11. Oxymoron, zeugma, pun.

Oxymoron is a combination of two words (mostly an adjective and a noun or an adverb with an adjective) in which the meaning of the two clash, being opposite in sense. (awfully nice)

If the primary meaning of the qualifying word changes or weakens, the stylistic effect of oxymoron is lost. Sometimes the tendency to use oxymoron is the mark of certain literary trends and tastes. There are poets in search of new shades of meaning in existing words, who make a point of joining together words of contradictory meaning.

Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context, the semantic relations being, on the one hand, literal, and, on the other, transferred.

This stylistic device is particularly favoured in English emotive prose and poetry. Zeugma is strong and effective device to maintain the purity of the primary meaning when the two meaning clash. By making the meaning conspicuous in this particular way, each of them stands out clearly.

The pun is another stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or phrase.

It’s difficult do draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and the pun. The only reliable distinguishing feature is a structural one: zeugma is the realization of two meanings with the help of a verb which is made to refer to different subjects or objects (direct or indirect). The pun is more independent. There need not necessarily be a word in the sentence to which the pun-words refers. This doesn’t mean, however, that the pun is entirely free. Like any other stylistic device, it must depend on the context.

Puns are often used in riddles and jokes.

10. Rhythm and rhyme.

Rhythm exists in all spheres of human activity and assumes multifarious forms. The most general definition of it is following: Rhythm – is a flow, movement, procedure, etc., characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements of features, at beat, or accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements or features. Webster’s New World Dictionary.

Rhythm is the main factor which brings order into the utterance. The influence of the rhythm on the semantic aspect of the utterance is now being carefully investigated and it becomes apparent that orderly phonetic arrangement of the utterance calls forth orderly syntactical structures which, in their turn, suggest an orderly segmenting of the sense-group. Rhythm in language necessarily demands oppositions that alternate: long, short; stressed, unstressed; high, low; and other contrasting segments of speech. Academician Zirmunsky suggest that the concept of rhythm should be distinguished from that of metre.

Metre is any form of periodicity in verse, its kind being determined by the character and number of syllables of which it consists. The metre is an ideal phenomenon characterized by its strict regularity, consistency and unchangability, whereas rhythm is flexible and sometimes an effort is required to perceive that. In classical verse it’s perceived at the background of the metre, in accented verse – by the number of stresses in a line, in prose – by the alternation of similar syntactical patterns.

Divergence from the ideal metrical scheme is an inherent quality of rhythm in verse. The range of divergence, however, have its limits. Permissible deviations from the given metre are called modifications of the rhythmical pattern.

Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words. Rhyming words are usually placed at a regular distance from each other. In verse they are generally placed at the end of the corresponding lines. Identity and particularly similarity of sound combinations may be relative. There are five different kinds of rhyme are distinguished:

1. The full rhyme presupposes identity of the vowel sound and the following consonant sounds in the stressed syllable: might, right; needless, heddles.

2. Incomplete rhymes present a great variety. They can be divided into two main groups: vowel rhymes and consonant rhymes. In vowel rhymes the vowels of the syllables in corresponding words are identical, but consonant may be different: flesh-fresh-press. Consonant rhymes, on the contrary, show concordance in consonant and disparity in vowel: worth-forth; tale-tool-Treble-trouble; flung-long.

3. Modifications in rhyming sometimes go so far as to make one word rhyme with a combination of words; or two or even three words rhyme with a corresponding two or three words: upon her honour – won her. Such rhymes is called compound or broken. The peculiarity of rhymes of this type is that the combination of words is made to sound like one word – a device which inevitably gives a colloquial and sometimes a humorous touch to the utterance.

4. Compound rhyme may be set against what is called eye-rhyme, where the letters and not the sounds are identical: love-prove; flood-brood. Thus, eye-rhyme can be perceived in written speech only. Many eye-rhymes are the result of historical changes in the vowel sounds in certain positions.

5. There is still another variety of rhyme which is called internal rhyme. The rhyming words are placed not at the ends of the lines, but within the line, therefore breaking the line into two distinct parts, at the same time more strongly consolidating the ideas expressed in these two parts. This rhyme fulfills tow seemingly contradictory functions: dissevering, on the one hand, and consolidating, on the other.

According to the way the rhymes are arranged within the stanza, certain models are distinguished:

1. couplets – when the last words of two successive lines are rhymed. aa

2. triple rhymes – aaa

3. cross rhymes – abab

4. framing or ring rhymes - abba