文体学课件3.ppt

Stylistics Lecture Three Grammar and Style Topics covered 1. Grammar and style A. A basic model of grammar B. Variations in basic clause structure 2. Sentence styles: development and illustration A. Sentence types B. Trailing constituents, equivalent constituents and anticipatory constituents C. Illustration of grammar in action 3. Grammar and genre: a short study of imagism A brief introduction When we talk of the grammar of a language we are talking of the rules of that language. In the academic study of language, the expression ‘rules of grammar’ does not refer to prescriptive niceties. These so-called ‘rules’ are nothing more than a random collection of special and prejudiced strictures about language use. On the contrary, the genuine grammatical rules of a language are the language that stipulate the very basis of its syntactic construction in the same way that the rules of tennis or the rules of chess constitute the core organizing principles of those games. A basic model of grammar Most theories of grammar accept that grammatical units are ordered hierarchically according to their size. This hierarchy is known as a rank scale. Sentence (clause complex), clause, phrase (or group), word, morpheme Four basic elements of clause structure The examples highlight grammar’s capacity to embed units of different sizes within one another. Indeed it is a distinguishing characteristic of clause structure that its four basic elements are typically realized by certain types of phrases. The rule which stipulates that a verb phrase must fill up the P slot is a hard and fast one, whereas the rules about what sorts of phrases go into the other three slots are less absolute and are more about typical tendencies. Test for clause constituents 1) by asking various questions around the verb S finding who or what placed in front of the verb C finding who or what placed after the verb A finding how, when, where and why