SEMI-MARKED STRUCTURES

Semi-marked structures are a variety of defeated expectancy associ­ated with the deviation from the grammatical and lexical norm. It's an extreme case of defeated expectancy much stronger than low ex­pectancy encountered in a paradox or anti-climax, the unpredictable element is used contrary to the norm so it produces a very strong emphatic impact.

In the following lines by G. Baker we observe a semi-marked structure on a grammatical basis:

The stupid heart that will not learn the everywhere of grief

The word everywhere is not a noun, but an adverb and cannot be used with an article and a preposition, besides grief is an abstract noun that cannot be used as an object with a noun denoting location. However the lines make sense for the poet and the readers who interpret them as the poetic equivalent of the author's overwhelming feeling of sadness and dejection.

Arnold considers semi-marked structures as a part of tropes based on the unexpected or unpredictable relations established between objects and phenomena by the author.

Combination of semi-marked lexical units in our normal everyday speech is rare. However in spite of their apparent incongruity semi-marked structures of both types are widely used in literary texts that are full of sophisticated correlations which help to read sense into most unpredictable combinations of lexical units.

IRRADIATION

Behind irradiation stands the fact that few or even one lingual unit with an outstanding stylistic function may attach a peculiar sounding to the whole speech unit.

It is the influence of a specifically coloured word against the stylistically different tenor of the narration.

“And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the Black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience ” (H.Melville).

SALIENT FEATURE

Salient feature is associated with philological cycle: to and through motion – movement of the reader. Salient feature is a convenient starting point for analyses. It is something on the surface, easily catch, noticeably.

STRONG POSITION

Convergence often occurs in what is called the "strong position". The term is self-explanatory if we take into consideration that the position of an element in the text is of importance in bringing the logic or the beauty of what is said to the reader's attention. The elements may be made prominent by the fact that they stand out most effectively in the title, in the first line, or in the closure of the text. The great informational value of these parts is determined by psychological factors. It is quite natural, therefore, to find in these points some key image reinforced by convergence. This does not mean, of course, that there always is a convergence in these points.

The title plays an important part in providing a clue to the meaning of the whole, being the starting point of a chain of expectations that tune the reader's mind to what he perceives. The title may name the main characters, state their social roles, their relationships, the scene and the time of the action. The subject and the main idea may also be hinted at, either directly (The Man of Property) or by means of allusion (Of Mice and Men).

The end of the text is the final test where everything becomes clear in retrospection: the correct guesses are confirmed and the wrong ones rejected. Sometimes "poets rely on the reader to select the aesthetically most acceptable solution" when several are possible.

The sense of finality is dependent on the integrity and correlation of the thematic and formal structure of the preceding lines. The effect of closure is to sum up the poem's theme. Sometimes the final touch is unexpected and shows the whole in a new light. Quite often the final strong position is made even stronger by a combined effect of several types of foregrounding, such as convergence or coupling, or defeated expectancy. All three are present, for instance, in the final couplet of Shakespeare’s Sonnet XIX:

Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

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