STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

1. Affixation and its expressiveness.

2. Stylistic potential of parts of speech.
2.1. Stylistic potential of the noun.
2.2. Stylistic potential of articles.
2.3. Stylistic potential of adjectives.
2.4. Stylistic potential of pronouns.
2.5. Stylistic potential of verbs.

1. Affixation and its expressiveness.

Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit which can be singled out in a
word. There are root and affixational morphemes.
One of the effective ways of foregrounding morphemes is extension of
their traditional distribution which leads to appearance of new words. These
words are created only for special purposes and practically are never used out of
the texts they appear in. Such words are called occasional words.
Consider the example taken from the poem by e.e. cummings:
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease;
Occasional words are especially numerous in children‘s literature (fairy
tales in particular) where they help to create mysterious, magic atmosphere. For
instance, in the popular books about Harry Potter, one can find many examples
of occasional words created with the help of suffixation put-outer; prefixation
countercurse, anticheating; compounding deathday party, kwikspell,
broomcare; contraction remebrall (нагадувалка) [Лысенко 2007].

2. Stylistic potential of parts of speech.

2.1. Stylistic potential of nouns.
 The stylistic function of nouns is based on the deviation from the
grammatical norm.
The category of number:
Abstract nouns are usually used in the singular form, but when they
acquire the plural form they become expressive and more concrete. N.M.
Rayevska defines the following stylistic functions of abstract nouns in the plural
form [Rayevskaya, 1973: 31]:
1) they may express intensification of meaning: Oh! Wilfrid has emotions,
hates, pities, wants; at least, sometimes; when he does, his stuff is jolly good (J.
Galsworthy). The peculiar look came into Bosinney‟s face which marked all his
enthusiasms (J. Galsworthy).
2) they may express iterative (repetative) character of action or state: The
look on her face, such as he had never seen before, such as she had always
hidden from him, was full of secret resentments, and longings, and fears (M.
Mitchell).
When used in the plural form, proper nouns acquire expressive
connotation and become more symbolic: Fleur, leaning out of her window,
heard the hall clock‟s muffed chime of twelve, the tiny splash of a fish, the
sudden shaking of aspen‟s leaves in the puffs of breeze that rose along the river,
the distant rumble of a night train, and time and again the sounds which none
can put a name to in the darkness, soft obscure expressions of uncatalogued
emotions from man and beast, birds and machine, or, maybe, from departed
Forsytes, Darties, Cardigans, taking night strolls back into a world which had
once suited their embodied spirits. (J. Galsworthy).

Intensification of plurality is also achieved through the use of set

expressions [Rayevskaya, 1973: 33]: Clusters of huts lay in clearings by a
stream snaking through bushes and speckles of sun (A. Sillitoe). A swarm of
jealous suspicions stung and stung her (J. Galsworthy).
 Nevertheless, singular forms can also acquire stylistic meaning, e.g. to
hunt tiger instead of to hunt tigers.

The marker of the category of possessiveness, the formant ‘s constantly

widens the sphere of its usage and its combinability. It frequently combines with
inanimate and abstract nouns, e.g. kitchen’s work, the plan’s failure.
Sometimes it refers to a word group or a sentence, e.g.: The blonde I had
been dancing with’s name was Bemice Crabs or Krebs (Salinger).
The poetic use of the possessive case for personification is especially
expressive, as in: Foggartism had a definite solution of England’s troubles to
work toward – an independent, balanced Empire … (J. Galsworthy). The
ground was covered with crocuses, yellow, violet, white, and with daffodils; the
trees had eagerness in every twig, stretching their buds upward to the sun’s
warmth; the blackbirds were in song (J. Galsworthy).

