Chapter V. Paradigmatic semasiology

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This branch of stylistics, more aptly called paradigmatic onomasiology ('science of naming') is not so much interested in concrete notional meanings of linguistic units as in the forms and general types of naming objects. Of special interest for stylistic onomasiology are cases of 'renaming', of changing names of things, processes, qualities. Paradigmatic onomasiology treats manifold problems of choice of nomination. From the viewpoint of the paradigmatic approach, language as a whole is a multitude of paradigms. Whenever a language user starts to speak, he always has to decide how to name the situation, what features of the object should be labelled, and in what way, by what lingual means.

When treating questions of semasiology (science of meanings) and onomasiology (science of nomination) one must take into account the following considerations:

1. Linguistic units (words, phrases, sentences, etc.) do not have immediate and stable connections with objects and situations (events) of reality: they only correlate in our minds with general ideas of objects and events. It would be wrong to say that the word book is directly attached to what you are now reading or that the sentence / am reading names only your own present occupation. There are billions of books in the world; millions of people are reading books at the present moment, but the word book and the sentence / am reading can be used by all: they are applicable to all book-readers. Hence: words, phrases, sentences do not denote concrete objects or given situations only. They denote whole classes of objects. By using a word, a phrase, a sentence, we put what we see or what we think in a certain class of things, phenomena, happenings. Books may be big or small, thick or thin, interesting or otherwise, but we neglect those differences, we call every constituent of this class a book, thus performing an act of generalization.

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2. Since there is no constant connection, no stable interdependence between words, phrases, sentences and the surrounding world, it is only natural that one and the same object may be called different names by different speakers and in different situations. To name an object, we must mentally place it in a suitable class, at the same time recalling the name of this class, the corresponding word or expression, or sentence. But every real object has an infinite number of characteristic features, some of which are objectively important, others are secondary, inconspicuous, unimportant for most people, but very essential for the speaker. Who can prevent one from mentioning a secondary feature if one wants to mention just this feature and hopes to be understood?

Now it must be clear why any object of speech can have innumerable denominations. The feature chosen by the speaker to name depends on his attitude to the object; it also depends on his particular communicative intention. Let us assume that the object of nomination is a certain man. The word man (or its stylistically specific counterparts, such as chap, guy, fellow, person, individual) can very well serve the purpose of identification: no listener will mistake the object of discourse for a house, a table, a car or anything else. But the speaker is free to use any other denominations that suit his purpose better. The same object can figure in speech as young gentleman, our next-door neighbour, my own darling, that greenhorn of yours, bloody blind bat (the last title could have been bestowed on a clumsy pedestrian by a furious driver).

All these denominations of our imaginary young man (as well as an unlimited number of others — my fellow countryman brother. Sergeant, her only son, blockhead, and so on) are not arbitrary, and not devoid of any connection (real or imaginary) with certain features, qualities, actions, etc. of the subject of speech. Words and expressions traditionally used with reference to a certain class of objects can be transferred and applied to a representative of quite a different class — yet this is always done in accordance with certain semantic laws. It is highly improbable that anyone would address the above-mentioned young man using the words traffic, yesterday, window-sill, minute, or snow.

Paradigmatic semasiology and onomasiology establish a classification showing semantic types of transfer of names and logical laws underlying them.

The problems of meaning (semasiology) and nomination (onomasiology) are essentially different from the branches of stylistics described in preceding chapters.

The first distinctive feature. Phonetics, morphology, lexicology, and syntax have clear-cut, formally limited fields of research. They only treat of phonemes (both segmental and suprasegmental), morphemes, words, and syntactic structures respectively. Semasiology, for its part, pays little or no attention to the differentiation of levels: semantically identical (or

similar) phenomena may occur in morphemes, words, phrases, sentences. Only phonemes do not concern semasiology, as they do not have extralingual meanings of their own.

The second distinctive feature. Students of the level-forming disciplines (phonetics, morphology, lexicology, and syntax) are mostly interested in the stylistic implication of units; they separate stylistically significant units from neutral ones, and attempt to find out to what sublanguage the former belong. The meanings of elements and the sense of utterances are, so to speak, on the periphery of their attention. In opposition to them, onomasiology and semasiology specially deal with 'renamings', 'transfers of names', i.e. with whatever brings about a radical change in the substance of the text.

All kinds of transfer of denominations (from a traditional object to a situational object) bear the name of tropes (from the Greek tropos 'turning'). This is the basic term of paradigmatic onomasiology, which studies only tropes and nothing else.

Every trope, as distinct from a usual, traditional, collectively accepted denomination of the object demonstrates a combination, a coincidence of two semantic planes (actually, of two different meanings) in one unit of form (one word, one phrase, one sentence). A trope, then, is a linguistic unit (word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, text) with two senses, both felt by language users. On hearing the exclamation Oh, youpigi (with reference to a person) the listener is aware of the traditional, original meaning of the word pig (the well-known domestic animal) and its actual reference which imparts an additional sense to the word — 'an untidy, greedy, or rude person'. The word acquires a new meaning, but its original meaning also remains (otherwise it would be senseless to use the word!).

Hence, the psychological essence of a trope is just the prominence given to two units of sense in one unit of form. Only the double meaning creates what is called an image: we observe a trope only if we see both meanings. If, however, the original meaning is obliterated, or at least no longer associated with the secondary one, there is no trope any more, although there may have been one when it was first created. There is no trope in leg of a table, neck of a bottle, foot of a hill, hand of a clock and the like. No one thinks of human legs, necks, feet, or hands when using these expressions. So they are a kind of 'etymological tropes' (metaphors), 'dead' tropes that are dealt with in lexicology, not in stylistics.

