AN ISOLATED CONNECTIVE WORD AS A CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE OF AN EXPRESSIVE RHEME

Valerii Bohdan

(Berdiansk, Ukraine)

Unsatisfactory solutions to the problems of the status of adjoining constructions (АC) and the distinction between them and the other types of adjoining and parcelling have led to a renewed interest in the research into supra-sentence units [2; 5]. Having analysed the communicative organization of ACs and complex sentences, we have singled out existential, modal, and expressive types of rhemes in their structure [3]. While examining expressive rhemes, the attention of researchers is attracted by one of the means of stylistic (vivid and clear) singling out of the second part of a supra-sentence unit [1, p. 86] – a graphically separated adjoining connective word (AСW), which is homonymous to a coordinating or subordinating connective word. Separation of an AСW lies in its graphical isolation from the rest of the adjoined part (AP) by full stops or even a full stop and an exclamation mark. Although AСWs in such a graphical representation are relatively infrequent, they are, nevertheless, a very characteristic feature of an expressive rheme. In this case, this AСW becomes a separate statement as in the examples below.

(1) FineBU. WhateverAP. [I just wish I knew what you were talking about] (J. Grisham).

The AСW Whatever, which is formally separated from all sides by full stops (and hence by long pauses) into a separate statement, assumes a special significance here and an additional logical emphasis. The AC itself assumes laconism and significant expressiveness [7, p. 72]. We share Professor Viktoriia Samokhina’s opinion who notes that in this function “the conjunction itself does not convey an independent message, it lacks the communicative outcome proper” (the translation is ours – Valerii Bohdan) [4, p. 29] only in relation to the AСWs that are homonymous to coordinating AСWs. Unlike them, the AСWs that are homonymous to subordinating ones can preserve their semantic value, even when they are isolated into a separate syntagma. For instance, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2010) gives similar examples and explanation of such meanings for an isolated AСW whatever: “(informal, ironic) used as a reply to tell somebody that you do not care what happens or that you are not interested in what they are talking about” and “(informal) used to say that you do not mind what you do, have, etc. and that anything is acceptable" [6]. Thus, the ACW, in this case, concentrates and embodies the entire contents of the adjoined part (AP) of the AC. It should be noted that this property is not inherent in complex sentences at all due to the fact that their clauses (in comparison with the parts of ACs) preserve a greater structural, semantic, and intonation unity due to stronger links between them, and therefore it is impossible to put a full stop after a conjunction in a complex sentence.

Consequently, with such a formalisation of an AC, the ACWs that are homonymous to coordinating conjunctions can form an AP only together with an utterance following them whereas the ACWs homonymous to subordinating conjunctions can form a separate AP by themselves. We can eliminate a full stop after an ACW homonymous to a coordinating conjunction, thus merging both parts of an AP. In this case, of course, an AP will lose part of the communicative intention of an author, but such a transformation is quite possible whereas merging of an ACW homonymous to a subordinating conjunction (whatever) with an utterance following it is impossible (because then it will form a completely different semantic and syntactic relationship than when it is separated from the two sides by full stops, and thus the semantic well-formedness of the merged utterance will be broken).

From our point of view, a fundamental difference between ACWs homonymous to coordinating and subordinating conjunctions with such a formalisation of an AP of the AC is that the separated former ones are obligatory followed by the next thought (for the expression of which they were used), while the latter ones can stand alone and end both a paragraph (as in (2)) and even the whole of a supra-phrasal unity:

(2) If I could take home enough to show beyond doubt that the plundering of his house had its roof in the sale of a painting in Australia, it should get the police off his neck, the life back to his spirit, and Regina into a decent graveBU.

If.AP 1

And I would have to be quick, or it would be too late to matter AP 2 (D. Francis).

In this example, the ACW If is singled out by the author with a certain communicative intention (to focus attention on the doubts of the interlocutor) not just into a separate AP1, but into a separate paragraph. It is obvious that the narrator's thought is being formed on the spur of the moment, and he still does not know what he is going to say at the next moment. The AP2 together with the AСW homonymous to the coordinating conjunction begins a new paragraph and ends the unit (And I would have to be ...). Such a graphic formalisation of AP1 as well as long pauses before and after it undoubtedly increase its semantic value, informational significance and help the author to focus (to attract, capture, concentrate, direct, draw) the reader’s attention on the information provided after the isolated ACW.

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