2.2. Stylistic potential of articles.

Articles may impart stylistic colouring to the noun. There are some ways
of achieving stylistic effect through the usage or non-usage of articles
[Rayevskaya, 1973: 35]:
1) the use of the indefinite article with the nouns denoting unique
objects (sun, moon, sky, earth) adds emphasis and vividness to the description:
It was a benign day, with fine white fleecy clouds suspended in a blue sky (R.
Aldington). In the early afternoon when he reached Edinburgh a low sun broke
through (A. Cronin).
2) the indefinite article with proper names might acquire evaluative
meaning: Joggartism had a definite solution of England’s troubles to work
towards – an independent, balanced Empire; an England safe in the air, and
free from unemployment – with Town and Country once more in some sort of
due proportion. …It had been the old England when they lived down yet here –
the England of packhorses and very little smoke, of peat and wood fires, and
wives who never felt you, because they couldn’t probably. A static England, that
dug and wove; where your parish was your world, and you were a
churchwarden if you didn’t take care (J. Galsworthy).
3) the indefinite article combined with names of persons may denote:
a) one representative of a family: At first we were glad that Miss Emily
would have an interest because the ladies all said: “Of course a Grierson would
not think seriously of a Northerner, a day labourer (Faulkner);
b) a person unknown to the communicants: He said, You have not then
had a Captain Curtis staying here (A. Christie);
c) a temporary feature of character: That day Jane was different. It was a
silly Jane.
4) the definite article used with proper names indicates a temporary or
permanent quality of the person in question: Unreasoning terror turning
everything to account, his old time boyish admiration of the athletic Tom, the
undaunted Tom (he had seemed to him invincible), helped to paralyze his
faculties, added to his despair (J. Conrad).
The repeated use of the definite article intensifies the expressive
colouring of nouns as in: Think of the needy man who has spent his all,
beggared himself and pinched his friends, to enter the profession, which will
never yield him a morsel of bread. The waiting – the hope – the disappointment
– the fear – the misery – the poverty – the blight of his hopes, and the end to his
career – the suicide perhaps, of the shabby, slip-shod drunkard (Ch. Dickens).

2.3. Stylistic potential of adjectives.

Foregrounding of adjectives may be achieved through intentional
violation of rules of formation of the degrees of comparison. For instance, in
the following example from the fairy-tale How the Leopard Got His Spots by
Rudyard Kipling a jocular accumulation of incorrect forms of degrees of
comparison makes the story sound more childish:
The Giraffe and the Zebra and the Eland and the Kodoo and the
эartebeest lived there and they were „sclusively sandy- yellow-brownish all
over; but the leopard he was the „sclusivest sandiest-yellowest-brownest of
them all – a grayish-yellowish catty-shaped kind of beast … .
Special attention should be paid to expressive synonyms of the English
adjective, which are represented by such stylistically marked structures as
[Rayevskaya, 1973: 45]:
Adjective of Noun
blue of eye (blue-eyed)
kind of heart (kind-hearted)
e.g.: If I were a sculptor and desired to idealize the successful man of
affairs, the iron of nerve and leathery of conscience, I should choose Mr. Neil
Gibson as my model (A. Doyle).
Noun 1 of Noun 2
the rascal of a land-lord, a jewel of a child, a devil of a fellow, a giant of
a man, a brute of a horse, the ghost of smile, the hell of a job etc.
e.g.: Well, she was getting an old woman. Swithin and he had seen her
crowned – slim slip of a girl, not so old Imogen (J. Galsworthy). … and Martin
Eden followed his exit with longing eyes he felt lost, alone there in the room with
that pale spirit of a woman (J. London).
“of-phrase” (prepositional attribute)
e.g.: She has a half-smile on her face – a smile of hopeless surrender and
of secret joy (J. Galsworthy). A tree of memories, which would live on hundreds
of years yet unless some barbarian cut it down …(J. Galsworthy).