The use of tropes is, properly speaking, a false, erroneous qualification of an object. It is a device inconsistent with the primary reason for being (raison d'etre) of language, whose purpose and motto is 'calling a spade a spade'.

As already mentioned, tropes serve to create images that combine notions and as a result express something different from them both. A

cardinal property of an image is its genetic and ontological independence from lingual expression. An image, as a psychic phenomenon, arises before and outside its verbalization: imaginative perception of analogies, connections, contrasts of reality, overestimation or undervaluation of its properties — all these acts of cognition can take place without language. Music, like the Japanese ikebana (art of flower arrangement) are metaphorical throughout. Metaphors (allegories and symbols) lie at the foundation of painting, sculpture, architecture. The principle of metonymy — a detail in the foreground, a detail instead of the whole — is typical of the cinema. Exaggeration and restraint (hyperbole and meiosis — see below) can be seen in dancing. It is just this indifference of tropes to the means and forms of their expression, to language in general, that necessitates searching for a purely logical classification of types of renaming.

The problem has been discussed for many centuries, the tradition going back to antiquity. Aristotle in his Poetics treats the figurative use of words, not yet differentiating metaphor and metonymy. The literature on tropes is immense, but the majority of scholars were not interested in presenting them as a generalized system. Rare exceptions include A. Bain, an English philologist of the nineteenth century, who gave a very satisfactory explanation of the psychological essence of certain tropes.¹Most authors, however, either never attempt to solve the problem or propose purely subjective classifications (some of them describe tropes and other stylistic devices in alphabetical order²).

To achieve a more or less adequate treatment of the problem, it must be reduced to the simplest task possible. A very essential difficulty, which may have been taken into account, is the fact that stylistic terminology is the product of many epochs. Some of the terms denote very general, cardinal notions; others name particular phenomena that arise only if the material is viewed from a peculiar angle, sometimes inconsistent with the original aims of stylistic research.

One of these stylistic notions that do not match the system of paradigmatic onomasiology is the epithet. The term is used everywhere and, of course, has a perfect right to exist. But it is not a purely onomasiological term, nor a semasiological one either, since it has syntactic limitations: it is known that an epithet is an expressive attribute or adverbial modifier. No subject, ohject, or predicative can be an epithet. The notion, therefore, is a mixture, a hybrid — something partly semantic and partly syntactic. We cannot expect to find a place for the epithet among the tropes, for after all it is not a trope, although it may be metaphorical, metonymic, or ironical. To help the reader understand the situation better, we shall take a case that has nothing to do with linguistics, but presents the same logical problem. Let us assume that we

are to establish a general professional classification of all those working in an industrial enterprise. We might divide them into workers, technicians, engineers, clerks, and managers. This seems logical enough. But what happens with our classification if we enlarge it by only one additional class: tall, fair-haired, unmarried engineers and clerks? Such a group of people could, of course, be singled out (for instance, by the police or by an unmarried woman looking for a husband), but it is clear that such a group cannot be part of the strictly professional classification. The same with the epithet.

Similarly, the general system of tropes (which we are yet to discuss) cannot include specific varieties of tropes: personification, allegory are types of metaphor; synecdoche is the most primitive kind of metonymy; certainly connected with the latter are also symbol and periphrasis; litotes is a syntagmatic way of expressing meiosis. We shall return to these terms, but there is no place for them in the universal, generalizing scheme of renominations (transfer of names).

The multiplicity of concrete acts of renaming can be reduced to a strictly limited number of types.

Whenever we name an object or characterize a situation, we either follow the usual, collectively accepted, rules of naming, or deviate from them. If we are guided by the rules (saying what everyone would say), there is no transfer, there is nothing for stylistics to analyse in our speech act. If, however, we deviate from accepted standards, we can do it either quantitatively (1) or qualitatively (2).

1. What is a quantitative deviation? It is either saying too much, overestimating the dimensions of the object (the intensity of its properties), or else it is saying too little, undervaluing the size of the thing, its importance, and so on.

Picture a situation. In answer to the question Have you got any money on youl the person addressed replies: Yes, I have three dollars. There is nothing in this reply for stylistic analysis (provided the man is telling the

truth).

Another situation. The answer to the same question is: Oh, yes, lot si This time the stylist pricks up his ears: the owner of the three dollars is obviously exaggerating his wealth.

One more possibility. The reply is: Yes, just pennies though. Here, the speaker understates what he really has (three dollars, after all!).

The change from what ought to have been said to what really was said is in both cases purely quantitative in nature.

2. By qualitative differences between what is expected to be said and what is actually said we mean a radical difference between the usual meaning of a linguistic unit and its actual reference ('occasional meaning'). The shout Hey you, green coat! You left your handbag does

not address a coat of green colour, but the woman who wears it. The angry remark A perfect ass, really! contains a noun very far in meaning from nouns denoting a human being. The word fine in the bitter statement.A fine friend you are! means exactly the opposite.

One more remark. Since all stylistic devices are traditionally called figures of speech (although it is better to use the term only with reference to devices consisting of more than one element, for which see the next part of the book), we shall call tropes figures of replacement. For every trope is really a replacement: the language user discards the usual name of the object and replaces it with another.

