Supra Phrasal Unity

So a supra-phrasal unit may be defined as a combination of sentences presenting a structural and semantic unity backed up byrhythmic and melodic unity.

Any SPU will lose its unity if it suffers breaking.But what are the principles on which the singling out of an SPU can be maintained? In order to give an answer to this question, it is first of all necessary to deepen our understanding of the term utterance.

As a stylistic term the word 'utterance' must be expanded. Any utterance from a stylistic point of view will serve to denote a certainspan of speech (language-in-action) in which we may observe coherence,interdependence of the elements, one definite idea, and last but not least, the purport of the writer.The purport is the aim that the writer sets before himself, which is to make the desiredimpact on the reader. So the aim of any utterance is a carefully thought-out impact. Syntactical units are connected to achieve the desired effect and it is often by themanner they are connected that the desired effect is secured.Let us take the following paragraph for analysis:"1. But a day or two later the doctor was not feeling well. 2. He had an internal maladythat troubled him now and then, but he was used to it and disinclined' to talk about it. 3.When he had one of his attacks, he only wanted to be left alone. 4. His cabin was smalland stuffy, so he settled himself on a long chair on deck and lay with his eyes closed. 5.Miss Reid was walking up and down to get the half hour's exercise she took morningand evening. 6. He thought that if he pretended to be asleep she would not disturb him.7. But when she had passed him half a dozen times she stopped in front of him andstood quite still. 8. Though he kept his eyes closed he knew that she was looking athim." (Somerset Maugham)This paragraph consists of eight sentences, all more or less independent. The first threesentences, however, show a considerable degree of semantic interdependence. This can be inferred from the use of the following cluster of concepts associated with each other:'not feeling well', 'internal malady', 'one of his attacks'. Each phrase is the key to thesentence in which it occurs. There are no formal connectives, the connection is madeapparent by purely semantic means. These three sentences constitute an SPU builtwithin the larger framework of the paragraph. The fourth sentence is semanticallyindependent of the preceding three. It seems at first glance not to belong to the paragraph at all. The fact that the doctor's 'cabin was small and stuffy' and that 'hesettled himself... on deck' does not seem to be necessarily connected with the thoughtexpressed in the preceding SPU. But on a more careful analysis one can clearly see how all four sentences are actually interconnected. The linking sentence is'he only wanted to be left alone'. So the words 'lay with his eyes closed' with which thefourth sentence ends, are semantically connected both with the idea of being left aloneand with the idea expressed in the sentence: 'He thought that if he pretended to beasleep she would not disturb him.' But between this sentence and its semantic links 'laywith his eyes closed' and 'wanted to be left alone', the sentence about Miss Reid thrustsitself in. This is not irrelevant to the whole situation and to the purport of the writer,who leads us to understand that the doctor was disinclined to talk to anybody and probably to Miss Reid in particular.So the whole of the paragraph has therefore semantic and structural wholeness. It can,however, be split into two SPUs with a linking sentence between them. Sentence 5 can be regarded as an SPU, inasmuch as it enjoys considerable independence bothsemantically and structurally. Sentences 6, 7 and 8 are structurally and thereforesemantically interwoven.

But when

and

though

in the seventh and eighth sentences arethe structural elements which link all three sentences into one SPU.It follows then that an SPU can be embodied in a sentence if the sentence meets therequirements of this compositional unit. Most epigrams are SPUs from the point of view of their semantic unity, though they fail to meet the general structuralrequirement;

viz.

to be represented in a number of sentences.On the other hand, an SPU, though usually a component part of the paragraph, mayoccupy the whole of the paragraph. In this case we say that the SPU coincides with the paragraph.It is important to point out that this structural unit, in its particular way of arrangingideas, belongs almost exclusively to the belles-lettres style, though it may be met withto some extent in the publicistic style. Other styles, judging by their recognized leadingfeatures, do not require this mode of arranging the parts of an utterance except in rarecases which may be neglected.Let us take a passage from another piece of belles-lettres style, a paragraph fromAldington's "Death of a Hero."It is a paragraph easy to submit to stylistic and semantic analysis: it falls naturally intoseveral SPUs."1. After dinner they sat about and smoked. 2. George took his chair over to the openwindow and looked down on the lights and movement of Piccadilly. 3. The noise of thetraffic was lulled by the height to a long continuous rumble. 4. The placards of theevening papers along the railings beside the Ritz were sensational and bellicose. 5. The party dropped the subject of a possible great war; after deciding that there wouldn't beone, there couldn't. 6. George, who had great faith in Mr. Bobbe's political acumen,glanced through his last article, and took great comfort from the fact that Bobbe saidthere wasn't going to be a war. 7. It was all a scare, a stock market ramp... 8. At thatmoment three or four people came in, more or less together, though they196

were in separate parties. 9. One of them was a youngish man in immaculate eveningdress. 10. As he shook hands with his host, George heard him say rather excitedly,"I've just been dining with..."Analysis of this paragraph will show how complicated the composition of belles-lettressyntactical units is. There is no doubt that there is a definite semantic unity in the paragraph. The main idea is the anxiety and uncertainty of English society beforeWorld War I as to whether there would be, or would not be, a war. But around thismain senseaxis there centre a number of utterances which present more or lessindependent spans of thought. Thus, we can easily single out the group of sentenceswhich begins with the words 'After dinner' and ends with '...and bellicose' This part of the text presents, as it were, the background against which the purport of the author stands out more clearly, the last sentence of this SPU preparing the reader for the mainidea of the paragraph—the possibility of war—which is embodied in the next supra- phrasal unit. This second SPU begins with the words 'The party "dropped the subject of a possible great war' and ends with '...a stock market ramp.’It is made structurallyindependent' by the introduction of elements of uttered represented speech (see p. 238),the contractions

wouldn't, couldn't, wasn't,

the purely colloquial syntactical design

there wouldn't be one, there couldn't,

the colloquial word

scare.

The shift to the third SPU is indicated by the dots after the word

ramp

( ) Here again itis the author who speaks, there are no further elements of represented speech, the shift being rather abrupt, because George s thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of thenewcomers. The connecting 'At that moment' softens the abruptness.The author's purport grows apparent through the interrelation—an interrelation whichseems to be organic-between the three SPUs: sensational and bellicose placards in thestreets of London, the anxiety of the people at the party, the conviction backed up bysuch a reassuring argument as Mr. Bobbe s article that there was not going to be a war,and the new guests bringing unexpected news.SPUs are not always so easily discernible as they are in this paragraph from The Deathof a Hero Due to individual peculiarities in combining ideas into a graphical (and thatmeans both syntactical and semantic) unity there may be considerable variety in thearrangement of SPUs and of paragraphs, ranging from what might be called clearly-marked borderlines between the supra-phrasal unit to almost imperceptible semanticshifts. Indeed, it is often from making a comparison between the beginning and the endof a paragraph that one can infer that it contains separate SPUs.It follows then that the paragraphs in the belles-lettres prose style do not necessarily possess the qualities of unity and coherence as is the case with paragraphs in other styles of speech and particularly in the scientific prose style.SPUs are to be found in particular in poetical style. Here the SPUs, as well as the paragraphs, are embodied in stanzas. Due to the most197