the features of a primary member. This clash of the structural and semantic aspects of detached constructions produces the desired effectforcing the reader to interpret the logical connections between the component parts of the sentence. Logical ties between them always exist in spite of the absence of syntactical indicators.
(I5etached constructions in their common forms make the written variety of language akin to the spoken variety where the relation between the component parts is effectively materialized by means of intonation. Detached construction, as it were, becomes a peculiar device bridging the norms of written and spoken language?)
This stylistic device is akin to inversion. The functions are almost the same. But detached construction produces a much stronger effect, inasmuch as it presents parts of the utterance significant from the author's point of view in a more or less independent manner.
Here are some more examples of detached constructions:
"Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the poplars." (Galsworthy)
'"I want to go,' he said, miserable." (Galsworthy) "She was lovely: all of her delightful." (Dreiser)
The italicized phrases and words in these sentences seem to be isolated, but still the connection with the primary members of the corresponding sentences is clearly implied. Thus 'gold behind the poplars' may be
interpreted as a simile or a metaphor: the moon like gold was rising behind the poplars, or the moon rising, it was gold...
Detached construction sometimes causes the simultaneous realization of two grammatical meanings of a word. In the sentence" 'I want to go,' he said, miserable", the last word might possibly have been understood as an adverbial modifier to the word said if not for the comma, though grammatically miserably would be expected. The pause indicated by the comma implies that miserable is an adjective used absolutely and referring to the pronoun he.
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The same can be said about Dreiser's sentence with the word delightful Here again the mark of punctuation plays an important role. The dash standing before the word makes the word conspicuous and, being isolated, it becomes the culminating point of the climaxlovely... delightful, i.e. the peak of the whole utterance. The phrase all of her is also somehow isolated. The general impression suggested by the implied intonation, is a strong feeling of admiration; and, as is usually the case, strong feelings reject coherent and logical syntax.
In the English language detached constructions are generally used in the belles-lettres prose style and mainly with words that have some explanatory function, for example:
"June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity a little bit of a thing, as somebody said, 'all hair and spirit'..."
(Galsworthy)
Detached construction as a stylistic device is a typification of the syntactical peculiarities of colloquial language.
Detached construction is a stylistic phenomenon which has so far been little investigated. The device itself is closely connected with the intonation pattern of the utterance. In conversation any word or phrase or even sentence may be made more conspicuous by means of intonation. Therefore precision in the syntactical structure of the sentence is not so necessary from the communicative point of view. But it becomes vitally important in writing.1 Here precision of syntactical relations is the only way to make the utterance fully communicative. Therefore when the syntactical relations become obscure, each member of the sentence that seems to be dangling becomes logically significant. (A variant of detached construction is parenthesis. '" "Parenthesis is a qualifying, explanatory or appositive word, phrase, clause, sentence, or other sequence which interrupts a syntactic construction without otherwise affecting it, having often a characteristic intonation and indicated in writing by commas, brackets or dashes."^)
In fact, parenthesis sometimes embodies a considerable volume of predicativeness, thus giving the utterance an additional nuance of meaning or a tinge of emotional colouring.
1 See Peshkovsky's remark on p. 203.
2 Random House Dictionary of the English Language. N. Y., 1967.
Parallel Construction
</ Parallel construction is a device which may be encountered not so much in the sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the SPU and the paragraph. The necessary condition in parallel construction is identical, or similar, syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence in close succession, as in:")
"There were,..., real silver spoons to stir the tea with* and real
china cups to drink it out of, and plates of the same to hold the cakes
and toast in". (Dickens)
Parallel constructions are often backed up by repetition of words (lexical repetition) and conjunctions and prepositions (polysyndeton). Pure parallel construction, however, does not depend on any other kind of repetition but the repetition of the syntactical design of the sentence.
Parallel constructions may be partial or complete. Partial parallel arrangement is the repetition of some parts of successive sentences or clauses, as in:
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"It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your hous esthat man your navy and recruit your army,that have enabled you to defy all the world; and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair." (Byron)
The attributive clauses here all begin with the subordinate conjunction that which is followed by a verb in the same form, except the last (have enabled). The verbs, however, are followed either by adverbial modifiers of place (in your fields, in your houses) or by direct objects (your navy, your army). The third attributive clause is not built on the pattern of the first two, although it preserves the parellel structure in general (that-hverb-predicate-fobjfect), while the fourth has broken away entirely.
Complete parallel arrangement, also called balance, maintains the principle of identical structures throughout the corresponding sentences, as in:
"The seeds ye sow another reaps,
The robes ye weaveanother wears,
The arms ye forgeanother bears."
(P. B. Shelley)
Parallel construction is most frequently used in enumeration, antithesis and in climax, thus consolidating the general effect achieved by these stylistic devices.