2.4. Stylistic potential of pronouns.

 Pronouns in contrast with nouns and adjectives are rarely used
stylistically, which makes their stylistic usage especially expressive. A particular
stylistic effect may be created due to the usage of archaic (thee, thou, thy) or
low colloquial forms of pronouns (aa, aw, ah, used for I; us, used for me (+
such forms as iz, ez; me, mi, ma, wor, wa used for my (!); meself, myself, mesel,
mysen, mesen for myself, etc.) (for more details, see
https://sites.google.com/view/dialectologicallandscapes/the-grammar-of-north-
east-english/1-morphology/pronouns?pli=1).
While archaic forms make the speech sound official or solemn, low
colloquial forms usually render some speech characteristics which reflect the
speaker’s background: “a think Henry was unreal as well but a still think
Aguero is the best”; “Ah’m not unhappy about living in Australia”; “some
aunty bought ez it”; “Me car’s broke”; “I’m just about to have mi tea”; “Too
right I want caviar on mee cheesy chips anarl!”, “I am getting wor lass to drop
us off afterwards”, “Was just going to make mesen a Tuna salad baguette”.
Pronouns can also undergo various contextual transpositions [Rayevskaya
1973: 56-61]:
1) I→we transposition:
a) Pluralis Auctoris I ―editorial we, when the author speaks on behalf of
a certain group, party, or class: “Because he was a sorry: we never part with
things you know, unless we want something in their place; and not always then
(Galsworthy)
b) Pluralis Majestatis, when we is used as a symbol of royal power:
“God’s death! My lord” such was her emphatic phrase, “what means this? We
have thought well of you, and brought you near to our person; but it was not
that you might hide the sun from our other faithful subjects. Who gave you
license to contradict our orders, or control our officers?..” (W. Scott).
 c) Pluralis Modestial, when we is used as a means of involving the reader
or listener into the author‘s thoughts. It is typical of oral and written scientific
prose;
d) when we is employed to impart to the utterance a jocular
unceremonious colouring.
2) I→one transposition gives an utterance a more general, impersonal
character: “You say you didn‟t think you‟d be believed? Altogether too
improbable a story?”
“No, but the more one speaks the truth, the less one expects to be
believed” (Galsworthy).
3) I→you transposition is frequently employed in reported speech and
some descriptions; it also imparts to the utterance the freshness of immediate
address to the listener or reader: I‟m ancient, but I don‟t feel it. That‟s one
thing about painting, it keeps you young (J. Galsworthy).
4) I→he/she transposition takes place when the speaker tells his/her story
as an onlooker; addresses himself/herself as an interlocutor; overstresses his/her
relevance; laughs away what is said about him/her by the others;
5) you→we( clinical we) - transposition conveys a patronizing attitude of
the senior/superior to the junior/inferior. It can create a humorous effect. See the
example: Doctor Harry spread a warm paw like a cushion on her forehead
where the forked green vein danced and made her eyelids twitch: ”Now, now, be
a good girl, and we‟ll have you up in no time (K. Porter).

2.5. Stylistic potential of verbs.

The verb is semantically and stylistically the richest part of speech in the
English language.
N.M. Rayevska states that there are only few purely stylistically marked
forms of the verb in English [Rayevskaya, 1973: 65-67]. To such forms the
scholar refers:
  archaic verbal conjugated forms such as: doth – does, hath – has,
(he/she) saith – says, thou canst – you can, spoke – spake etc.: Oh, Carrie,
Carrie! Oh, blind strivings of the human heart! Onward, onward, it saith, and
where beauty leads, there it follows (Th. Dreiser).
Archaic verb forms are mainly employed in fiction, especially in historical
novels where they create historical atmosphere. Verbal archaisms may also add
expressive connotation to the whole text imparting it high flown tonality;
 stylistically marked regional verbal forms of the Past Indefinite that
emphatically mark negation: she saw not = she didn‟t see, John knew not =
John didn‟t know etc.: …The tune died and was renewed, and died again, and
still Soames sat in the shadow, waiting for he knew what not (J. Galsworthy);
 negative forms of the Imperative Mood without an auxiliary verb
do: Venus! Touch not the goddess – the hot, jealous one with the lost darl eyes!
He had touched her in the past, and she had answered with a blow.
Touch her not?! (J .Galsworthy).
 inverted constructions of analytical verbal forms: But to her
pleadings, Scarlett turned a sullen face and a deaf ear. Marry she would! And
quickly, too. Within two weeks (M. Mitchel) [Rayevskaya, 1973: 67].
 inverted constructions of modal verbal predicate: “Quite needlessly,
my child, for marry him you must” (G. Meredith) [Rayevskaya, 1973: 67].