By Muhammad Shakir
1478
MSc Applied Linguistics 2nd
The Structure of NP
The majority of noun phrases consist of a
head noun plus one or two of the optional
elements. These optional elements fit
into four predetermined slots in the noun
phrase:
The optional nature of elements 1, 2 and
4 means that noun phrases have a highly
variable appearance from single words to
very long passages of text, for example:
Slots 2 and 4 are highly expandable. 2
usually contains single words or
Adjectival Phrases. But 4 is the place
where PPs and Relative Clauses can occur
and enhance the stylistic effect.
It was an old temple, a small one, in the
city, which she had taken and was turning
into a dwelling house.
Authors use the premodificatory slot in the
noun phrase to describe physical artefacts,
to convey the personality of characters,
and also to convey the narrators opinion of
those characters.
Articles a(n) & the are used before
modifier to generalize or specify the Noun
Head.
Definite article the is used to give a
familiarity both on the part of the writer
and the reader.
A and An are indefinite articles and they
are used when a general statement or
point has to be given.
It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg
from French Marans hens owned by some
friend of May in the country.
The post modification can have more rich
stylistic effects. It can be lengthened and
added more and more phrases and
clauses to make the meaning more
dense.
Pronouns are the words which can come in
place of an NP.
First Person Singular
I was born a mouthbreather with a silver spoon
in 1905, three years after one war and nine
before another, too late for both. But not too
late for the war which seems to be coming
upon us now and that is a reason to put down
what comes to mind before one is killed, and
surely it would be asking much to pretend one
had a chance to live.
Speakers not always use I they may use one or
We to create a formal or distancing effect.
First Person Plural
We
It has also ambiguity of use. Whether the
reader is included or not?
We dont take to your sort round here.
(exclusive)
Will we meet for lunch at one then? (inclusive)
It need not to be plural in nature as in:
And how we are today then? (asked by a
doctor)
Second Person Plural
It can be used as Singular, Plural, Specific
Person or to denote a group of people.
The same ambiguity as in We we saw
creates an opportunity for the writer to
create stylistic effects.
E.g the use of You by the Margret
Thatcher in interview is ambiguous. It
means You (2nd Person) or You (own self)
at different occasions.
Verb phrase consists of a main verb plus
optional auxiliaries. The main verb is
usually finite i.e. it tells time and voice.
Sometimes auxiliaries help it to convey
time and tense etc.
Several kind of tense can be used to
narrate the events by the authors it can be
past, present or even future.
Authors use verbs with a range of
auxiliaries and modals to create layers of
time and different flavors of aspect.
The Passive
NP + be + Verb + by + NP type
constructions are called passive voice. Here
the doer or the actor is put in background.
The consistent usage gives a formal effect
to writing style, as there is in scientific
writing where purpose is to focus away
from subject.
Passive can also be used to express
concern without responsibility.
As Something must be done.
But Im not going to do this.
Or to present a fact or opinion which can
be questionable.
E.g. Inflation must be beaten.
The Imperative
It is used to express commands. It can be
sometimes only a verb.
As commands may be unlikely for some
people alternative ways are used.
Cookery recopies contain lots of imperatives
but they can be ignored by the reader.
There are imperative which cannot be
ignored as by parent to child or by traffic
lights.
Non-finite Verb Forms to + base form
To wreak vengeance. To tear down. To
burn. To loot. To insult. To kill. The
President and the men who surrounded
him understood perfectly. They were not
led astray by specters: they were realists.
And, most important of all, the void and
hunger were within them too. Cheated
out of a self, the mob would not be
cheated out of its anguish.
This opening para is not marked by tense
in beginning. It has to + base forms in
non-finite clauses which reflect interior
thought, perhaps writer thinks interior
thought need not to be marked for
person, number and tense.
Infinitives can be used in different ways
to create different effects. E.g use of have
+ to + base creates an insisting effect
equal to that of should be.
-ing forms
They can appear with auxiliary or without it. They do
not tell time so have a general tone: something
happened, happens or can happen in future.
And morning after morning, all over the immense,
damp, dreary town and the packing-case colonies of
huh in the suburb allotments, young men were
waking up to another workless empty day to be
spent as they could best contrive; selling boot-laces,
begging, playing draughts in the hall of the
Labour Exchange, hanging about urinals, opening
the doors of cars, helping with crates in the markets,
gossiping, lounging, stealing, overhearing racing tips,
sharing stumps of cigarette-ends picked up in the
gutter, singing folk-songs for groschen in
courtyards and between stations in the carriages of
the Underground Railway.
It is first half of an opening para of a
novel. The use of ing forms create a fair
amount of timelessness as well as
dullness. The novel is written in a period
of economic depression the same effect
of dullness is tried to convey by the use
of non-finite verb forms.
Non-finite verb forms do not have time,
number agreement etc. They have a lot
of potential to create stylistic effects.
English clauses consist of Subject(S) +
Verb(V) +
Object/Complement/Adverbial(X) order.
Usual order is SVO, SVOC, SVOCA. The
additional elements are denoted here as X.
The relationship between S and X creates
the stylistic effect the writer desires. S is
usually given information and X therefore
would be new information in the sentence
or clause.