Parallel construction is used in different styles of writing with slightly different functions. When used in the matter-of-fact styles, it carries, in the main, the idea of semantic equality of the parts, as in scientific prose, where the logical principle of arranging ideas predominates. In the belles-lettres style parallel construction carries an emotive function. That is why it is mainly used as a technical means in building up other stylistic devices, thus securing their unity.
In the following example parallelism backs up repetition, alliteration and antithesis, making the whole sentence almost epigrammatic.
"And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot." (Shakespeare)
In the example below, parallel construction backs up the rhetorical address and rhetorical questions. The emotional aspect is also enforced by the interjection 'Heaven!'
"Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
Hopes, sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?" (Byron)
In some cases parallelism emphasizes the similarity and equates the significance of the parts, as, for example:
"Our senses perceive no extremes. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view."
In other cases parallel construction emphasizes diversity and contrast of ideas. (See the example on p. 223 from the "Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens).
As a final remark it must be stated that the device of parallelism always generates rhythm, inasmuch as similar syntactical structures repeat in close succession. Hence it is natural that parallel construction should very frequently be used in poetical structures. Alternation of similar units being the basic principle of verse, similarity in longer unitsi.e. in the stanza, is to be expected.
Chiasmus (Reversed Parallel Construction)
Chiasmus belongs to the group of stylistic devices based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern, but it has a cross order of words and phrases. The structure of two successive sentences or parts of a sentence may be described as reversed parallel construction, the word-order of one of the sentences being inverted as compared with that of the otherj as in:
"As high as we have mounted in delight In our dejection do we sink as low" (Wordsworth) "Down dropped the breeze, The sails dropped down." (Coleridge)
Chiasmus is sometimes achieved by a sudden change from active voice to passive or vice versa, for example:
"The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. (Dickens)
Repetition
It has already been pointed out thaler epetition is an expressive means of language used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. It shows the state of mind of the speaker^ as in the following passage from Galsworthy:
"Stop!"she cried, "Don't tell me! / don't want to hear;
I don't want to hear what you've come for. / don't want to hear."
The repetition of 'I don't want to hear', is not a stylistic device; it is a means by which the excited state of mind of the speaker is shown. This state of mind always manifests itself through intonation, which is suggested here by the words 'she cried'. In the written language, before direct speech is introduced one can always find words indicating the intonation, as sobbed, shrieked, passionately, etc. J. Vandryes writes:
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"Repetition is also one of the devices having its origin in the emotive language. Repetition when applied to the logical language becomes simply an instrument of grammar. Its origin is to be seen in the excitement accompanying the expression of a feeling being brought to its highest tension." *
When used as a stylistic device, repetition acquires quite different functions. It does not aim at making a direct emotional impact. On the contrary, the stylistic device of repetition aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key-word of the utterance. For example:
"For that was it! Ignorant of the long and stealthy march of passion, and of the state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant of how Soames had watched her, ignorant of Fleur's reckless desperation...
1 . . ., 1937, . 147.
Enumeration
( Enumeration is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, phenomena, properties, actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of which, being syntactically in the same position (homogeneous parts of speech), are forced to display some kind of semantic homogeneity, remote though it may seem?
Most of our notions are associated with other notions due to some kind of relation between them: dependence, cause and result, likeness, dissimilarity, sequence, experience (personal and/or social), proximity, etc.
In fact, it is the associations plus social experience that have resulted in the formation of what is known as "semantic fields." Enumeration, as an SD, may be conventionally called a sporadic semantic field, inasmuch as many cases of enumeration have no continuous existence in their manifestation as semantic fields do. The grouping of sometimes absolutely heterogeneous notions occurs only in isolated instances to meet some peculiar purport of the writer.
Let us examine the following cases of enumeration:
"There Harold gazes on a work divine,
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From grey but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells." (Byron)
There is hardly anything in this enumeration that could he regarded as making some extra impact on the reader. Each word is closely associated semantically with the following and preceding words in the enumeration, and the effect is what the reader associates with natural scenery. The utterance is perfectly coherent and there is no halt in the natural flow of the communication. In other words, there is nothing specially to arrest the reader's attention; no effort is required to decipher the message: it yields itself easily to immediate perception.
That is not the case in the following passage:
"Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole as*
Suspense
Suspense is a compositional device which consists in arranging rhe matter of a communication in such a way that the less important, descriptive, subordinate parts are amassed at the beginning, the main idea being withheld till the end of the sentence. Thus the reader's attention is held and his interest kept up~)for example:
"Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw." (Charles Lamb)
Sentences of this type are called periodic sentences, or periods. Their function is to create suspense, to keep the reader in a state of uncertainty and expectation.