Now we can discuss our classification. Figures of replacement (tropes) are first of all divided into two classes: figures of quantity and figures of quality.

The former consist of two opposite varieties: overstatement (hyperbole), i.e. exaggeration, and understatement (meiosis), i.e. weakening.

The latter (figures of quality) comprise three types of renaming:

a) transfer based upon contiguity, upon a real connection between the object of nomination and the object whose name is used; the corresponding term is metonymy;

b) transfer by similarity (likeness, affinity) of the two objects (real connection non-existent); the term is metaphor;

c) transfer by contrast: the two objects (actions, qualities) are diametrically opposite; the term is irony.

This classification is visualized in the scheme below:

Figures of Replacement (Tropes)

Figures of Quantity

Hyperbole

Figures of Quality

Meiosis

Metonymy

Metaphor

Irony

Fig. 7

Figures of quantity demonstrate the most primitive type of renaming. Their basis is inexactitude of measurement, disproportion of the object and its verbal evaluation.

Hyperbole. This trope — exaggeration of dimensions or other properties of the object — is an expression of emotional evaluation of reality by

a speaker who is either unrestrained by ethical conventions or knows that exaggeration would be welcome. Quite naturally, the main sphere of use of hyperbole is colloquial speech, in which the form is hardly ever controlled and the emotion expressed directly, without any particular reserve.

Many colloquial hyperboles are stereotyped:

A thousand pardons. I've told you forty times. He was frightened to death. I'd give worlds for it. Haven't seen you for ages. In colloquial speech, expressions of this kind are the natural outcome of uncontrolled emotions or just habit. In any case, the listener is seldom affected by a stale hyperbole: neither the listener, nor sometimes even the speaker notice the exaggerations; no one takes the words at their face value. But it is the other way round in works of poetry or fiction, where exaggerations serve expressive purposes and achieve their aim: they are noticed and appreciated by the reader, though he also, as in the previous case, does not take them seriously.

An expressive hyperbole, as distinct from trite ones (used in everyday speech), is exaggeration on abig scale. There must be something illogical in it, something unreal, utterly impossible, contrary to common sense, and even stunning by its suddenness. True, the commonly used stock of phrases also comprises hyperboles, very strong because of their absurdity: see, e.g. the phrase ire less than no time or the Russian без году неделя.³ But witty as they are, they are known to everybody, whereas individual creations strike us by virtue of their novelty.

One of the characters of a book by Derbridge "murmured such a dreadful oath that he would not dare to repeat it to himself. In the story, Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning, Mark Twain thus creates the picture of general merriment:

"One after another those people lay down on the ground to laugh — and two of them died."

Having matter-of-factly mentioned this, the author pretends to be serious, going on: "One of the survivors remarked...".

It is evident that paradoxical, illogical hyperboles are employed for humor istic purposes. Here is an example from another famous American humorist:

"There I took out my pig... and gave him such a kick that he went out the other end of the alley, twenty feet ahead of his squeal." (O. Henry)

It must not be lost sight of that the lines quoted were written half a century before the era of supersonic jets!

Linguistic means of expressing exaggeration are varied. So, for instance, certain tautologies (pleonastic, overburdened structures

expressing one idea twice) are examples of hyperbole, as in the following instance:

"One does not know whether to admire them, or whether to say 'Silly fools'. " (Christie)

Very often, however, hyperbole is combined with metaphor (see below in this chapter). The metaphor in such cases demonstrates a gigantic disproportion between what is characterized (named) and the characteristics given:

"And talk! She could talk the hind leg off a donkey!" (Peters) The famous American detective-story writer James Hadley Chase is so fond of this device that he uses practically the same hyperbole in his book Hit and Run two times:

"'You can come down to the station and make a complaint if that's the way you feel about it,' he said in a voice that could have peeled rust off the keel of a ship."

"One of them said in a voice that could have loosened a rusty nut off the propeller of a liner: 'Hey! You! Where do you think you are going?'"

Another hyperbole from the same book will suffice to show how immense the exaggeration can be:

"'Thank you for your help, sir.' This to Aitken. 'And for yours too.' His small eyes moved to me. Then, in a silence you could lean on, he plodded across the terrace, went down the steps to the waiting police car."

Meiosis, or understatement. This trope is the logical and psychological opposite of hyperbole. It is lessening, weakening, reducing the real characteristics of the object of speech. In other words, it is a device serving to underline the insignificance of what we speak about.

A typical meiosis is, for instance, the current expression It will cost you a pretty penny which in reality implies not a penny, but perhaps many pounds (or dollars), certainly a large sum of money!

Here follow two examples of meiosis taken from The Buyer from Cactus Cityby O. Henry. A New Yorker, owner of a big firm, talks condecendingly to the buyer mentioned in the title of the story:

"And what did you think of our little town?" asked Zizzbaum, with the fatuous smile of the Manhattanite.

His provincial visitor admits the achievements of New York, but tries hard to remain patriotic:

"You've got good water, but Cactus City is better lit up." His host shoots at him another sarcastic meiosis:

"We've got a few lights on Broadway, don't you think, Mr. Platt?"

