Stylistic syntax

Stylistic syntax is the branch of linguistics which investigates the stylistic value of syntactic forms, stylistic functions of syntactic phenomena, their stylistic classifications as well as their appurtenance to sub-languages or styles.

The very forms of sentences and word-combinations may be either expressive or neutral. What is commonplace, ordinary, customary, normal must be stylistically neutral. We are to take for stylistically neutral the structure of a simple sentence not possessing any particular deformities as regards the number of its constituents or their order. On the other hand, any perceptible deviation from the normal and generally accepted structure of the sentence changes stylistic value of the utterance, making the sentence stylistically significant - expressive emotionally or belonging to some special sphere of one sub-language or another.

It is not only syntactical forms of separate sentences that possess certain kinds of stylistic value, but the interrelations of contiguous syntactical forms as well.

Thus, the expressive means of syntax may be subdivided into the following groups:

1. Expressive means based upon absence of logically indispensable elements.

2. Expressive means based upon the excessive use of speech elements.

3. Expressive means consisting in an unusual arrangement of linguistic elements.

4. Expressive means based upon interaction of syntactical forms.