Here is a good example of the piling up of details so as to create a state of suspense in the listeners:
"But suppose it1 passed; suppose one of these men, as I have seen them,meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your Lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame: suppose this man surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support; suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence, by this new law; still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jeffreys for a judgel" (Byron)
Here the subject of the subordinate clause of concession ('one of these men') is repeated twice ('this man', 'this man'), each time followed by a number of subordinate parts, before the predicate ('dragged') is reached. All this is drawn together in the principal clause ('there are two things wanting...'), which was expected and prepared for by the logically incomplete preceding statements. But the suspense is not yet broken: what these two things are, is still withheld until the orator comes to the words 'and these are, in my opinion.'
Suspense and climax sometimes go together. In this case all the information contained in the series of statement-clauses preceding the solution-statement are arranged in the order of gradation, as in the example above from Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords.
The device of suspense is especially favoured by orators. This is apparently due to the strong influence of intonation which helps to create the desired atmosphere of expectation and emotional tension which goes with it.
1 A proposed law permitting the death penalty for breaking machines (at the time of the Luddite movement).
Suspense always requires long stretches of speech or writing. Sometimes the whole of a poem is built on this stylistic device, as is the case with Kipling's poem "If" where all the eight stanzas consist of if-dauses and only the last two lines constitute the principal clause.
"// you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, /f you can trust yourself when all men doubt you And make allowance for their doubting too,
// you can dream and not make dreams your master, // you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,... And which is more, you'll be a Man, my son."
This device is effective in more than one way, but the main purpose is to prepare the reader for the only logical conclusion of the utterance. It is a psychological effect that is aimed at in particular.
A series of parallel question-sentences containing subordinate parts is another structural pattern based on the principle of suspense, for the answer is withheld for a time, as in Byron's "The Bride of Abydos":
"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle... Know ye the land of the cedar and vine...
'Tis the clime of the East 'tis the land of the Sun."
The end of an utterance is a specially emphatic part of it. Therefore if we keep the secret of a communication until we reach the end, it will lead to concentration of the reader's or listener's attention, and this is the effect sought.
One more example to show how suspense can be maintained:
"Proud of his "Hear him!" proud, too, of his vote, And lost virginity of oratory, Proud of his learning (just enough to quote) He revel I'd in his Ciceronian glory." (Byron)
It must be noted that suspense, due to its partly psychological nature (it arouses a feeling of expectation), is framed in one sentence, for there must not be any break in the intonation pattern. Separate sentences would violate the principle of constant emotional tension which is characteristic of this device.
Climax (Gradation)
Climax is an arrangement of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension in the utterance) as in:
Finally, we come to quantitative climax. This is an evident increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts, as in:
"They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens." (Maugham)
Here the climax is achieved by simple numerical increase. In the following example climax is materialized by setting side by side concepts of measure and time:
"Little by little, bit by bit, and day by day, and year by year the baron got the worst of some disputed question." (Dickens)
What then are the indispensable constituents of climax? They are:
a) the distributional constituent: close proximity of the component
parts arranged in increasing order of importance or significance;
b) the syntactical pattern: parallel constructions with possible lexical
repetition;
c) the connotative constituent: the explanatory context which helps
the reader to grasp the gradation, as no... ever once in all his life, nobody
ever, nobody, No beggars (Dickens); deep and wide, horrid, dark and tall
(Byron); veritable (gem of a city).
Climax, like many other stylistic devices, is a means by which the author discloses his world outlook, his evaluation of objective facts and phenomena. The concrete stylistic function of this device is to show the relative importance of things as seen by the author (especially in emotional climax), or to impress upon the reader the significance of the things described by suggested comparison, or to depict phenomena dynamically.1
1 Note: [There is a device which is called anticlimax.
The ideas expressed may be arranged in ascending order of significance, or they may be poetical or elevated, but the final one, which the reader expects to be the culminating one, as in climax, is trifling or farcical. There is a sudden drop from the lofty or serious to the ridiculous^ typical example is Aesop's fable "The Mountain in Labour".
"In days of yore, a mighty rumbling was heard in a Mountain. It was said to be
in labour, and multitudes flocked together, from Jar and near, to see what it would
as uj^and down, inside and out, from top to bottom and the like. (^Stylistic opposition, which is given a special name, the term antithesis, is of a different linguistic nature: it is based on relative opposition which arises out of the context through the expansion of objectively contrasting pairsj) as in:
"Youth is lovely, age is lonely,
Youth is fiery, age is frosty" (Longfellow)
Here the objectively contrasted pair is 'youth' and 'age', 'Lovely' and 'lonely' cannot be regarded as objectively opposite concepts, but being drawn into the scheme contrasting 'youth' and 'age', they display certain features which may be counted as antonymical. This is strengthened also by the next line where not only 'youth' and 'age' but also 'fiery' and 'frosty' are objective antonyms.