One should be careful not to confuse meiosis with certain varieties of hyperbole, which is sometimes done by professional linguists who say that a cat-size pony(=& very small pony) or a drop of water (= not much water) are examples of meiosis.⁴ Their opinion cannot be accepted. It is meiosis only when the speaker understates normal or more than normal (e.g. big) things. That is what we see in a pretty penny, little town (of New York), a few lights on Broadway. When, however, the object spoken about is really small or insignificant, and the expression used to denote it strengthens and emphasizes its smallness and insignificance, we have a hyperbole, not a meiosis: he lives a stone's throw from here (he lives near indeed, but not as near as a stone's throw — cf. the Russian рукой подать); just a moment, please (very soon, but certainly not in a moment); the same in the expression before you could say Jack Robinson. Let us have one more example of hyperbole which could have been mistaken by other authors for meiosis, since the idea discussed is that of small amount:

"She sang listlessly as if she were bored with the whole thing, and the applause she collected could have been packed into a thimble, without overflowing." (Chase)

Viewing the matter psychologically, we can state that hyperbole appeals directly to the imagination, being itself a direct expression of emotional extravagance. The essence and the basis of meiosis is somewhat more complicated and refined. Meiosis may also be regarded as a kind of strengthening through apparent weakening. The speaker confides in the intelligence of the addressee: the latter is expected to discern the speaker's intentional modesty, the obvious contrast between what he says and what he thinks, what he means to say.

Meiosis has no definite formal expression (on litotes see the next section); various linguistic means serve to express it: I was half afraid you had forgotten me. I kind of liked it. She writes rather too often. I am not quite too late.

A humorous effect is observed when meiotic devices (words and phrases called 'downtoners' — maybe, please, would you mind, etc.) co-occur with rough, offensive words in the same utterance: It isn't any of your business maybe. Would you mind getting the hell out of my way? It is widely known that understatement (meiosis) is typical of the British manner of speech, in opposition to American English in which

hyperbole seems to prevail. G. McKnight remarks that the word rather is a 'super-superlative' in England (the reader must have noticed that McKnight's own word super-superlative is sheer hyperbole!). Whenever an English gentleman means to say You have amazed me, he merely asks: Really?; his lavishing praise of a thing is: Not so bad? Not at all so bad! Of course, this opinion about Britain is an overstatement: it characterizes the rules of behaviour of the upper classes only: besides, even an aristocrat uses as many overstatements as he likes. Therefore, the following story characterizes the general opinion rather than the real state of things.

An English girl and an American girl climb a steep mountain in the Alps. The English girl says: It's a bit exhausting, isn't it? The American echoes: Why, sure, it's terrific!!!

Litotes. This term denotes a specific form of meiosis, not an independent trope. Litotes is expressing an idea by means of negating the opposite idea. Thus if we intend to say with his assistance, we turn this into its opposite (by making the construction negative): without his assistance, and then we negate it again, saying: not without his assistance. What is the result? The result is double negation, and from mathematics we know that two minuses make a plus.

But our last statement is faultless only with reference to mathematics. In language, the result is indeed affirmative, but the meaning obtained is weakened: not without his assistance is weaker than with his assistance. That is why litotes produces a meiotic effect.

The negation may be doubled in different ways. The previous example turned the preposition with into its opposite without (which itself expresses a negative idea), and then we added the negative particle not. In the next example two negative affixes (prefixes) make a litotes within one word:

"Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage." (O. Henry) The word unillegal aptly characterizes the "professional" activity,

the speciality of the swindler Jefferson Peters.

A variety of litotes employs instead of two negative elements the

negation of the antonym of the idea to be expressed. The effect of

"weakening" is the same. A highly current sample of this kind of litotes

is the word-combination not bad, in which bad (the antonym of good), being

negated, results in something weaker than just good.

Litotes is very frequent in English — at any rate it seems to be used

more often than in Russian. Examples:

"... she was not unlike Morgiana in the 'Forty Thieves'." (Dickens) "And Captain Trevelyan was not overpleased about it." (Christie) "A chiselled, ruddy face completed the not-unhandsome picture."

(Pendelton)

Less obvious examples:

"You wouldn't exactly call Warley heavily industrialized." (Braine)

"His suit... had... that elasticity disciplined only by first-rate tailoring which isn't bought for very much under thirty guineas." (Braine)

In comparing the two opposite quantitative tropes — hyperbole (overstatement) and meiosis (understatement) — it might be mentioned here that they are not mutually exclusive: they often alternate in the same narrative. It looks as if saying too much urged the narrator to compensate the next time, that is to disclose less than expected. Sometimes, the ostentatious use of the two stylistic devices betrays a propensity to mannerism, to impressing the reader.

Illustrative of both habitual use of the tropes discussed and purposely, expressive ornamentality are detective novels by Raymond Chandler.

Thus, one of his female characters is condescendingly characterized in passing as having once been younger. In the same novel, a policeman assures the narrator (a private detective): "He [the policeman's superior] doesn't like you any more than we do"

The understatements quoted seem matter-of-fact, cursory, and almost inconspicuous. So are some of Chandler's overstatements, as in the following scrap of a telephone call from the police station:

"Marlowe? We'd like to see you here, in the office." "Right away?" "Or sooner."

But the writer's manner changes as he turns from the policemen's ready-made jokes to his imaginary narrator's personal experience. Chandler's exaggerations become uncommonly bold and striking with their suddenness:

"I was stunned like a dervish, weak like an old motor, defenceless like a beaver's belly, and as sure of success as a ballet dancer with a wooden leg."

