Part I introduction 6 I. General notes on style and stylistics 6

D. PARTICULAR WAYS OF COMBINING PARTS OF THE UTTERANCE (LINKAGE)

Much light can be thrown on the nature of / i n k a g e if we do not confine the problem to such notions as coordination and subordination. Most of the media which serve as grammatical forms for combining parts within the sentence have been investigated and expounded in gram­mars with sufficient clarity and fullness. But sentence-linking features within larger-than-the-sentence structures—SPUs, paragraphs and still larger structures — have so far been very little under observation.
The current of fashion at present, due to problems raised by text-linguistics, runs in the" direction of investigating ways and means of combining different stretches of utterances with the aim of disclosing the wholeness of the work. Various scientific papers single out the following media which can fulfil the structural function of uniting various parts of utterances: repetition (anaphora, epiphora, anadiplosis, framing), the definite article, the demonstrative pronouns, the personal pronouns, the use of concord (in number, form of tenses, etc.), adverbial words and phrases (however, consequently, it follows then, etc.), prosodic features . (contrastive tone, the "listing" intonation pattern), parallel construc­tions, chiasmus, sustained metaphors and similes, and a number of other means.1
The definition of means of combining parts of an-utterance,,-rests on the assumption that any unit of language might, in particular cases, turn into a connective. Such phrases as that is to say, it goes without saying, for the which, however, the preceding statement and the like should also be regarded as connectives. It follows then that the capacity to serve as a connective is an inherent property of a great number of words and phrases if they are set in a position which calls forth continuation of a thought or description of an event.
To follow closely how parts of an utterance are connected and to clarify the type of interdependence between these parts is sometimes difficult either because of the absence of formal signs of linkage (asyndeton), or because of the presence of too many identical signs (polysyndeton).