Epithet, oxymoron and metonymy

Epithet is probably as well known to you as metaphor, because it is widely mentioned by the critics, scholars, teachers, and students discussing a literary work. Epithet expresses a characteristic of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself. The epithet is a stylistic device based on the interplay of emotive and logical meaning in an attributive word, phrase or even sentence, used to characterize an object and pointing out to the reader, and frequently imposing on him, some of the properties or features of the object with aim of giving an individual perception and evaluation of these features or properties. The epithet is markedly subjective and evaluative. The logical attribute is purely objective, non-evaluating. It is descriptive and indicates an inherent or prominent feature of the thing or phenomenon in question.

Thus in green meadows, white snow, round table and the like, the adjectives are more logical attributes than epithets. They indicate those qualities of the objects which may be regarded as generally recognized. But in wild wind, loud ocean, heart-burning smile, the adjectives do not point to inherent qualities of the objects described. They are subjective evaluations.

Our speech ontologically being always emotionally colored, it is possible to say that in epithet it is the emotive meaning of the word that is foregrounded to suppress the denotational meaning of the latter. Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used SD, which is understandable - it offers ample (достаточный, обширный) opportunities of qualifying every object from the author's partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, publicist style, and everyday speech. Through long and repeated use epithets become fixed. Many fixed epithets are closely connected with folklore and can be traced back to folk ballads (e.g. "true love", "merry Christmas", etc.).The structure and semantics of epithets are extremely variable which is explained by their long and wide use. Semantically, there should be differentiated two main groups, the biggest of them being affective (or emotive proper). These epithets serve to convey the emotional evaluation of the object by the speaker. Most of the qualifying words found in the dictionary can be and are used as affective epithets (e.g. "gorgeous", "nasty", "magnificent", "atrocious" - чудовищный, etc.). The second group - figurative, or transferred, epithets – are formed of metaphors, metonymies and similes expressed by adjectives. E.g. "the smiling sun", "the frowning cloud", "the sleepless pillow", "the tobacco-stained smile", "a ghost-like face", "a dreamlike experience”. In the overwhelming majority of examples epithet is expressed by adjectives or qualitative adverbs (e.g. "his triumphant look" = he looked triumphantly).* Nouns come next. They are used either as exclamatory sentences (You, ostrich!) or as postpositive, attributes ("Alonzo the Clown", "Richard of the Lion Heart").

Epithets are used singly, in pairs, in chains, in two-step structures, and in inverted constructions, also as phrase-attributes. Pairs are represented by two epithets joined by a conjunction or asyndetically as in "wonderful and incomparable beauty" or "a tired old town". Two-step epithets are so called because the process of qualifying seemingly passes two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself, as in "an unnaturally mild day" (Hut.), or "a pompously majestic female". Phrase-epithets always produce an original impression. E.g..: "the sunshine-in-the-breakfast-room smell”. Their originality proceeds from rare repetitions of the once coined phrase-epithet which, in its turn, is explained by the fact that into a phrase-epithet is turned a semantically self-sufficient word combination or even a whole sentence, which loses some of its independence and self-sufficiency, becoming a member of another sentence, and strives to return to normality. Inverted epithets are based on the contradiction between the logical and the syntactical: logically defining becomes syntactically defined and vice versa. E.g. instead of "this devilish woman ", where " devilish " is both logically and syntactically defining, and " woman ", also both logically and syntactically defined, W. Thackeray says "this devil of a woman". Here " of a woman " is syntactically an attribute, i.e. the defining, and " devil "-the defined, while the logical relations between the two remain the same as in the previous example-"a woman" is defined by "the devil".

Oxymoron is a SD realized in the combination of two words (mostly an adjective and a noun or an adverb with an adjective) in which the meanings of the two clash (сталкиваться), being opposite in sense, e.g.: cold fire, brawling love, low skyscraper; sweet sorrow; pleasantly ugly face.

In other words oxymoron is a combination of two semantically contradictory notions, that help to emphasize contradictory qualities simultaneously existing in a described phenomenon as a dialectal unity. As a rule one of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature which is universally observed and acknowledged while the other one offers a purely subjective, individual perception of the object.

In oxymoron the logical meaning holds fast because there is no true word combination, only the juxtaposition (соприкосновение) of two non-combinative words. But we may notice a peculiar change in the meaning of the qualifying word. It assumes a new life in oxymoron, definitely indicative of assessing tendency in the writer's mind.
E. g. (O. Henry) "I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the haughtiest beggars, the plainest beauties, the lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest (унылый) pleasures of any town I ever seen."

Genuine imitation, good grief, almost exactly, sanitary landfill (свалка), alone together, silent scream, etc.

The most widely known structure of oxymoron is attributive. But there are also others, in which verbs are employed. Such verbal structures as “to shout mutely” or “to cry silently” are used to strengthen the idea. Oxymoron may be considered as a specific type of epithet.

It’s necessary to know that not every combination of words which can be called non-combinative should be regarded as oxymoron, because new meaning developed in new combinations does not necessarily give rise to opposition. Originality and specificity of oxymoron becomes especially evident in non-attributive structures which also are used to express semantic contradiction as in “the street was damaged by improvements”, “silence was louder than thunder ”.

Oxymorons rarely become trite, for their components, linked forcibly, repulse each other and oppose repeated use. There are few colloquial oxymorons, all of them show a high degree of the speaker’s emotional involvement in the situation, as in “awfully pretty”. In such word combinations as “awfully nice”, “terribly glad”, “pretty awful ” the adverbs are used as intensifiers.

Metonymy is a deliberate use of words in two meanings: the dictionary and contextual meanings.

The basis for it is not the similarity of notions but associations (logical or physical relations between phenomena) that connect notion.

The most common types of possible associations which metonymy is based on are: 1. A part for the whole, known as synecdoche [sɪ'nekdəkɪ]: new faces at the meeting, a fleet of fifty sails;

2. A symbol for a thing nominated: brown shirts = Nazi;

3. The container instead of the thing contained: E. g. "The hall applauded.", the kettle has boiled.

4. The material for the thing made of it: E. g. glasses.

5. The author for his works: to read Byron

6. The instrument which the doer uses in performing the action instead of the action or the doer himself: E. g. "as the sword (меч) is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last.", pen knows no compromise, you’re a good whip

7. The relation of proximity: E. g. "The round game table was boisterous (возбужденный) and happy."