The strongest of the four assimilations comes last, making the whole a climax (the meaning of the term is explained in the chapter on syntagmatic semasiology, p. 155).

See also one of Chandler's absurd hyperboles:

"His grey face was so long that he could wind it twice round his neck."

Mentioning in the same book (The Little Sister) a writing desk the size of a tennis court, Chandler goes on to admire the overflow of anything the rich can afford, letting the reader catch a mental glimpse of a multimillionaire's way of life. The narrator's fantasy takes a gigantic leap:

"The serviceman was bent under the load of drinks which he had to carry across the terrace to the swimming pool, the size of Lake Huron, only much less dirty."

At times, Chandler's manner of exaggerating becomes circumlocutory (i.e. periphrastic). One of his characters, consuming what they claim to be a New York steak in a third-rate snack-bar, wonders why New York should be mentioned at all. For, as he says, everybody knows: it is in Detroit, not New York, that tyres are manufactured.

Figures of Quality

As shown above, we distinguish between three types of transfer of names:

a) transfer by contiguity;

b) transfer by similarity;

c) transfer by contrast.

a) Transfer by contiguity is based upon a real connection between the two objects: that which is named and that the name of which is taken. Saying, for instance, / was followed by a pair of heavy boots, we do not mean animate boots following the speaker, but something qualitatively different, though connected with the boots — a man wearing those boots.

b) Transfer by similarity is based on likeness (common features) of the two, there being no actual connection between them. In the sentence The reception was cold we resort to this type of transfer. There is no connection between people's attitude and temperature, there is only resemblance here: a cold reception affects our mood in much the same way as cold weather affects our bodies.

c) Transfer by contrast is the use of words, phrases, sentences and complete texts with implied meanings that are directly opposite to those which are primary, traditional, collectively accepted. This trope is not infrequently used when we pretend to praise somebody or something instead of directly expressing the opposite opinion: A fine friend you are!; That's a pretty kettle of fish!

The reader is now familiar with the terms: renaming by contiguity is metonymy, transfer by similarity is metaphor; transfer by contrast is irony. The tropes are further treated individually.

Metonymy. This is applying the name of an object to another object that is in some way connected with the first.

Whenever we say something like The kettle is boiling or The gallery applauded, we do not actually mean the vessel or the theatre balcony, but what is connected with them: the water, or the spectators. The thought is thus concretized and its expression shortened (cf.: the water in the kettle, the spectators in the gallery).

Metonymy is widely used as an expressive device visualizing the ideas discussed, but the above examples have no expressive force. Like many others (/ am fond of Dickens; I collect old china and the like) they are instances of "etymological" metonymy (of the kind that belongs to our everyday stock of words and expressions). Such cases of metonymy are dealt with in lexicology. They are part of language; we cannot say they are used to impart any special force to linguistic expression.

But other varieties of metonymy, namely, those concerning human emotions, have expressive force even though they may not be new creations, but rather stereotyped, traditional ones. When Alfred Tennyson says She is coming, my life, my fate, he does not make a discovery, yet the poet's feelings are vividly characterized. A century later, the Russian poet Mikhail Isakovsky wrote something similar to Tennyson's lines: "... за рекой в поселке моя любовь, моя судьба живет."

Expressive metonymy is used by another writer in his descriptiorfof how the fish desperately takes the death, instead of saying that it snaps at the fish-hook.

Types of metonymy-forming interrelations of two objects are manifold. E.g., they maybe:

Names of tools instead of names of actions —

"Give every man thine ear and few thy voice." (Shakespeare) Consequence instead of cause — the above example with the fish-hook. Characteristic feature of the object —

"Blue suit grinned, might even have winked. But big nose in the grey suit still stared." (Priestley)

Symbol instead of object symbolized — crown for king or queen. This enumeration could be continued indefinitely. A few further illustrations:

The first of the two examples to follow, taken from the same book, is traditional and transparent, the second is not so obvious and more difficult to classify:

"We smiled at each other, but we didn't speak because there were ears all around us." (Chase)

"'Save your breath,' I said. 'I know exactly what you have been thinking. '" (Chase)

Here, saving one's breath implies abstaining from speech. The following example demonstrates a still more elaborate and remote implication:

"... he didn't realize it, but he was about a sentence away from needing plastic surgery." (Clifford)

The implication is: if he had gone on talking, if he had uttered another sentence, he would have been beaten up, and his face disfigured so as to need plastic surgery.

A similar 'consequence' metonymy, characterizing the potential of Joe's aggressive fists is used in the following microdialogue: "Did he say where he was going?"

"No. He paid his rent and beat it. You don't ask Joe questions unless you want a new set of teeth." (Clifford)

Sometimes the metonymic essence of a sentence is discernible only because of the context. Thus the sentence The walk to the hotel seemed endless (Chandler) does not make any special sense if one does not know that the character was mortally afraid of those who were taking him to the hotel.

Two examples of metonymic epithets. She lives at an expensive address (Christie) implies the fact that the address is in a fashionable part of the cijy where the rent is very high. E. McBain in his Eighty Million Eyes uses the phrase armchair detection in which the epithet discloses the methods used by the detective, who sits in his armchair and ponders over the possible versions.

Synecdoche. The term denotes the simplest kind of metonymy: using the name of a part to denote the whole or vice versa. A typical example of traditional (stereotyped) synecdoche is the word hands used instead of the word worker(s) (Hands wanted) or sailors (All hands on deck!). See also expressions like a hundred head of cattle. Here, a part stands for the whole. The same in the use of the singular (the so-called generis singular) when the plural (the whole class) is meant — this is observed in cases like A student is expected to know... (or: The student...).

