Detached Construction

a sentence by some specific

consideration of the writer is placed so that it seems formally independ-

ent of Ще^ш^1У^^ parts of structures are called lie t ached. They seem_tCLjdan£le in the sentence as isolated parts. """""The detacfted part, being torn away from its referenf, assumes a greater llegree of significance and is given prominence by intonation. The structural patterns of detached constructions have not yet been classified, but the most noticeable cases are those in which;.. aiLjIttri-bute or an adverbiajjnqdifier is placed not in immediate proximity to Its referent, but in somebiher positFon", aTTfi thefollowingexamples:

1) "Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in

his eyes." (Thackeray)

2) "Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather un­steady in his gait." (Thackeray)

Sometimes a nominal phrase is thrown into the sentence forming a syntactical unit with the rest of the sentence, as in:

"And he walked slowly past again, along the river—an evening of clear, quiet beauty, all harmony and comfort, except within his heart." (Galsworthy)

The essential quality of detached construction lies in the fact that the isolated parts represent a kind of independent whole thrust into The sentence or placed in a position which will'make the phrase (or word) seem independent. But a detached phrase cannot rise to the rank of a primary member of the sentence—it always remains secondary from the semantic point of view, although structurally it possesses all the fea­tures of a"primary:'~member. This clash of the structural and semantic aspects of detached constructions produces the desired effect—forcing the reader to interpret the logical connections between the component parts of the sentence. Logical ties between them always exist in spite of the absence of syntactical indicators.

Detached constructions in their common forms make the written vari^^^langua^l'jalcin to* the spoken variety where the relation be­tween the component parts is effectively materialized by means of into-TTation. Detached construction, as it were, becomes a peculiar device bridging the norms of written and spoken language.

This stylistic device is akin to inversion. The functions are almost the same. But detached construction produces a much stronger effect, inasmuch as it presents 'parts of the uttexance^significant from the au­thor's ppiflt^Tyle^vIffi''T''.^^'nDif"'less independent manner. " """"Here are some more examples of-detached constructions:

"Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the pop­lars." (Galsworthy)

"'I want to go,7 he said, miserable" (Galsworthy) "She was lovely: all of her—delightful." (Dreiser)

The italicized phrases and words in these sentences seem to be isolat­ed, but still the connection with the primary members of the correspond­ing sentences is clearly implied. Thus 'gold behind the poplars' may be

interpreted as a simile or a metaphor: the moon like gold was rising behind the poplars, or the moon rising, it was gold...

Detached construction sometimes causes the simultaneous realiza-tion~ofTwo grammatical meanings of a word. In the "sentence" Ч want to go,' He said, miserable", the last word might possibly have been under­stood as an adverbial modifier to the word said if not for the comma, though grammatically miserably would be expected. The pause indicated by the comma implies that miserable is an adjective used absolutely and referring to the pronoun he.

The same can be said about Dreiser's sentence with the word de­lightful. Here again the mark of punctuation plays an important role. The dash standing before the word makes the word conspicuous and, being isolated, it becomes the culminating point of the climax— lovely... —delightful, i. e. the peak of the whole utterance. The phrase all of her is also somehow isolated. The general impression suggested by the implied intonation, is a strong feeling of admiration; and, as is usually the case, strong feelings reject coherent and logical syntax.

In the English language detached constructions are generally used in the belles-lettres prose style and mainly with words that have some explanatory function, for example:

"June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity — a little bit of a thing, as somebody said, 'all hair and spirit'..."

(Galsworthy)

Detached_cpnstruction as a stylistic device is a typification of the synractical peculiarities of colloquial language.

Detached construction is a stylistic phenomenon which has so far been little investigated. The device itself;js_clQsely connected wiibLlUe intonation pattern of the utterance. In conversation any word or phrase or even sentence may be made more conspicuous by means of intonation. Therefore precision in the syntactical structure of the sentence is not so necessary from the communicative point of view. But it becomes vitally important in writing.1 Here precision of. syntactical-relations is the only way to make the utterance fully communicative. Therefore when the syntactical relations become obscure, each member of the sentence that seems to be dangling becomes logically significant.

A variant of detached construction is p a re n t h e sis,

"Parenthesis is a qualifying, explanatory or appositive word^ phrase, clause, sentence, or other sequence which interrupts^ syntactic construc­tion without otherwise affecting it, having often % cffafacteristic into­nation and indicated in writing by commas, brackets or dashes."2

In fact, parenthesis sometimes embodies a considerable volumejDf predicativeness, thus giving the utterance.an. additional nuance of mean­ing or a tinge of emotional colouring.

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