S(Bond) V(stood and gazed out) X(across the
sparkling water barrier between Europe and
Asia)
S (Given) . X (New)
S is usually already described, narrated and
discussed so it tends to be lighter and X
usually contains more information and
semantic density. Here we mean X mostly
the Adverbial parts of the clause.
GivenNew is also called unmarked pattern
of English as it consists of SV(O)(C)(A)
structure.
Relative Size of Syntactic Elements: Heavy X
Because X gives new information, it is
normal to have heavy X elements. They
create semantic density and richness.
S(He) V(found) X(there was just enough filtering
through the mist which hung eighteen foot up and
which did not descend to the ground, to make out
Ted, his goose, about already, a dirty pallor, almost
the same colour as Alice, the Persian cat, that kept
herself dry where every blade of grass bore its
dark, mist laden string of water)
Relative Size of Syntactic Elements:
Heavy S
As S is given information it is usually light
but sometimes writer deviates and
Subject is added with phrases and
relative clauses to describe it more.
S(The book of ballads published by Von
Humboldt Fleisher in the thirties) V(was)
X(an immediate hit).
The Position of Adverbials
The normal order of clause elements in
English is SVX. Sometimes the adverbial
parts are displaced. They are put before
the Verb or at the beginning of the
sentence/clause. This creates heavy
stylistic colouring and change readers
focus.
Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton
three hours, that they meant to murder
him.
With his inky fingers and his bitten nails,
his manner cynical and nervous, anybody
could tell he didnt belong to the early
summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off
the sea, the holiday crowd.
The italic parts of the above examples
are showing how writers displace
Adverbial Elements in clause/sentence to
create stylistic colouring.
Use of Main Clauses
Main clauses are those which can occur
independently. If the sentence has only one
clause then the single clause structure is
main clause. The use of only simple
sentences with single main clause shows the
lack of time for subordination and elaboration
of ideas more.
The commentary texts show such attitude
where there is no time to subordinate and
add extra information. Thus information flows
in short sentences of single clause structure.
Use of Co-ordinate Clauses
Here was to be learned the importance of
the guide, the man who knew local
customs, the fixer to whom badly printed
illiterate forms held no mysteries. Write
here, my guide said in the customs house,
aswirl with porters and guides and
officials and idlers and policemen and
travellers and a Greek refugee
whispering in my ear, Let me warn you.
They are stealing tonight. Write here.
The use of and and co-ordinate structure
gives freedom to the writer to describe
everything. It seems the observer is not
the part of the scene but standing
outside the frame keenly and calmly
observing what is going on and then
narrating the experience.
Apart from the and and structure of
the above example, it can be used
differently as well. Consider the example.
I came in over the Pole and we were
stacked up for nearly twenty minutes in a
holding circuit round London before they
could find us a runway and then we had to
wait for a bottle-neck on the ground to get
itself sorted out and all we could do was
stare through the windows at the
downpour and that didnt help.
Compare the above para with a slightly
changed version. Now there is no coordination.
Came in over the Pole. We were stacked up for
nearly twenty minutes in a holding circuit round
London before they could find us a runway. Then
we had to wait for a bottle-neck on the ground
to get itself sorted out. All we could do was stare
through the windows at the downpour. That
didnt help.
Text looses its frantic sense, every thing seems
calm and slow and peaceful.
We can see how the writers create a sense of
hurriness and fast tempo by the use of coordinate structures.
The Use of Sub-ordinate Clauses
The use of Sub-ordinate clauses helps
enhance the semantic density and stylistic
colouring. The reader has to stop and
think about what is going on. He has to
consider the relationship of the events
and as they are dependent on each other.
A very extreme example can be as below.
A single sentence is a whole paragraph
having one main and all other subordinate clauses.
Then, with Miss Worsham and the old negroes in Stevens car
with the driver he had hired and himself and the editor in
the editors, they followed the hearse as it swung into the
long hill up from the station, going fast in a whining lower
gear until it reached the crest, going pretty fast still but with
an unctuous, an almost bishoplike purr until it slowed into
the square, crossing it, circling the Confederate
monument and the courthouse while the merchants and
clerks and barbers and professional men who had given
Stevens the dollars and half-dollars and quarters and the
ones who had not, watched quietly from doors and upstairs
windows, swinging then into the street which at the edge of
town would become the country road leading to the
destination seventeen miles away, already picking up speed
again and followed still by the two cars containing the four
people the high-headed erect white woman, the old
negress, the designated paladin of justice and truth and
right, the Heidelberg Ph.D.in formal component to the
negro murderers catafalque: the slain wolf.
This is a scene of funeral. By stretching
the sentence for such a long time, writer
mimics the slow, formal process of the
funeral cortege.
Interrogatives
In English, interrogatives can be formed by
addition of Wh-words or by displacing the
verb from middle to initial position.
No all questions seek information. They may
be just be tag questions. Or they may be
open ended questions which cannot be
answered. Sometimes the writer himself
answers the questions in the narrative. The
open-ended questions can create a sense of
ambiguity when writer puts it on reader to
find the answer.
