49.Expressive Means Based on the Absence of the Logically Required Components: Ellipsis, Break-in-the-Narrative, Nominative Sentences, Apokoinu Constructions.

Ellipsis is a typical phenomenon in conversation, arising out of the situation. When used in the written language it becomes a stylistic device, as it supplies super segmental information. Ellipsis, when used as a stylistic device, always imitates the common features of colloquial language, where the situation predetermines not the omission of certain members of the sentence, but their absence. It would perhaps be adequate to call sentences lacking certain members “incomplete sentences”, leaving the term ellipsis to specify structures where we recognize a digression from the traditional literary sentence structure. However when the reader encounters such structures in literary texts, even though they aim at representing the lively norms of the spoken language, he is apt to regard them as bearing some definite stylistic function. It must be noted that the most characteristic feature of the written variety of language is amplification which by its very nature is opposite to ellipsis. Amplification generally demands expansion of the ideas with as full and as exact relations between the parts of the utterance as possible. Ellipsis being the property of colloquial language, on the contrary, does not express what can easily be supplied by the situation. This is perhaps the reason that elliptical sentences are rarely used as stylistic devices. Sometimes the omission of a link verb adds emotional colouring and makes the sentence sound more emphatic. (Nothing so difficult as a beginning) Aposiopesis[‘ эпоусае’писис] (break-in-the-narrative) is a device which dictionaries define as a stopping short for rhetorical effect. In the written variety a break in the narrative is always a stylistic device used for some stylistic effect. In writing it is the context, which suggests the adequate intonation, that is the only key to decoding the aposiopesis. (You just come home or I’ll… - the implication is a threat)Aposiopesis is a stylistic syntactical device to convey to the reader a very strong upsurge of emotions. The idea of this stylistic device is that the speaker cannot proceed, his feelings depriving him of the ability to express himself in terms of language. Break-in-the-narrative has a strong degree of predictability, which is ensured by the structure of the sentence. As a stylistic device it is used in complex sentences, in particular in conditional sentences, the if-clause being given in full and the second part only implied. However aposiopesis may be noted in different syntactical structures. Sometimes a break in the narrative is caused by euphemistic considerations – unwillingness to name a thing on the ground of its being offensive to the ear. Break-in-the-narrative is a device which, on the one hand, offers a number of variants in deciphering the implication and, on the other, is highly predictable. A sudden break-in-the-narrative will inevitably focus the attention on what is left unsaid. Nominative sentences have a great expressive potential, as the nouns in the principle position encompass both the image of an object and the idea of its existence. They are used in describing the setting in the beginning of a novel or a chapter in the stage directions in any kind of descriptions where the whole picture is comprised of separate elements, or in a dynamic narrative. (Back room with an old kitchen range. Good mahogany table. Horsehair chairs.) Both one-member and one-word sentences are stylistically important. They are means of informational compression. Syntactic constructions acquire a stylistic function because by their being laconic they can mirror the way of a character’s thinking, be connected with the character, perceptional peculiarities of a narrator. In creative prose one-member sentences are mostly used in descriptions where they produce the effect of a detailed but laconic picture foregrounding its main components; and as the background of dialogue, mentioning the emotions, attitudes, moods of the speakers. In apokoinu constructions the omission of the pronominal (adverbial) connective creates a blend of the main and the subordinate clauses so that the predicative or the object of the first one is simultaneously used as the subject of the second one. (There was a door led into the kitchen) The double syntactical function played by one word produces the general impression of clumsiness of speech and is used as a means of speech characteristics in dialogue, in reported speech and the type of narrative known as ‘entrusted’ in which the author entrusts the telling of the story to an imaginary narrator who is either an observer or participant of the described events.