- 283 - Phrasal quantifiers are of two kinds: partitives and comparisons but, as with single
quantifiers, they only become noteworthy when they combine with other evaluative devices such as repetition, e.g. the following partitive construction from Shvinder’s Story C:
16 He THOUGHT
17
there was going to be LOTS and LOTS of GRASS-GREEN GRASS.
Expressive phonology, the appositive amplification “green grass”, and the use of progressive aspect also add to the effectiveness of the sentence.
The following, from Fariba’s Story A, contains the error of putting synonyms together as fellow attributives:
26 IN CHRISTmas NI-IGHT FAther Christmas CA-AME
27 and he PUT a BIG, LARGE PACKet of RICE in the CHIMney.
However, if the noun phrase in number 27 were corrected to, “a great big packet of rice”, the partitive construction would be most effective as a means of indicating precisely how,
and in what form, the rice arrived. There are only five examples of phrasal quantifiers involving comparisons, e.g. the
following from Sheiba’s Story A, which describes a negative comparison to an assumed initial state of plenty that is not fully spelt out:
7 AND THERE WAS NO MORE RICE LEFT.
Aqeel’s example, from his Story B2, leaves even more processing work for the hearer to do: 22
SOMEone KICKED and the MAN - - - 23
and THEY said, “
One MOMent, one MORE.”
The phrasal quantifier “one more” refers to the possibility of scoring one more goal and presupposes a comparison with other goals that had previously been scored. Having heard
the original, Kenneth is able to recover the ellipted head and make the right connections.
6.9 Repetitions
Unlike Labov’s findings, in our data repetitions are more numerous than quantifiers, although in some cases these are no more than restatements in order to gain more time in
which to think out what to say next, as in the following from Shazia’s Story E:
- 284 - 1
Once upon a TIME BILly PLAYED with BALL. 2
He PLAYED with the BALL - - - where, in spite of the repetition of most of the clause, she still has not been able to
continue; finally, after a long pause and some prompting she manages: 3
THEN - BILly SAID, 4
“I’M NOT PLAYing.” - - -
However, not all our subjects are struggling in this way to produce a coherent narrative. According to Labov:
The device of repetition is relatively simple from the syntactic point of view but is effective in narrative in two senses: it intensifies a particular action, and it suspends the
action. 1972a:379 Labov’s examples, like Shazia’s above, are also repetitions of whole clauses, but they are
used intentionally to create suspense and bring the hearer into the action. Table 6.15 below shows that only 13 percent of our examples involve the whole clause, while 74 percent
represent repetitions of single phrases used as highlighting devices to focus attention on a particular participant or prop, or prolong a significant action.
Table 6.15. Repetitions Types Totals Percentages
Whole clauses 14
13 Verb phrases analysed as separate clauses 33
31 Nominal phrases
29 28
Locative phrases 8
8 Temporal phrases
1 1
Descriptive phrases following BE 6
6 Auxiliaries 2
2 Repetitions within the same phrase
12 11
105 100
- 285 - We will take a few examples of some of these types; the first, occurring at the peak of
Sakander’s Story B, describes exactly what happens to the opposing team when Father Christmas gives out the magic footballs:
17 but SUDdenly
when THEY kicked BALLS
18 they KEEP on LOSing them.
19 And
if they TACKle
20 they KEEP on LOSing them.
21
If they SCORE GOALS
22 they LOSE the BALL.
Line 20 is a complete repetition of line 18, and line 22 repeats the subject “they” and the main verb “lose”. The piece effectively spells out exactly what takes place in three common
footballing situations: kicking, tackling and scoring; in each case they lose the ball. Even though Sakander seems to take the expression “lose the ball” literally, the repetition does,
nevertheless, create suspense and intensify each action so that the hearer is led to feel that everything is totally out of control.
Now, not all repetitions of verb phrases are equally effective, and some may even constitute errors; for example, in her Story F, Humira twice mistakenly uses the device in
the expression “cooking and cooking” to mean “all this cooking”: 4-6
“I am FED UP beCAUSE for COOKing and COOKing
7
FOR GIVing EV’ry
BO
dy FOOD ...”
42
“... and I CAN’T DO NOthing NOW
434
for COOKing and COOKing.”
In contrast, both Fariba and Sakander use the repetition of “laughed” evaluatively in their Story E when they describe Ben’s reaction to the crazy antics of Billy the cowboy:
24-6 and Ben LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LAUGHED
27-8 and BILly got A-ANgry
beCAUSE he was LAUGHing.
27-8 BEN LAUGHED and ROLLED aWAY HIGH
- 286 - 29–31
AND HE LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LAUGHED. 32
SO they MADE a SHO-OW ... The whole point of the story is that a cowboy who cannot stay on a horse can be great
entertainment value and this is vividly conveyed by the repetition which prolongs the laughter.
Repetitions of nominal phrases have a slightly different function, i.e. that of focusing on particular participants or props and keeping them in the hearer’s consciousness. For
example, the following partial repetitions of the immature expression in line 13 and line 14, from Shvinder’s Story B, are some of the most memorable in the data:
13
“…I must SELL them to a WORSest TEAM
14
that NEVer WON beFORE.”
- - - 201
“WILL you HELP me to FIND the WORSest TEAM of EVer?”
- - - 25
“…The worsest team of ALL is MY team…”
- - - 40
and the WORSest TEAM of EVer WO-ONNED. No hearer can be left in any doubt that the team Father Christmas helped really were the
worst team ever. Similarly, Shvinder leaves her hearers in no doubt about the description of the footballs which Father Christmas found in his cupboard, nor about their importance to
the team’s change of fortune and the outworking of the plot: 67
So he went and LOOKED in the BOX 8
and there was SIX, MAGic footBALLS. 9
SO he said, “
O-OH FOOTballs.”
10 They were SHINy, BLACK and WHITE FOOTballs.
- - - 32
SO FAther Christmas gave them the SIX, BLACK and WHITE, MAGic BALLS.
- 287 - In line 8 she tells us, from the narrator’s omniscient viewpoint, that they are “magic” balls,
but in line 9 Father Christmas refers to them only as “footballs”. This raises an intriguing question for the hearer: did Father Christmas know that they were magic? The repetition of
the facts of lines 8 and 10 in a full description in line 32, omitting only their shininess, ensures that her hearer bears these facts in mind as she listens to the rest of the story.
Repetitions of locative, temporal and descriptive phrases are often coincidental rather than devices deliberately chosen to produce a particular effect: the opening of Fariba’s Story D
is perhaps one of the exceptions: 1
One DAY FAther Christmas was REALly ANGry. 2
He was ANGry 3
beCAUSE he DIDn’t LIKE his PICtures on the CARDS.
The repetition, following as it does the deployment of the lexical intensifier “really” in line 1, combines with it to focus the hearer’s attention on Father Christmas’s uncharacteristic
and unexpected emotional state, while line 3 gives the reason for this anger. Repetition of lexical items within a single phrase include expressions such as “lots and lots of”
mentioned above under quantifiers, “colder and colder” and several examples of the repetition of the lexical intensifier “very”, the best of which is probably that quoted and
discussed on page 269, from Sheiba’s Story C: 12
and the EXsimo [Eskimo] SAID, 13
“It is VERy, VERy, VERy FROSTy there”
where the repetition intensifies an embedded description rather than a particular action.
6.10 Single Appositives
