Экзамен по стилистике Stylistics as a science and style as a main stylistic category

Syntactical SDs based on transferred use of structural meaning:
a) Rhetorical question
b) Litotes


Inversion, detached constructions and elliptical constructions
Stylistic inversion. The direct word-order in English is: Subject-Predicate-Object combination, it points unmistakably at the subject of the sentence.
Stylistic inversion breaks the order of words in the sentence but doesn’t change its grammatical meaning. The logical message remains the same. The emphatic character of the sentence is increased. In the inverted word order the emphasized members of the sentence are usually placed in the position with a full force of the stress on them. Most frequently emphasized members are: Predicates, Objects, and Adverbial modifiers including, so-called post-positions. Ex.: “Unmistakably she had once been young, pretty she could never have been.” “Do try this. Beautiful those donkeys were.”
In Stylistic inversion the direct word order is changed either completely so that predicate precedes the subject or partially so that the object precedes the subject-predicate pair. Ex: Never had Henry Pootel-Piglet run so fast as he ran then. (A. Miln)
Stylistic inversion aims at emphasis, vividness of narration, dynamic effect, expressiveness, rhythm and other purposes. The truth of it is evident: “Rude am I in my speech”. The SD of inversion is more typical of the English language than of the Russian language.
We should remember that the stylistic device of inversion should not be confused with grammatical inversion which is a norm in interrogative construction: Is he still hesitating? Questions may also be rearranged: Ex. "Your mother is at home?" (J. Baldwin). In this case the inverted question presupposes the answer with more certainty than the normative one. It is the assuredness of the speaker of the positive answer that constitutes additional information which is brought into the question by the inverted word order.