English 10 / Unit 1: Close Reading and Literary Analysis
1.3 Syntax and Its Effects
Notes
Syntax is the arrangement of words and sentences. Authors shape syntax to control pace and emphasis.
- Short sentences create emphasis, shock or speed. Long sentences can show flowing thought, building tension or overwhelming detail.
- Fragments used on purpose add punch: "Silence. Then footsteps."
- Inverted order moves a key word to a strong position: "Gone were the days of summer."
- Repetition and parallelism (similar grammatical structure) create rhythm and stress ideas.
- Polysyndeton uses many conjunctions ("and the wind and the rain and the dark"); asyndeton removes them ("I came, I saw, I conquered").
- Example: "We ran, we stumbled, we ran again" uses asyndeton and repetition to show desperate speed.
Practice
"Gone were the trees, the fields, the creek where we had played." Moving "Gone" to the start of the sentence mainly:
Inversion places the key idea of loss in the first, strongest position.
"She packed, she locked the door, she drove, she did not look back." Leaving out "and" between the actions is called:
Asyndeton removes conjunctions, creating a fast, clipped rhythm.
An author describes a crowded market in one long sentence with many commas and "and"s. The most likely effect is to:
A long, piled-up sentence mirrors the crowded, busy scene.
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