"Wherever the kettledrums were heard, the peasant (= all the peasants) threw his bag of rice on his shoulder, tied his small savings in his girdle, and fled with his wife and children to the mountains or the jungles, and the milder neighbourhood of the hyena and the tiger (= of hyenas and tigers)." (Macaulay) The opposite type of synecdoche ("the whole for a part") occurs when the name of the genus is used in place of the name of the species, as in Stop torturing the poor animall (instead of... the poor dog\); or when the 'plural of disapprobation' is resorted to: Reading books when I am talking to youl (actually, one cannot read more than one book at a time).

Periphrasis. This does not belong with the tropes, for it is not a transfer (renaming), yet this way of identifying the object of speech is related to metonymy. Periphrasis is a description of what could be named directly; it is naming the characteristic features of the object instead of naming the object itself. What helps to differentiate periphrasis from metonymy

is that the former cannot be expressed by one linguistic unit (one word): it always consists of more than one word. Thus, calling an exciting book a thriller, the speaker uses a trite (stereotyped) metonymy; calling it, however, two hundred pages of blood-curdling narrative, he uses periphrasis.

This device always demonstrates redundancy of lingual elements. Its stylistic effect varies from elevation to humour. Writers of past epochs employed periphrasis a great deal, seeing in it a more elegant and euphemistic manner of expression than in "calling a spade a spade" (let it be mentioned here in passing that anti-euphemists — those who are against hypocrisy — proclaim: "/ never call a spade a spade, I call it a bloody shovel"). Cowper characterizes tea as the cups that cheer, but not inebriate. Dickens pompously calls lies told by one of his characters alterations and improvements on the truth. In the same novel (Oliver Twist) he abstains from quoting the exact words of another criminal character:

"What do you mean by this?" said Sikes, backing his inquiry with a very common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features."

He who knows English sufficiently and is familiar with the Puritan morality of the nineteenth century banning words that seem quite tolerable in our day, will easily guess Sikes' imprecation: Damn your eyes! Agatha Christie resorts sometimes to what might be called here "periphrasis proclaimed": she warns the reader that she is intentionally euphemistic:

"Major Burnaby was doing his accounts or — to use a more Dickens-like phrase — he was looking into his affairs."

"Pearson had apparently before now occasionally borrowed money — to use a euphemism — from his farm — I may say without their knowledge."

In twentieth century prose, periphrasis often carries a humoristic load. Besides the two examples adduced, here is a mention in another detective novel of a man shouting some choice Anglo-Saxon phrases at the policeman. The phrases were surely indecent.

The greatest American short-story writer of the beginning of this century, O. Henry, is famous for his paradoxical descriptions. One would hardly exaggerate saying that all his texts are applied stylistics; they abound in original stylistic devices, periphrasis not excluded:

"Delia was studying under Rosenstock — you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys (= as a pianist)... Delia did things in six octaves so promisingly..." (= played the piano so well...). "Up Broadway he turned and halted at a glittering cafe, where

are gathered together nightly the choicest products of the grape, the silkworm, and the protoplasm" (= the best wine, dresses, people).

"And then, to the waiter he betrayed the fact that the minutest coin and himself were strangers" (= that he did not have a single coin; that he had no money at all).

Metaphor. This term (originally applied indiscriminately to any kind of transfer) denotes expressive renaming on the basis of similarity of two objects: the real object of speech and the one whose name is actually used. But there is only affinity, no real connection between the two.

As they are disconnected, to find features in common, the speaker must search for associations in his own mind, that is not as is the case with metonymy, where both objects lie before our eyes. Hence, we may assume that the creation of a metaphor requires a greater intellectual effort on the part of the speaker: here, he does not use the name of what is open to his view, but the name of that which he has somewhere in the stock of his experience. Metaphor seems, therefore, to be a more essential shift (change of semantic planes) than is observed in metonymy; it presupposes a more conspicuous disparity between the traditionally practiced and the virtual use of the name of the thing (process, phenomenon, relation, etc.).

Thus, in a hundred head of cattle (metonymy) the equation a head = an animal demonstrates what is evident without any previous experience. In the next example, however, — Head of Government (metaphor) — the equation is replaced by a proportion: 'the principal, leading, commanding member of Government performs similar functions with regard to the latter as does a head to its body'. The difference seems clear enough; the drawback of the second example is that it deals with the notion of head that has a metonymic tinge about it as long as we deal with humans or animals.

A more appropriate example is filmstar. There is obviously no connection between a star and a renowned actress (actor). What unites the two notions is identity of some characteristic features: both are outstanding, conspicuous, seen by everyone, known to all, placed higher than others. If we went on to say both are luminous against the background of obscurity, we should be using another metaphor.

The expressions Head of Government, film-star, as well as many others (foot of a hill, bottle's neck, leg of a table, needle's eye, etc.) disclose the essence of metaphor, but are of little or no interest for stylistics, since they are everybody's goods, part of the common vocabulary, no more than 'etymological' metaphors: there are no other names for what is called nowadays needle's eye or leg of a piano. As for the last example, it reminds us of the prudish nineteenth-century ladies of Boston, who avoided using words referring to sinful human flesh and exciting frivolous thoughts:

instead of legs of the piano they said euphemistically limbs of the piano; their own legs were referred to as benders; body was replaced by waist.

