ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THEME 13

1) Asyndeton is the deliberate omission of conjunction for special effect from a series of related clauses. It is connection between parts of a sentence or between sentences without any formal sign, becomes a stylistic device if there is a deliberate dropping of the connective where it is generally expected to be according to the norms of the literary language (Galperin).

The deliberate omission of conjunctions makes sentences almost entirely independent.

e.g. Bicket did not answer his throat felt too dry. (Galsworthy).

e.g. "The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated"
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 1

In enumeration the omission of conjunction and before the last word changes the rhythm of the sentence and gives more independence to every word in line. Asyndeton is used as an expressive means when two parts of sentence are joined without any conjunction. It gives energetic effect to the statement; the conjunction is supplied by the reader who is active in interpreting the massage. Asyndeton is also emphatic and deliberate when a sentence contradicting the previous statement is added to it without any warning given by the conjunction but.

E.g. He was a full and a hypocrite (but) I never met a more agreeable companion.

You cannot tell if you are eating apple pie or German sausage or strawberry and cream. It all seems cheese. There is too much noise about cheese.

Students would have no need “to walk the hospitals” if they had me. I was a hospital in myself (because)

When the tea-table was carried away a new light creature with brown hair, clear lips, deep eyes, laybacks in the big chair looking at the fire. (and)

We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend oppose any enemy to assure the survival and successes of liberty.

The absence of conjunctions and a punctuation mark may be regarded as a deliberate introduction of the norms of the colloquial speech into the literary language. Such structures make the utterance sound like one syntactical unit to be pronounced in one breath group. This also determines the pattern of intonation.

Polysyndeton is a stylistic device of connecting sentences, or phrases, or syntagms, or words by using connectives (mostly conjunctions and prepositions) before each component part. In fact, it is the repetition of conjunctions or prepositions or particles to connect words, clauses or sentences, it adds the rhythm to the utterance, slows down the statement and makes every word stand out more emphatically due to longer pauses between the words or sentences.

E.g.: Yes, he was wise and good and tricky and smart.

e.g. 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,…(H.Longfellow).

In the passage there is repetition both of a question word/conjunction whence and a preposition with. It makes the utterance more rhythmical. Even a prose piece may look like poetry with the help of this SD.

Polysyndeton combines homogeneous elements of thought into one whole resembling enumeration. But unlike enumeration polysyndeton disintegrates each member of the utterance. Enumeration shows things united, polysyndeton shows them isolated.

To serve your flesh, and nerve, and sinew (R.Kipling). The conjunction and expresses both sequence and disintegration.

"Weasels--and stoats--and foxes--and so on. They're all right in a way-."
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 1

"Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing."
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 3

Hence the functions of polysyndeton are those of creating rhythm, of expressing sequence, of disintegration.

The Gap-Sentence Link. It is a peculiar type of connection of sentences that is not immediately apparent but requires a certain mental effort to grasp the interrelation between the parts of the utterance, i.e. to bridge a semantic gap.

E.g. She and that fellow ought to be the sufferers, and they were in Italy. (Galsworthy)

The second part of the sentence seems to be unmotivated, and the whole utterance seems to be logically incoherent. But it is only the first impression. After a careful supralinear semantic analysis it becomes clear that the exact logical variant of the utterance would be:

‘Those two who ought to suffer were enjoying themselves in Italy – a place for well-off people to go on holidays’.

So, GSL is a way of connecting two sentences seemingly unconnected and leaving it to the reader’s perspicacity to grasp the idea implied, but not worded. The SD is deeply rooted in the spoken language. The omissions are justified because the situation easily prompts what has not been said.

The GSL is generally indicated by and and but. There is no asyndetic GSL. It demands an obvious break in the semantic texture of the utterance. The author leaves the interpretation of the link between two sentences to the mind of the reader.

The GSL as a SD is based on the peculiarities of the spoken language and is therefore most frequently used in represented speech. It may be used to indicate a subjective evaluation of the facts or introduce an effect resulting from a cause which has already had verbal expression.

In all these functions GSL displays an unexpected coupling of ideas. GSL aims at stirring up the reader’s mind with the suppositions, associations and conditions under which the sentence uttered can really exist.