Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

В. Problems Concerning the Composition Wider than the Sentence

a) The Syntactical Whole

The term syntactical whole is used to denote a larger unit than a sentence. It generally comprises a num­ber of sentences interdependent structurally and semanti- cally. Such span of utterance is also characterized by the fact that it can be extracted from the context without losing its relative semantic independence. This cannot be said of the sentence, which, while representing a complete syntactical unit may lose the quality of independence. A sentence from the stylistic point of view does not neces­sarily express one idea. It may express only part of an idea. Thus the sentence "Guy glanced at his wire's untou­ched plate" if taken out of the context will be perceived as a part of a larger utterance.

Here is the complete syntactical whole:

Guy glanced at his wife's untouched plate.

"If you've finished we might stroll down.

I think you ought to be starting". She did not answer. She rose from the table. She went into her room to see that nothing had been forgotten and then side by side with him walked down the steps. (S. Maugnam)

So the syntactical whole may be defined as a com­bination of sentences. Any syntactical whole will lose its unity if it suffers breaking.

A syntactical whole, though usually a part of the paragraph, may occupy the whole of the paragraph. In this case we say that the syntactical whole coincides with the paragraph.