Metaphor then (or metaphorical renaming) is not only an effective stylistic device (examples will be discussed later on), but also a common lingual means of occasional denomination. Whenever a speaker does not know the name of a thing he has not seen before, he generally resorts to a metaphor, using a word (expression) which denotes a similar thing, a thing familiar to him. Similarity on which metaphorical renaming is based may concern any property of the thing meant. It may be colour, form, character of motion, speed, dimensions, value, and so on, that show a resemblance. Sometimes a nonce denomination becomes generally accepted (see examples above) and comes to be traditional, hardly ever to be noticed by language users.

Stylistics deals preferably with 'living', expressive metaphors either trite (stereotyped, hackneyed), i.e. ready-made and only reproduced by the speaker, or newly-created, fresh, helping to visualize the picture. Trite metaphors, and still more fresh ones, affect our imagination. The general stylistic function of a living metaphor is not a mere nomination of the object in question, but rather its expressive characterization.

Trite (ready-made) metaphors are expressions, originally created in poetry, in the Bible, in imaginative prose, that have gained wide currency, and become known to everybody. Their expressive force has been partly obliterated, but not lost altogether: they would not be used otherwise.

Examples of trite metaphors are expressions like seeds (roots) of evil, a flight of (the) imagination, to burn with desire. Many of them are set phrases: to fish for compliments, to prick up one's ears, the apple of one's eye, and others. Special calculations undertaken by the present author⁵have shown that over 30% of set phrases in English are metaphors.⁶

Trite metaphors are made use of in the following instances:

"I suppose," said Suzanne doubtfully, "that we're'nof barking up the wrong tree [= here not accusing an innocent person]?... (Christie)

"Pat and I were chewing the rag about it (= were chatting about it) when the telephone bell on Pat's desk came alive (= rang)." (Chase)

"What's bit ing her, I wonder?" (Chase) The implication is: what makes her uneasy.

"How about playing the game with the cards face up," Bolan suggested. (Pendelton)

The implication is: how about speaking sincerely? Two fresh metaphors follow here, although one cannot be sure whether the expressions were created by the writer, and not borrowed by him from someone else.

"Only briefly did I pay heed to the warning bell (= the feeling of alarm) that rang sharply in my mind. You're fooling with Aitken's wife, I told myself... You could regret it the rest of your life." (Chase)

"If Aitken found out about us the New York job would go up in smoke" (= every chance of getting the New York job would be lost). (Chase)

Metaphor has no formal limitations: it can be a word, a phrase, any part of a sentence, or a sentence as a whole. Moreover, there are not only 'simple* metaphors, i.e. those in which only one statement is metaphorical as a whole, or contains a metaphorical element (word, phrase), but 'sustained' metaphors as well. The latter occur whenever one metaphorical statement, creating an image, is followed by another, containing a continuation, or logical development of the previous metaphor. Thus, in the following extract from The Last Leaf by O. Henry we can see a detailed account of the mischief done by cold to the poor of New York:

"In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores... Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman..."

This sustained metaphor is a sample of personification (see the next section). Another example:

"This is a day of your golden opportunity, Sarge. Don't let it turn to brass." (Pendelton)

The admonition has at least two meanings. Turning gold (= golden opportunity) to brass is bad luck by itself. But the speaker also has in view the colloquial meaning of the word brass — 'insolence, impudence'; he (a police lieutenant) urges the sergeant (Sarge) to stop being insolent and to confess his crime.

A sustained metaphor (chain of metaphors) may consist of trite metaphors expressing or implying a certain logical development of ideas, and yet the objects mentioned in each of them pertain to different semantic spheres, due to which the links of the chain seem disconnected with one another. The general impression is incongruous, clumsy and comical. This phenomenon — incongruence of the parts of a sustained metaphor — is called catachresis (or mixed metaphors).

See an illustration in German:

"Der Zahn der Zeit, der schon manche Trane getrocknet, wird auch ilber diese Wunde Grass wachsen lessen."⁷

In English:

"The Tooth of Time, which has already dried many a tear, will let the grass grow over this painful wound."

The expression tooth of time implies that time, like a greedy tooth, devours everything, makes everything disappear or be forgotten.

Another example, belonging to Agatha Christie (although she puts it into the mouth of Hercules Poirot, a Belgian by birth, who knows English very well):

"For somewhere," said Poirot to himself, indulging in an absolute riot of mixed metaphors, "there is in the hay a needle, and among the sleeping dogs there is one on whom I shall put my foot, and by shooting the arrow into the air, one will come down and hit a glass-house!"

The incongruous metaphors in this monologue refer to well-known sayings, proverbs, and quotations: to look for a needle in a haystack; to let sleeping dogs lie; to put one's foot down; I shot an arrow into the air (Longfellow); People who live in glass-houses shouldn't throw stones.

