Deviation of Historical Period Grammatical Deviation
Table 3. Examples of NP Displacement.
No. Examples of NP Displacement
Author
1.
Can’t myself let off this
fiction. “You don’t exist.
Robert Creeley, ‘Echo of ’
2. Baby
, you’re dead.”
Robert Creeley, ‘Echo of
Both of the examples are also taken from the collected poems of Robert Creeley 2006. Obviously, Nps are placed in wrong position and as what Thoms,
G. said that this Np distribution can affect the meaning of the sentence semantically. In example no.1, the structure of the sentnce should be
S+Aux+V+O, but that sentence switch the object as Np myself with the verb let
. This part of poem is quite interesting because Robert does not write that way because of the rhyme. In example no. 2, since Thoms, G. 2010: 39 categorised it
into Np displacement, so the sentence should be
you’re dead baby which means
that the speaker is saying to someone that heshe is already dead; it might be a physically or mentally dead. However, the expression can also mean that the
persona is addressing to somebody close to him.
3 AP Displacement
According to Thoms, G. 2010: 49, adjectival phrases APs have more restricted distributions than NPs and PPs, and there are fewer operations for
moving APs than for NPs and PPs.
Table 4. Examples of AP Displacement.
No. Examples of AP Displacement
Author
1. In the apartment fallen
The tree began to take root. John Ashbery, ‘To The Same
Degree’ 2.
It is the surface black which attacks the shape,
Bending it to its present uses. John Ashbery, ‘The Thousand
Islands’
Through example no.1, it is acceptable to interpret fallen as a modifier of the tree where the tree has just fallen, even though the reality of a tree taking root
after it has fallen is somewhat strange. The deviation in those examples is seen
through Aps displacement, fallen and black which somehow can make ambigous interpretation, especially in the word fallen. The sentence should be In the
apartment, the fallen tree began to take root and It is the black surface which attacks the shape, bending it to its present uses.
4 Adverb Displacement
Thoms, G. 2010: 57 states that it often happens that adverbs are restricted to appear in specific positions related to other elements in a sentence.
This adverb displacement also happens in many poems.
Table 5. Examples of Adverb Displacement.
No. Examples of Adverb Displacement
Author
1. Some secret truths, from Learned Pride
conceal’d, To Maids alone and Children
are reveal’d:
‘The Rape of the Lock’ by Alexander Pope, in
Pope 1966: 88-109
2. With tender Billet-doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three am’rous sighs to raise the fire.
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes Soon
to obtain, and long possess the prize.
‘The Rape of the Lock’ by Alexander Pope, in
Pope 1966: 88-109
In 1, the adverb alone appears in the wrong place because it is put nearby Maids. However, it should be put after the word
reveal’d as alone should
explain how maids and children revealed. Therefore, it seems that the adverb has
been displaced from its natural position to the right of Children. In structural
terms, the sentences should be Some secret truths, from Learned Pride conceal’d,
To Maids and Children are reveal’d alone: In 2, the adverb soon appears in a position coming first from to infinitive,
but the adverb is interpreted as if it is modifying the verb obtain, and in such
cases, it should appear between to and obtain. The sentence is quite confusing
because both obtain and possess share the object prize, but it seems clear that
soon only modifies obtain.
5 Subject Displacement
According to Thoms, G. 2010: 60, this kind of displacement has been analysed and assumed that it happens in poetry constantly. However, there are
also examples where the subject itself has been displaced from its standard sentence-initial position to some other position.
Table 6. Examples of Subject Displacement.
No. Examples of Subject Displacement
Author
1. Already see you a degraded Toast,
And all your Honour in a Whisper lost ‘The Rape of the Lock’
by Alexander Pope, in Pope 1966: 88-109
2. And out over the park where crawled roadsters
The apricot and purple clouds were And our blood flowed down the grating [. . . ]
John Ashbery, ‘Two Sonnets’ 1997: 71
originally appeared in The Tennis
Court Oath.
In 1, the subject you appears to the right of the verb see; it indicates that
the subject has been displaced rightward. The sentence should be You already see a degraded Toast, and all your honour in a Whisper lost ln 2. The example
no.2 has a similar case with no.1 in which the subject displacement is also in the
rightward, so roadsters should be moved after the word where as the normal
structure of that sentence is Adv of place+Aux+S+V+OC. Moreover, according to Leech 2010 and Miyata 2007: 12, multiple negation, inversion, and
enumeration are also kinds of syntactic deviation.
6 Multiple Negation
According to Leech in Sadoon, 2010: 6, the most obvious examples of grammatical deviations are where a poet or a writer uses the double negative, the
double comparative and the double superlative. In Old and Middle English, the
idea of negation was often expressed several times a single sentence, as in the following example :
I will never do nothing no more Brook, 1977:146.
Sadoon, M. 2010: 6 also conclude that writers or poets deviate from grammatical rules by combining two ways of expressing comparison: the addition
of suffixes and the use of the separate words more and most.
7 Inversion
Anne Breadstreet 2010: 5 states that inversion is often used to make a poem’s rhyme to maintain fixed meter. For example,
In silent night when rest I took For sorrow near I did not look
I
wakened was with thund’ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice That poem is written by Anne Breadstrees July,1966, and it shows clearly that it
contains inversion in the last part of each line to make it rhymed. In standard structure, the sentence should be “ In silent night when I took rest, sorrow near I
did not look for.” I was wakened with thund’ring noise and piteous shrieks of
dreadful voice ”.
b Author’s purposes wrote The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes using
syntactic deviations.
According to Langston Hughes Poems: Study Guide 1994, he made a study guide to make the readers easily understand what his poems tell about. He
categorized it into several topics as like general them the poems. They are: 1 to show jazz music that express as sorrow and loneliness,
2 to portray American dream, 3 to show African-
American’s struggle, 4 to depict racism in America,
5 to face difficulty wisely, 6 to show self-actualization, and
7 to show the other problems faced by African-American. Those topics became the second objective of this study to
see the author’s purposes wrote The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes using syntactic deviations.