It is not only the semantic aspect which explains the linguistic nature of antithesis, the structural pattern also plays an important role. Antithesis is generally moulded in parallel construction. The antagonistic features of the two objects or phenomena are more easily perceived when they stand out in similar structures. This is particularly advantageous when the antagonistic features are not inherent in the objects in question but imposed on them. The structural design of antithesis is so important
produce. After long expectation and many wise conjectures from the bystanders
out popped, a Mouse!"
Here we have deliberate anticlimax, which is a recognized form of humour. Anticlimax is frequently used by humorists like Mark Twain and Jerome K- Jerome.
In "Three Men in a Boat", for example, a poetical passage is invariably followed by ludicrous scene. For example, the author expands on the beauties of the sunset on the river and concludes:
"But we didn't sail into the world of golden sunset: we went slap into that old punt where the gentlemen were fishing."
Another example is:
"This war-like speech, received with many a cheer,
Had filled them with desire of fame, and beer." (Byron)
Asyndeton
Asyndeton, that is, connection between parts of a sentence or between sentences without any formal sign, becomes a stylistic device if there is a deliberate omission of the connective where it is generally expected to be according to the norms of the literary language^ Here is an example:
"Soames turned away; he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing before an open grave, watching a coffin slowly lowered." (Galsworthy)
The deliberate omission of the subordinate conjunction because or for makes the sentence 'he had an utter...' almost entirely independent. It might be perceived as a characteristic feature of Soames in general, but for the comparison beginning with like, which shows that Soames's mood was temporary.
Here a reminder is necessary that there is an essential difference between the ordinary norms of language, both literary and colloquial, and stylistic devices which are skilfully wrought for special informative and aesthetic purposes. In the sentence:
"Bicket did not answer his throat felt too dry." (Galsworthy) the absence of the conjunction and a punctuation mark may be regarded as a deliberate introduction of the norms of colloquial speech into the literary language. Such structures make the utterance sound like one syntactical unit to be pronounced in one breath group. This determines the intonation pattern.
It is interesting to compare the preceding two utterances from the point of view of the length of the pause between the constituent parts. In the first utterance (Soames...), there is a semicolon which, being the indication of a longish pause, breaks the utterance into two parts. In the second/ utterance (Bicket...), no pause should be made and the whole of the utterance pronounced as one syntagm.
The crucial problem in ascertaining the true intonation pattern of a sentence composed of two or more parts lies in a deeper analysis of the functions of the connectives, on the one hand, and a more detailed investigation of graphical meansthe signals indicating the correct interpretation of the utterance, on the other.
Polysyndeton
/" '
/ P I y s de t is the stylistic device of connecting sentences,
or phrases, or syntagms, or words by using connectives (mostly conjunctions and propositions) before each component parj^ as in:
"The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over -him in only one respect." (Dickens)
In this passage from Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha", there is repetition both of conjunctions and prepositions:
"Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions, With the odours of the forest, With the dew, and damp of meadows, With the curling smoke of wigwams, With the rushing of great rivers, With their frequent repetitions,..."
The repetition of conjunctions and other means of connection makes an utterance more rhythmical; so much so that prose may even seem like verse. The conjunctions and other connectives, being generally unstressed elements, when placed before each meaningful member, will cause the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllablesthe essential requirement of rhythm in verse. Hence, one of the functions of polysyndeton is a rhythmical one.
In addition to this, polysyndeton has a disintegrating function. It generally combines homogeneous elements of thought into one whole resembling enumeration. But, unlike enumeration, which integrates both homogeneous and heterogeneous elements into one whole, polysyndeton causes each member of a string of facts to stand out conspicuously. That is why we say that polysyndeton has a disintegrating function. Enumeration shows things united; polysyndeton shows them isolated.
Polysyndeton has also the function of expressing sequence, as in:
"Then Mr. Boffin... sat staring at a little bookcase of Law Practice and Law Reports, and at a window, and at an empty blue bag, and a stick of sealing-wax, and at a pen, and a box of wafers, and an apple, and a writing-padall very dustyand at a number of inky smears and blots, and at an imperfectly disguised gun-case pretending to be something legal, and at an iron box labelled "Harmon Estate", until Mr. Lightwood appeared." (Dickens)
All these ands may easily be replaced by thens. But in this case too much stress would be laid on the logical aspects of the utterance, whereas and expresses both sequence and disintegration.
Note also that Dickens begins by repeating not only and, but also at. But in the middle of the utterance he drops the at, picks it up again, drops it once more and then finally picks it up and uses it with the last three items.
The Gap-Sentence Link
(L There is a peculiar type of connection of sentences which for want of a term we shall call the g a p-s e n t e link (GSL). The connection is not immediately apparent and it requires a certain mental effort to grasp the interrelation between the parts of the utterance, in other words, to bridge the semantic gap^Here is an example:
"She and that fellow ought to be the sufferers, and they were in Italy." (Galsworthy)
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