Incomplete sentences as a means of expressing the language of works for children by Yevhen Hutsalo

Abstract

Introduction. Today, in the modern Ukrainian literary language, colloquial speech is a source of active use of words, forms and syntactic constructions. This is accompanied by the destruction of standard schemes that organize the structure of the sentence. As a result, new, not similar to traditional, actualized types of expression, built on the phenomena of syntactic redistribution, separation of some components, etc., appear. Thanks to the dismemberment of a typical sentence, variations of different lexical-semantic nuances of meanings that arise as a result of figurative and aesthetic concretization and individualization of content sections become possible.

It has been observed that one of the urgent problems of modern linguistic research is the specificity of functioning in the artistic text of incomplete sentences, which are traditionally interpreted as deviations from the norm with one or more members missing, which can be implied from the context or speech situation. The study of sentence syntax is extremely relevant, as it helps to learn the forms of organization of extended constructions, features of the structure of statements and the text.

It was found that the structural incompleteness of the sentences is stylistically motivated. The greater semantic and stylistic load of other elements of this sentence and the general expression of the syntactic structure compensates the special omission of any element in the composition of the sentence. Therefore, introducing an incomplete sentence into the text, the author focuses attention on the semantic and stylistic direction of the sentence or its individual places.

It is proved that incomplete sentences are a peculiar phenomenon of the modern Ukrainian language with stable functional and stylistic parameters. They are one of the most characteristic features of colloquial speech and are often used by writers precisely for the purpose of stylization, among which is the language of prose for children by Yevhen Hutsalo, a master of the Ukrainian word among Ukrainian writers of the 1960s, a poet, novelist and publicist.

The original and genre-stylistic diverse work of the Ukrainian writer Yevhen Hutsalo has been of interest to researchers of different generations for more than one decade. The artist's creativity is quite difficult to perceive if the reader is not able to read between the lines the real idea skillfully hidden under ordinary words. Yevhen Hutsalo’s linguistic skill is in creating new and using already known linguistic means in semantic and grammatical directions uncharacteristic for them. It was found that expressive constructions expressed by incomplete sentences require special attention.

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to determine the features of the incomplete sentence as a means of expressive syntax, to find out the varieties and specificity, the frequency of their functioning in the prose language for children by Yevhen Hutsalo.

Working with the article, we outlined the following tasks: to investigate the semantic and syntactic organization of an incomplete sentence; to analyze the structural and semantic features of an incomplete sentence based on the material of Yevhen Hutsalo’s works for children; to determine the frequency of use of incomplete sentences in Yevhen Hutsalo's prose works for children compared to complete structures using the example of the story "Denysko"; to indicate the expressive potential of incomplete syntactic units, which is achieved with the help of such sentences in the writer's artistic text.

Methods. The article uses the methods of analysis of linguistic phenomena, thanks to which the theoretical foundations of the study of the problem of incomplete sentences are summarized and specified, the terminological definitions of the phenomena of incomplete sentences are analyzed, commented on and distinguished. The method of statistical analysis of incomplete sentences in the language of prose for children by Yevhen Hutsalo was used.

Results. The frequency of use of incomplete sentences in the language of prose for children by Yevhen Hutsalo is summarized. Incomplete sentences with the omission of the subject were found to be the most frequent, the less frequently used circumstances were incomplete structures with the omission of the predicate, very few were sentences with a non-verbal object.

Originality. Incomplete sentences are an integral element of the structure of an artistic text. The extent of the load carried by incomplete sentences in the artistic texts of the language of works for children, the frequency of their use in the ideal style of the famous Ukrainian writer Yevhen Hutsalo has not yet been the object of close attention of researchers, therefore the consideration of such incomplete structures is quite relevant. 

Conclusion. Incomplete sentences are a separate structural and semantic type of syntactic constructions, which has all the categories and features of a sentence, so they should not be considered as “insufficient” units, etc. The specificity of incomplete sentences is insufficiently studied both in theory and in practical implementation in speech. We see the perspective of the research in the further analysis of the actual material and in-depth study of the features of such units of expressive syntax in various texts of artistic style.