Allusion. The example just discussed could also be regarded as a set of allusions. The term allusion denotes a special variety of metaphor. As the very meaning of the word shows, allusion is a brief reference to some literary or historical event commonly known. The speaker (writer) need not be explicit about what he means: he merely mentions some detail of what he thinks analogous in fiction or history to the topic discussed. Of course, the educational level of the listener (reader) is expected to be sufficient to grasp the real sense of the message. The author of the following lines, J.H. Chase, has no doubt his reader is acquainted with one of the most famous of Shakespeare's plays:

"If the International paid well, Aitken took good care he got his pound of flesh..." (Chase)

The meaning of the allusion is: "... would do anything to his victim to get what had been granted him by the contract." To understand it one would have to recall Shakespeare's Shylock, a usurer in The Merchant of Venice who lends Antonio three thousand ducats for three months on condition that on expiration of the term, if the money is not paid back, Shylock is entitled, as he says to Antonio, to "an equal pound of your (Antonio's) fair flesh, to be cut off and taken in what part of your body pleaseth me".

"Allusions," I.R. Galperin aptly remarks, "are based on the accumulated experience and knowledge of the writer who presupposes a similar experience and knowledge in the reader."⁸

Personification is another variety of metaphor. Personification is attributing human properties to lifeless objects — mostly to abstract notions, such as thoughts, actions, intentions, emotions, seasons of the year, etc.

The stylistic purposes of personification are varied. In classical poetry of the seventeenth century, it was a tribute to mythological tradition and to the laws of mediaeval rhetoric:

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year! (Milton) In poetry and fiction of the two succeeding centuries the purpose of personification is to help to visualize the description, to impart dynamic force to it or to reproduce the particular mood of the viewer.

Let us recall The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens, where the cricket and the kettle compete in singing, or the description of little misfortunes in Dot Peerybingle doing about the house:

"Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted to the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself to the knobs of the coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very idiot of a kettle." (Dickens) To what has been said, a few remarks might be added concerning certain formal signals of personification.

First of all, the use of the personal pronouns he and she with reference to lifeless things is often a more or less sure sign of this stylistic device (except in cases mentioned in the chapter on stylistic morphology — see above). Here is an example from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome:

"Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand on our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained face up to hers, and smiles, and, though she does not speak, we know what she would say and lay our hot, flushed cheek against her bosom and the pain is gone."

Personification is often effected by direct address. The object addressed is thus treated as if it could really perceive the author's appeal: О stretch thy reign, fair Peace! from shore to shore Till conquest cease, and slavery be no more. (Pope) Another formal device of personification is capitalization of the word which expresses a personified notion:

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet. (Byron)

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same... (Kipling)

Sometimes, however, the capital letter has nothing in common with personification, merely performing an emphasizing function:

"It [the wind] seems to chant, in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder done, and false Gods worshipped; in defiance of the tables of the Law..." (Dickens)

Antonomasia. Metaphorical antonomasia is, in a way, a variety of allusion. It is the use of the name of a historical, literary, mythological, or biblical personage applied to a person whose characteristic features resemble those of the well-known original. Thus, a traitor may be referred to as Brutus, a ladies' man deserves the name of Don Juan. The word hooligan going back to a proper name has lost its capital letter; the same happened to the word quizling (from the name of the notorious Norwegian collaborator in the years of the Second World War).

Note. In books on lexicology, the term antonomasia is used to denote two varieties of the use of proper names as common nouns. Along with metaphorical antonomasia, metonymic antonomasia is observed in cases when a personal name stands for something connected with the bearer of that name who once really existed. In sentences like He has sold his Vandykes (Hurst) or This is my real Goya (Galsworthy), or even / am fond of Dickens (= of Dickens' books) there is hardly anything of special stylistic significance; still less in common nouns mackintosh, sandwich, shrapnel (each originating from a proper name).

Allegory. The term is traditionally used in stylistics, and is therefore discussed here, although it pertains to linguistics no more than such terms as novel, poem, plot and the like do. Allegory is a term in literature, or even in art in general (painting, sculpture). It means expressing abstract ideas through concrete pictures. The term is mostly employed with reference to more or less complete texts, not to individual, particular metaphors within a lengthy text.

As for shorter allegorical texts, they are represented by proverbs. In a proverb, we find a precept in visual form; the logical content of the precept is invigorated by the emotive force of the image (as shown above, in "Metaphor", an image is a combination of two notions). Thus the proverb Make hay while the sun shines implies a piece of advice having nothing in common with haymaking or sunshine: "Make use of a favourable situation; do not miss an opportunity; do not waste time."

See also: All is not gold that glitters (= Appearances are deceptive); Beauty lies in lover's eyes (= Feeling excites imagination); compare the old Russian proverb: He по хорошу мил, апомилухорош...;£иег1/с/оыс{ has a silver lining (= A period of distress is sure to have an end); No rose without a thorn (= Everything has its drawbacks).

Note. One should not confuse proverbs with maxims, i.e. with non-metaphorical precepts: A friend in need is a friend indeed; Better late than never; You never know what you can do tilt you try. They are not allegorical; there is nothing figurative in them: they яге understood literally, word for word.

Certain genres of literature are allegorical throughout: thus, fairy stories and, especially, fables always imply something different, something more important for human problems than what they seem to denote literally. Allegory is found in philosophical or satirical novels. In his famous allegorical satire Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, describing Lilliputians and Brobdignagians, depicts his own contemporary England with her vices, political intrigues, and religious strife.

In the section on metonymy (see above) it was mentioned that a symbol may stand for the object symbolized (crown - king). We recall it here, because allegory is based, though not often, on metonymic grounds: using names of symbols, the speaker (writer) expresses, in a figurative way, an idea quite different from the primary meanings of its constituents.

When, for instance, we hear the words It is time to beat your swords into ploughshares, we understand it as an appeal to stop hostilities in favour of peace.