Abstract
In this paper I present a stylistic analysis of a short discourse by Bertrand Russell. My purpose is twofold: first, to suggest an approach to syntactically based stylistic analysis that goes beyond mere frequency counts, and, second, to draw out some linguistic ramifications of the approach.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a stimulating discussion of successiveness and simultaneity in language, see Jakobson (1960).
- 2.
Except various technical sentences, as of mathematics or chemistry, for instance; or on the other hand, sentences of poetry.
- 3.
See Ross (1967) for a discussion of the problem of pinning down the characteristics of linguistic units of a certain length.
- 4.
An interesting discussion of how such units are signalled is given in Halliday (1967a).
- 5.
Different types of nominals are listed separately: there are listings for factive, genitive, action, question, infinitive, and N of N nominals. Whether these nominals should be considered separately is debatable. I consider them separately here since the underlying elements are presented in different surface forms, depending on the type of nominal. However, this difference may turn out to be unimportant in understanding.
- 6.
A discourse is unique with respect to a particular period and a particular genre, among other things; Thomas Pynchon would be more unique had he written during the eighteenth century than he is today, and Samuel Johnson would be more unique today than in his own time.
- 7.
For an explanation of what is covered by this category, and by others, in the lists, see the section on details of the syntactic analysis, 2.4
- 8.
I refer here to constructions like that in the relative clause of sentence (3). Such constructions are to be distinguished from as that can be replaced by about (as in the main clause of the same sentence) and from cases with a PP with as as an obligatory verb complement, e.g. with the words speak of, conceive, regard, in Russell’s discourse.
- 9.
In the sense of the Russian formalists, cf. Mukarovsky (1967). The approach of the formalists is introduced with notable clarity in the first chapter of Gopnik (1970).
- 10.
It is not clear why such sentences are ungrammatical. Fodor (1970) suggests that a surface constraint blocks two by-phrases, but note that not all successions of by-phrases are ungrammatical: Mary was seen by John by the river bank. A possible explanation, offered only tentatively, is that in the offending sentence both by-phrases come from the same sentence, and that it is this that must be blocked.
- 11.
This sentence was suggested by Senta Plotz.
References
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1969). Deep structure, surface structure, and semantic interpretation. In R. Jakobson and S. Kawamoto (eds.), Studies in General and Oriental Linguistics (pp. 154–196). TEC Co. Tokyo.
Elliot, D., Legum, S. and Thompson, S. A. (1969). Syntactic variation as linguistic data. Papers from the 5th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 52–59). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fillmore, C. J. (1968). The case for case. In E. Bach and R. Harms (eds.), Universals in linguistic theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1–88.
Fillmore, C. J. (1970). Subjects, speakers, and roles, Working papers in linguistics No. 4. Columbus: The Ohio State University, 31–63.
Fodor, J. (1970). Three reasons for not deriving ‘kill’ from ‘cause to die’. Linguistic Inquiry 1, 429–438.
Fodor, J. and Garrett, M. (1966) Some reflections on competence and performance. In J. Lyons and R. Wales (eds.), Psycholinguistics papers (pp. 135–179). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Gopnik, I. (1970). The theory of style and Richardson’s Clarissa. The Hague: Mouton.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1967). Notes on transitivity and theme in English, Part 2, Journal of Linguistics 3, 199–244.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1967). The linguistic study of literary texts. In S. Chatman and S. R. Levin (eds.), Essays on the language of literature (pp. 302–307). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Hiz, H. (1968). Referentials. Transformations and discourse analysis papers, 76. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania.
Jakobson, R. (1960). The language of poetry. In T. R. Sebeok (ed.), Style and language. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Jakobson, R. (1966). Grammatical parallelism and its Russian facet. Language 42, 399–429.
Keenan, E. (1969). A theory of extended discourse. Unpublished paper, University of Pennsylvania.
Lakoff, G. and Peters, S. (1969). Phrasal conjunction and symmetric predicates. In D. Reibel and S. Schane (eds.), Modern studies in English (pp. 113–142). Englewood: Prentice Hall.
Langedoen, D. (1970). The accessibility of deep structures. In R. A. Jacobs and P. S. Rosenbaum (eds.), Readings in English transformational grammar (pp. 99–104). Waltham: Ginn & Co.
Levin, S. (1962). Linguistic structures in poetry. The Hague: Mouton.
Milic, L. (1967). A quantitative approach to the style of Jonathan Swift. The Hague: Mouton.
Mukarovsky, J. (1967). Standard language and poetic language. In S. Chatman and S. R. Levin (eds.), Essays in the language of literature (pp. 241–249). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton Century Crofts.
Ohmann, R. (1964). Generative grammars and the concept of literary style. Word 20, 423–39.
Ross, J. (1967). Constraints on variables in syntax. Unpublished MIT dissertation.
Russell, B. (1967). Philosophical essays. NewYork: Simon & Schuster.
Smith, C. S. (1969). Ambiguous sentences with And. In D. Reibel & S. Schane (eds.), Modern studies in English (pp. 75–79). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Smith, C. S. (1970). An experimental approach to children’s linguistic competence. In J. R. Hayes (ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 109–133). New York: John Wiley Press.
Watt, W. (1970). On two hypotheses concerning psycholinguistics. In J. R. Hayes (ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 137–220). New York: John Wiley Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smith, C.S. (2009). Sentences in Discourse: an Analysis of a Discourse by Bertrand Russell. In: Meier, R., Aristar-Dry, H., Destruel, E. (eds) Text, Time, and Context. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 87. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2617-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2617-0_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2616-3
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2617-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)